painting with moleskine

I needed my painting to be more portable and less expensive while I work on skill-building, so I took a page from Nicolas Uribe and bought a moleskine to paint straight into.

This has been pretty great, because I can tote the sketchbook around while I work on the underdrawings, then spray-fix and gesso them, and sit at the dining room table to paint in the evenings instead of waiting for my Mondays - which I can devote to working on longer paintings.

I'm having strong feelings about the clear gesso. Feelings that may be hate. Regular gesso is slightly glossy and smooth and water-proof, this stuff is matte and gritty and SUPER absorbent. This might a good quality, if you know what you're doing. Which I do not.

First try:

I didn't have the scary gesso, so I painted over the drawing with watered-down white gesso.

Second try:

I had to sand down the gritty clear gesso, which might be why it bled so badly, but it made the painting really soft, which I kind of like.

Next up:
The man painted the celtic dragons on his helmet himself, so I think it merits recording for posterity.

Meanwhile: REJOICE - Zenny has survived 5 years.

My last baby is officially half a decade old. She hasn't smacked her head and had a seizure in a whole year, and kindergarten registration has started. The ever-present knot in my chest is relaxing. I still make her wear her crash helmet when she sits in the truck's jump seat, though.

My mother pulled off another weird and amazing cake, made to the child's specifications.

 YES

There was Japanese bbq, and cuddles with the new 5-toed chicken, and a fight over how many teenagers could fit in the new 3-foot-high pop-up play castle (none, incidentally - and now I have some castle-repair sewing to do).

 aunt with beer, mother with giant invisible hamburger

ready to extinguish fires at the burn-your-own-children bbq restaurant

 those feet

Happy birthday, kiddo.