Friday blues

Made sourdough cornbread and put on a pot of pinto beans for dinner.  That's sort of the highlight of the day thus far.  I hope to see the day improve and my patience along with it.

I mixed a new medium that wasn't exactly like the last bottle OR the green paint wasn't dry in areas.  Pick one.  I was doing a blue wash over the green of the shadows on the walls and as I hit the big areas...hello!...picking up green paint with the brush as I passed over.  As you can imagine, this was not good.  To say it was the end of the world would be an overstatement, but the continental plates might have shifted just a smidge when it happend.  I'm sure I felt that.

I love this painting and I want so much for it to work out, darn it!  I've decided to let it sit for maybe 4 more days to see if that green will finally be stable.  I can finish the left side of the piece and then I'll give another go at the whole shadow area.  I have plans.  I will re-try the wash I was wanting to do, one more time.  If that doesn't work, I'm going to try something more funky which I won't say, in case it's a major disaster-even bigger than this one.  If that doesn't work, I'll repaint the whole of the shadow area.  Which is what I should probably do in the first place, which I may come to acquiesce to do on Monday morning.

*Acquiesce: to assent tacitly; submit or comply silently or without protest; agree; consent: to acquiesce halfheartedly in a business plan.

Yeah...the "without protest" part is probably not going to happen.

I only see about one movie per year in the theatre so it has to be one I really want to pay the money for.  Tonight, husband and I are going to go see 2012.  I love movies where the earth implodes or explodes or seas rise up and wash land masses away.  I'm all gentle like that.  Can't wait. 

|

Adobe Walls

I love painting adobe walls. It gives me huge satisfaction. Since I'm deep in the art trenches today, painting...and making progress on all four paintings, I'll upload some pictures of some interesting New Mexico things.

Window at the church at Taos Pueblo. About 200 or so natives live here year round without running water or electricity. So, basically my dream place to live. I'm not kidding.

A home at Taos Pueblo. I'll have to scour my pictures for pictures of the pueblo. I store pictures on my computer by dumping them all into a file labeled "June-Dec 09, etc. So that by the end of the year I have several thousand photos all lumped together. It's hard to find anything. I keep saying that someday I'll organize them, but what usually happens is that my computer of the moment dies a sudden death and I lose all of my pictures. The end. Start over again.

This time, at least I've uploaded a lot of my favorites to Snapfish so that I can access them in case of dire happenings like crashing computers. I know that I need a backup thingy. Procrastination is not my friend but it is sometimes my companion.

In the meantime, click the link above to learn more about Taos Pueblo. We had to pay to get into the Pueblo and then pay an extra entry fee for my camera. Yes. My camera.


The above two photos are from a tumbling down adobe home that's located directly in back of Georgia O'Keeffe's Abiquiu home, the one in town. If you can call Bode's store, a mission church, a tiny library and a post office, "town". I'd live there in a heartbeat, but that's me. I'd live in a mud hut or a tent if I could get away with it.

So....I wonder what would happen if you picked up a lump of the crumbling adobe home above and carried it home with you and put it in your studio so that you could be constantly reminded of a place that you love so much? Hmm...I wonder. Who would ever do such a thing?

I love this old house so much that it took me almost a full year to realize that Georgia's house was right there behind me-behind an adobe wall. Because I am dense like this.

Here's the little mission church located in the same tiny dirt crossroads and directly beside Georgia's home.
And because I love odd angles, this is my favorite photo of the church.

Not enough hours in the day

I am a working fool, even on 4 or so hours of sleep. Ugh. I'm working on 4 pieces at once so I thought I'd share the beginning stages and then the finished product a little later this or next week. Plus, if I post pictures of what I'm working on, my mind can SEE that I'm working.

I am driven. Always have been. I do very, very, very much enjoy the journey of painting each piece, but the thrill of finishing-and liking a particular work? Too great. And so when I have many things going at once, (because oils, they sometimes need a few days to dry before I pounce on them again) I begin to feel as if I will NEVER FINISH ANYTHING, ever again. Because I'm all calm and not dramatic at all.

I have an insane fondness for all chickeny things. (I am allowed to make words up as I need them.) And yet I have no chickens. Sigh. I grew up with chickens and I think they're just wonderful. When we sell our Albuquerque house and move to Las Cruces, New Mexico, where we'll be retiring...then I'll have chickens. Until then, I'll paint chickeny things.

This is a doorway. To what? You'll have to wait and see. It's a cool surprise. I really like this painting thus far, even if it is just at the toning stage.


Lastly, the bench in the meditation garden at Ghost Ranch.

