Get-Well Wishes

...for my mother, who just had foot surgery yesterday. This is the card I made for her, complete with her tattoo...


Wishing you a speedy recovery, Mama!

NOTE: I wrote this a week ago, but then didn't post it because I realized my mom might see it before she got it. Well, now she's on the East Coast, so she won't get the card for a while anyway, and if she does see this, well, that's cool.

WIP

Here's some more texture, in the hill. I like this painting a lot so far. I want to add something, to the hill, but I'm not quite sure what yet. So it's sitting on the painting table, hanging out with other works in progress.

This is one of the few times I've worked with an actual stretched canvas, as opposed to canvas panel. I really like canvas panels, for their versatility, and ease of use (they're easy to paint flat without an easel, in my opinion, and I like working flat), and I can hang them very easily without framing. I'm also a little intimidated by all the weird things that it seems can happen to stretched canvas as you paint. But it is a luxurious surface on which to paint. I don't know why this is exactly, but the brushes flowed over the canvas like silk. It must be the give.

In other news...

We are going to see this band tonight, which I discovered through this amazing web page, which lists music available in legitimately free downloads through bands' websites and Amazon.com. Did you know that Amazon offers free music? Betcha didn't. Check it out. All genres. Very cool.

And while we're talking about music... this video? Simply brilliant.

Touchy Feely

This title makes me think of a story I read, but I really don't mean this kind of touchy feely:

In February, a 12-year-old boy visiting the Detroit Institute of Arts with his sixth-grade class plucked a wad of gum from his mouth and deposited it on a 1963 canvas by Helen Frankenthaler, "The Bay," a painting estimated to be worth $1.5 million or more. The work had to be removed for restoration. The child "picked the worst piece of art he could have picked" -- an unprimed painting, says the museum's director, Graham W.J. Beal.

Although if one of my paintings were ever important enough that a kid sticking a wad of gum on it made national news, I would be perversely proud.

I've been playing around with texture lately, and sometimes I just want to run my fingers all over the paintings. This one is the best finished example:

Day, acrylics, 9" x 12"

A closeup of the clouds:

Lately

I have been doing a lot of writing lately, but of course now that painting/drawing are part of my life again, I couldn't let them go away again. I'm striving to reach a balance between the two. So here are a few things to share:

This is a birthday gift for someone:

Mountain Trees, acrylics, 9" x 12"

And this, I love. I will be putting it up at Etsy, but it won't be easy to let go. Then again, none of them really are.

Storm Light, acrylics, 5" x 7"

I have one more painting, of which I am very, very, proud, but as it is to be a gift for someone who might possibly, occasionally check this blog, I don't want to post it -- the minute that person sees it, that person will know it is for them, I think. It is quite specific. But as soon as it has been delivered, I promise, I will post.