ginger

I no longer shop for groceries. I just audition produce for modeling jobs. The clerk stocking daikon radishes became concerned after I spent 15 minutes rummaging the ginger bin. I challenge any of you to handle chunks of ginger as long as your forearm and not pretend they are antlers. It can't be done. 

Husbandface has been fighting with a painting of the increasingly-wilty dragonfruit for the past week, and at the end of the night he leaned over, looked at my ginger, took the paintbrush out of his mouth, and said, "You're annoying." I feel encouraged.

ginger, oil on canvas, 8x10

 

I like the wiggly shadows

I don't like the bit that looks like a tiny stubby peen

In NON PAINTING news:

* Accidentally committed my kid to a week of overnight bible camp. Sorry, kid. It'll build character. Like the time I accidentally got sent to bible camp in high school and my boyfriend cracked his head open on a tree stump and bled all over my lap while I put pressure on it until the camp counselors separated us because TOO SEXY. And they didn't call an ambulance even though he needed stitches and was losing consciousness, because Jesus had him covered. It added a whole lot of wrath to my character, let me tell you. I learned to shoot fire out my eyeballs that week.

* While making dinner a few days ago, I heard someone call from outside. I opened the door to find a clown in the driveway, with a rainbow wig and long white mask, holding a knife and covered with blood. "Can Leif come out?" "Sure. LEIF, SOMEONE HERE FOR YOU." And my kid ran away with Stabby the Clown. It was good knowing him.

* Over the weekend, before I lost him to a murder clown, I was sitting outside and heard Leif call out a question. "What? I didn't hear you." He asked louder, but I still couldn't make it out. "What? Sorry, I'm outside." He screamed out the window, "I SAID, WHAT'S A DILDO?" Sorry, neighbors.**

* Walked outside to hang laundry and saw Zenny starting to climb the fish pond. She saw my eyebrows go up, yelled, "MOM, I'm NOT going to fall and hit my head, GEEZ," and then immediately lost her grip and took a head dive backwards off the fish pond onto some rocks. She did not have a seizure this time. She did have a goose egg and an ice pack for the rest of the day. Also I died of heart failure. But we are making progress, skull-thickness-wise.

* Decided to try to salvage the skein of yarn my cat gnawed in half, hoping one of the chewed up bits would be long enough to knit the tiny sweater sleeve I needed. It took hours, and was maybe not very successful, but I left them by the couch and in the morning I was really confused when everyone kept telling me they'd seen my balls and omg they were adorable.

and so soft

* I have settled on a painting workshop outside Seattle in November, and my fingers are hovering over all the reservation buttons in terror. It has been a long time since I traveled alone. Live while you're alive! Opt for adventure! Even a disaster will be an interesting memory! You have a pre-cancerous condition, you could be dead in 5 years and wish you had gotten proper training while you had the chance! Shut up, SHUT UP, self. I'm going to do it.

Any time now.


**Upon explanation and interrogation, it turns out he had been hanging around some teenagers who prank-called their brother and pretended to be a dildo salesman. Nothing sinister.

Suspicious lemon

I went bigger. It kicked my butt for 3 days. But I learned how to go wet-on-dry (leave it) and I was getting the hang of the thing - except for when the cat rubbed herself across it. There was no kitty murder, because I had gotten up and walked away and don't actually know which one did it, but the fur stuck all over the board was BLACK so that narrows it down to... all of them. Shifty assholes. They weren't even licking themselves guiltily, and chose a spot the same color as themselves, so I couldn't find forensic evidence on their persons. Spent the last 3 hours fixing it and then got mad and quit. The lemon doesn't look as wary as I wanted it, but whatever.

I'm thinking about going to a painting retreat on the mainland to get some actual instruction, since our university courses are all during my work hours. I could carve out a week of vacation for an intensive workshop, though. Looks like all the good ones are in Seattle and Philadelphia. Hmm. Chewing on this thing.

another painting

This one is still small, but at least it has something going on in it. A better painting might have been the expression Zenny made just after this, when she kissed the egg and I reminded her that it was fresh from the chicken's butt. 

Lesson here: go bigger. Bigger board size, bigger brushes, bigger strokes. 

6x7, oil on gessobord

Shiny paintings are hard to take pictures of

 

Stupid hands

I see so many things I'm going to run back downstairs and fix after work

Painting wraps you in a time bubble. When you finally stretch and step back, 6 hours have flicked by and it's the middle of the night. From the studio, it's a quick trot out to the shower. There are fat heavy lychees pulling the branches down all around the bath house, and you can reach up to pick a few while you wait for the water to run hot. All the little solar lights reflect across the semi-transparent ceiling, so it's like showering in the night sky. This is a scene I am on board with. 

