Just Chatting Today

Sunny Slope Farm, 2006, Oil on Panel, 18x24





Well, today the water has subsided, thanks to the fact that it stopped raining about midday yesterday. A nearby town that was really affected, is still in pretty bad shape. Supposedly FEMA will be helping out our county, but I am not so sure that that will be a plus. Our basement is ok, and this has all just given us yet another reason to get down there to clean it. Uh, actually Doug will be cleaning it. I don't do basements, especially creepy old house basements.

Bart sent me an interesting link today. Someone in Brazil viewed his blog and mine through a program translating them into Portuguese. If you are interested in seeing my blog in a language you probably don't know, you can see it here. I noticed this link in my stats and thought I must be so cool for someone to actually make an effort to translate my words. However, if they don't return, I will have to face the fact that I am just not all that fascinating. heh.

I managed to get some work done yesterday. While the kids didn't interrupt me much (sick of me already after just a few days of summer vacation, I guess), I was really restless while I worked and kept getting up to do other things. I have noticed this trend in my painting habits over the last few months. I used to be really focused, working at my easel for hours without getting up, finishing my days work in several hours. But more recently, I usually work for a half hour or an hour, get up, do laundry, work again for an hour, then check the computer, go back to the easel for awhile then get up again to water the garden or feed the pets. All of this up and down has really stretched out my workday. At first this stressed me out, but then I realized that I was getting just as much done by the end of the day and the quality was the same, if not better. So I am going with the flow now. But I am starting to suspect that my forty-something old muscles keep making me get up so they won't atrophy.

Today's image, above, is a barn I just finished yesterday and I am quite pleased with its minimalist qualities. This is a barn that I saw on my drive to Woodstock when I was attending the figure drawing classes last spring. In real life it's a white barn with a dark green roof, it has more windows and the name "Sunny Slope Farm" is printed on the side with the shadow. Otherwise it looks just the same. heh. It will be in the show in Cape Cod in August. Ya'll are getting a good preview for that show here-much of the new work that I have recently posted will be in that show.

I experimented with an underpainting using the Gamblin paint that I mentioned the other day. It's just a tiny little thing and a simple image, I just wanted to see how the new color works with the rest of my palette and the glazes. The color difference is minimal, probably not noticeable to anyone but me, and I even like it. So tomorrow I will do a batch of underpaintings that I will actually be able to continue working on, on Monday, instead of waiting until 2007 for them to dry.



Untitled, 2006, Oil on Panel, 3x3