Making Headway

Pink Levitation, 2006, Oil on Panel, 16x20






Well, I am making it through this week from hell, with a little help from Mother Nature. The park where the Lake Festival was to be held, which is the event where I was going to be running a children's art booth, is still partially underwater, so the Festival has been postponed until late August. I now have Saturday to pack up the kids bags for their summer camps, plus I get to watch my daughter's 400m race at a track meet, which I was going to miss otherwise.

Yesterday was the last birthday of our birthday season (one birthday, every week, for 3 weeks), and truly, if I have to bake another cake I am going to lose my mind. Last night at dinner we counted up how many cakes and cupcakes we have had in the last 3 weeks. Four cakes (one store bought) and two batches of cupcakes (for school and camps), plus each of the kids had been to another child's birthday party during that time. Normally we try to limit sugar in our diets, but things have totally been out of control this last month! We are all going to be in withdrawal for the next few days because there will be no desserts allowed for a good long time. Actually the kids are great at moderating themselves-I am the one with the sugar issues.

I haven't gotten too much painting done in the last few days, but my underpaintings are dry and are just sitting in the studio, waiting for me. Today, I think I will finish up a few of the previous batch and then put the first layer on the underpaintings, so that I can really get going on them tomorrow. I also have to go through and record each piece so that I can start deciding which pieces will go to the show in Cape Cod and which will go to the show at Enderlin Gallery in September. Right now all of the finished pieces are in stacks in my studio and I am having trouble recalling what the images are at this point. It's hard to keep up in the frantic days before a show deadline.

Yesterday, I packed up the paintings for the gallery in Atlanta. They have been very patient waiting for new work from me as we keep going back and forth, sending jpegs and suggestions, trying to find the right images for their market. Hopefully, this group will be more successful for them. Even though I know that my work doesn't always appeal to everyone, it is still kind of a bummer to receive a box back, full of paintings that did not sell.

Pink Levitation, above, is one that I sent to Thomas Deans Fine Art (see sidebar for link) in Atlanta. It is similar to a smaller painting that I did last winter, but as often happens, I wanted to paint it again. I felt there was more for me to express about the scene, and I am pleased with this version. I always have more to say though, so I am sure this image will show up again somewhere, with different colors, mood or scale.