In other art-type news, the book illustrations have been submitted & approved, and I'm back to working on my comic during lunch breaks. Also I have another board book about halfway done. 

Here is a song I have been listening to a lot while working.

Figure painting

HEY, painting is still hard and slow. But I love it, you guys. Love it. I am up to my eyeballs in art books and materials research and music, and I feel more myself than I have since my days in the university figure studio.

I used all that paint I wasted yesterday to lay in a neutral background, so I feel frugally satisfied. Then just as I was getting a handle on hands, I discovered feet. I hate you, feet. Only going to paint footless models from here out.

Dragonfruit

The kid-free night arrived! I bought a dragonfruit for the occasion and stayed up until midnight. My color mixing skills need some work, and I ended up with too much leftover paint to just throw out, so I covered the mess with tin foil to keep it from drying out until I can re-use it tonight (the family is ditching me for a camping trip because I have to work and also because I hate camping*). 

oil on panel, 6x6

I should figure out an artsy signature for these paintings, probably. 

The chickens got into the studio while I was putting things away this morning and were very critical of my easel-to-painting size ratio. I'm working up to larger panels, ok? 

Plucky the Terrible Terror trying to knock over my wet paint because I wouldn't let her use my new brushes. 

Verdict: mongoose brush is THE BEST BRUSH. And thinning your paint with medium is bogus. I like thicker paint I guess.


* Ax murderers beware: if you show up at my house because I've said I'll be alone, I will make you model nude for figure painting.

mongoose and clove

Not related to mongooses or cloves - I have just been told that I have a wonderful voice by someone who overheard me scream-singing, "PEE PIDDLY-OKO PO PO PAH-DICK DACK" to a pack of kids yesterday. Madam, I will take it.

"Bark, George" by Jules Pfeiffer is a winner, and plays to my melodious quacking skill set

So I haven't actually done any painting in my new painting studio yet, owing to the presence of several children clutched around my knees, whining about unfair sprinkler usage and hitting each other when they think I'm not looking. So over the weekend I just dragged them along behind me as I went on the prowl for painting supplies. We went to the big art warehouse, where I waved brushes around to see which one would choose me. The one that chose me was made of mongoose hair. This seems appropriate. What the big glorious art store did not have was clove oil. I am following the method of a particular artist I like, and he says I need clove oil to mix my umber with, so clove oil is what I was going to get, damn it. I looked all over for it, and finally discovered that clove oil is sold in health food stores for $14 an ounce to people who rub it on their teeth. Is paying a lot of money to rub oil on your teeth in order to avoid going to the dentist any stranger than paying a lot of money to mix oil with iron oxide in order to smear it around with mongoose hair on a stick? Yes, it is. Stop driving up the price of paint medium, you essential oil weirdos. Studio rule #1: don't eat the damn paint supplies. Because they are TOXIC.

Anyway, the night approaches that my mother will steal the kids away for a sleepover, and then I will unleash oily fury on the studio with my mongoose wand, clove oil or no clove oil.

The studio! Basement renovation action

Oh, Larry's Offspring, I hate you. Why were there rubber tubes stapled to the drywall covering the windows? What kind of shitty grow-house operation were you running? How many people were you hiding down here, to have a single faucet and a mailbox affixed to the basement door? Was this a meth lab?

Gross. But step by step, we are peeling the garbage off and getting the house back to its original working order. Minus the fish farm.

Step 1: emptied all the beer brewing equipment, weights, discarded furniture, and kid junk out of the basement.

Step 2: discovered that the crumbling paint on the walls is some kind of... chalk? That just dissolves with water? What the crap, Larry's Offspring?

Step 3: cleaned and stained the floor. Dumped candy-coating sealer on it. It did not become shiny. The stain did not stain. It just sucked it all up and burped. How many people did you murder down here and get away with it because of these blood-absorbing floors, Larry's Offspring?

Step 4: upgraded the burning-hot halogens to LED track lighting, then painted. We went with a medium grey-blue, and it came out looking white because the room is a dungeon. I did not want it to look white, I wanted a neutral background for still-life painting and portraiture. Whatever, at least it isn't blotchy and gross. I can use drapery like a proper painter.

Step 5: VICTORY OVER THE FLOOR. Mostly. It could be a thicker, more even coat, but we at least read the label and got the right candy-coating this time.

Step 6: smash the husband flat with a 300 lb. tool bench.

The moment I saw this thing in Costco, I knew it was The One. And as fortune was favoring me, I had just earned an illustration check to spend on furniture. It was 5 minutes to closing and I skidded outside to grab a freight cart, ducked under the gate as they began to pull it down, and rolled up to the hardware aisle.