Today, just to be at the peak of insanity, I'm preparing 9 more small canvases. I love oil painting but it doesn't work for my incredibly low patience levels. Watercolors let me work on them from morning till night until I'm done with a piece.

Then why do I work on seven watercolors at once? See patience thing up above. Also, I get bored and frustrated and tend to get lost in a piece until I can no longer see the forest for the trees, to use a cliche that probably came from an artist, or it should have. Working on multiple things keeps me at a distance. When I get tired or start to overwork a painting or reach a point where things aren't working out, I shift to a different piece and feel fresh and ready again.

I used to do one piece at a time, start to finish, no matter how long it took. In fact I always have...until just a few months ago. I started to feel that, when I was working on a really detailed painting, that I had to drag myself to the easel. I much prefer this way of working. There are so many fun things to play with that I just bound out of bed every day. So this works for me and my bizarre need to do everything at once, 24 hours a day.

And now I must return to my madness. Talk amongst yourselves.

A little better shot

Here's a much-less-scary picture of the little piece I finished yesterday. I really don't think it's attractive to show close-up blobs of wet paint. So, this is a better shot.

I'm visiting my Mother at the moment. My husband is working in the Seattle area and here I sit in my little studio that my Mom so graciously lets me have all to myself. As you can see from the oh-so-tidy picture below, I am ready to spend the day painting. I have my cup of coffee and my iced tea. Because you have to have both.


This is the piece I'm working on today. So far, I'm loving it. It's the piece I mentioned yesterday-the one in which I'm working from an art student's photo. I'm pretty sure that was a horrible sentence structure just now.Note the pine cone on my large easel. That's the one I took from the bottom of the tree outside of Taos. The Lawrence Tree that Georgia O'Keeffe painted from the bottom up. You might also notice that I keep a framed postcard of Georgia on my painting table in amongst my junk. And that I drink from a Ghost Ranch cup, one of several that I have scattered around the country. If anyone touches one, they die.

What? You think I'm obsessed with Georgia O'Keeffe and Ghost Ranch? To that, I say...Duh.
They are, collectively, my muse. Muses. Musi.

The sun is shining and I must get to the painting. These puppies won't paint themselves.

Pedernal Dusk

"Pedernal Dusk", a little 6x6" oil. As you can see, this is still very wet. But I am impatient if I am anything, and I like to do an initial photo of every piece I do. I'll re-do the picture later, when it's a little drier. Normally I would say, "click to enlarge", but don't do it! This piece blows up really big and since it's wet, it looks a bit odd. You're going to do it anyway, aren't you? You naughty thing, you. Come back when it's a bit dry and give it another chance, eh? This piece will be held until it's dry and varnished, so in a few months, it will be available on my Etsy Shop or my Gallery.

I'm very happy that my most favorite place in the world, Ghost Ranch, in Abiquiu, New Mexico, has requested the shot of my painting, "Box Canyon" for their catalog. It's a huge honor to be asked as I love the place so awfully much.

I'm working on a sweet piece right now and I'm not quite sure how it will turn out. I am NEVER sure how things will turn out. Ever. I have a young artist friend who's a college student in Michigan who takes the greatest photos, thousands of them. One photo in particular, I just covet and she gave me permission to work it up into a painting. So that's what I'm working on at the moment. It's just a very quiet, peaceful scene and it brings me much happiness. Please check out her page. It's listed in the sidebar as "Reach For Something". The very talented, Satpreet.

Home To Ghost Ranch

"Home to Ghost Ranch" 16x20" oil on Masonite Board

I finally finished this incredibly challenging piece that took me at least 40 hours of solid concentration. I loved working on it and am pleased with how it turned out. If you're interested in this piece, you can find it at my Etsy Shop or my Gallery in a few months. Since this is an oil, it needs several months drying time. Click on the picture for a detailed view.

Cheese Making

Look at this! 4 pounds of yummy cheese goodness. I made wheels of cheese this week! That's 2 pounds of Monterey Jack from whole milk, and in the front is a 2 pound wheel of Cheddar, also from whole milk. They each took 2 gallons of milk to make. Anyone who thinks that milk is just an empty calorie drink, should look at these hefty babies. I didn't realize it at the time, but I could have taken the whey (liquid--not the curd) and also made a gallon of ricotta cheese for lasagna! Next time.

These babies will be cured and ready to eat in 2-6 months.

Later this week I'm going to get some non-fat milk for making parmesan cheese and will make another wheel of New Mexico Green Chilli Cheese! Which I've never seen anywhere. I'm going to use my trusty dried green chilli.