And I couldn't get the box off the display, because it weighed 300 lbs. Two passersby were embarrassed by my useless struggling and helped me drop it down onto the cart. At checkout, the cashier glanced at me and then at the box. "What a nice credenza," she said - because I guess I don't look like the kind of person who would know I was buying a tool bench. What I looked like was a person who could in no way lift a 300 lb box, so she lifted a hand and an enormous young man sprang up at my elbow. He turned out to be one of our Rainbows football players, and he just picked up the box and put it on my truck without even breaking his conversation with a co-worker.

Getting it off the truck was another matter, and none of his lunchtime weight lifting really prepared the man for having a 300 lb weight dropped on his foot. He should have been wearing shoes, probably.

Step umpty-whatever: DONE. Mostly. I still have to re-tile the hideous shelves that used to be built-in fish tanks before we took the broken glass out, and the platform alcove needs a floating wood floor laid down, and maybe darker paint at some point - but the room is functional!

We are going to have family still-life weekends. I am so flipping happy.

Leif pretending to paint a beer growler

MINE MINEY MINE
Protip: before buying a 7-foot easel, check to see if your ceilings are higher than 6'5". No standing up and painting; sitting only, sorry, butt.
 

Already the man has tried to edge beer brewing supplies into the studio, and I am grackling like a broody hen to keep him out. Give me a honeymoon period at least, mister.

Wherein I celebrate with accidental murder

The teenager landed his first job interview on the same day the man got a promotion. This called for spicy food and fresh duds. We met for Thai take-away after work, sitting near a courtyard to wait for spring rolls. A small dove was sunning itself in the evening light. It didn't move when someone walked by. It didn't move when a kid almost stepped on it. I leaned forward. The man put his hand on my arm and said, "No - nope - nuh uh - we are eating dinner -" but it was too late, Gavin ran over and picked up the bird and handed it to me. "Only nice people notice birds," he said. "That kid didn't even see it until it was under his foot. He needs to work on his niceness." Husbandface exhaled slowly, trying not to attract attention to his niceness quotient. The little bird didn't look great, so I put it in the paper bag I had been carrying books in and went to wash my hands. "I'll take the bird home after dinner and give it some formula. You two can shop for an interview outfit." They smiled at each other with a lot of teeth. "No clown pants and taco cats," I said. "We can handle it," they assured me. Oh, no.

Baby doves are different than other baby birds. Instead of poking food into them with a toothpick or a small syringe, you have to make a fake bird throat for them to shove their faces into and glug. You do this by cutting the end off a fat medicine syringe, snipping the finger off a rubber glove, tying it tightly over the syringe, and poking a little hole in the end for the bird to stick its beak into.

like so (not my picture)

I mixed up some baby bird food and rigged up the feeder. The little bird seemed very eager to eat- but then whatever defect caused it to be in this situation in the first place made itself evident. And it choked. To death. I tried to do bird Heimlich and CPR, but I don't know how to do bird Heimlich or CPR, so I just kind of shook it upside down a little bit. When that didn't work, I covered it with a napkin and hid from it. This was not a heroic rescue. This was birdslaughter. I called my mother for absolution. You can't save them all. Beak deformity can cause choking, there's nothing to be done for it, that's probably why it was rejected. You tried and that's the best we can do. I had a tiny one-person funeral, got a cup of tea, and sat down to draw.

I was still feeling kind of shitty about this botched rescue when the guys came home with their loot.

"Ta daa, black shoes."
"Oh, good."
"Black pants."
"Very nice."
"Aaaaand - DUCKIES."
"Oh, dear."

Well. The boy will be himself, and that is the very best thing he can be.

What you see is what you get, Fast Food Purveyors

Love this kid.

(The other kids were sleeping over at grandma's. We didn't forget them somewhere or anything.)

Starting to get a handle on this

The basement is still in a state of semi-demolishment. Waiting on more candy-coating sealant for the concrete and some paint for the walls. Have ordered a proper easel.

 

Stupid hands. Stop having hands, everybody.

Lessons learned: I should maybe be using a palette that isn't a plastic lunch meat lid wrapped in tin foil. And I need to use lots more paint, because trying to re-mix and match the color when you run out is the worst. Also I love gessobord a lot.

Look at that, it's a hat

The cat ate the yarn for my work-in-progress, so I had to knit something else while I waited for the yarn to be re-stocked. Hats make good Christmas package additions, so hats it is.

This slouch hat needs a massive pom-pom, I think.

The yarn is still not re-stocked, so guess what I am making now? MORE DOILIES.

I kind of love doilies a lot. We have a ton of houseplants to stick them under. File this under 'Things to Make 10 Year-Old Me Frown in Concern'.