the poor little foot

In 1988, my great-grandmother typed out her memoirs and gave copies to each of her children. My grandfather lost almost everything he owned after grandma died, but he held onto this little book, and while visiting last week, my mother talked him into lending it to us for scanning. She sat in the Portland airport for about 5 hours on the way home, reading these grim and funny old stories. Great-granddad Casey died in his 30s, and getting to know him through Gran's writings has been really moving. And kind of horrifying. This bit is from World War II:

We’ll scan it and fix minor typos. If we can hunt down the artifacts she mentions, we can put in photos and illustrations. It's a nice preservation project.

IN THE MEANTIME. I realized that peeling tape was the best reward for finishing a painting, and got a little carried away.

oh no

It takes too many hands to peel that much tape while also taking an instagram video, and I got a long blurry shot of my arm before knocking the painting onto the floor. It's a learning curve.

Clean edges:

yessss better

Dialed it back on the tape while painting my mom's cat, Stella. 

Stella, the only striped cat in our collective family. 

Stella, a cat we have known for 5 years. 

The man walked by and looked at it. "Nice cat! Who is it?" 

WHO IS IT. Goddamn. Pet portraiture isn't going to be my legacy. And body identification isn't going to be his. 

"But Stella has black stripes," he explained. 

"Wow. Just wow," has been a phrase that has made me irrationally angry for years, but it has officially been toppled by folks who describe brush strokes as "juicy". I am immune to the word "moist", but "juicy" is just an abomination. I will take all your wows if you take your juicies back*.

So this week I decided to loosen up and just slop a lot of paint onto a piece of Duralar instead of doing a careful under-drawing. I was happy with this. And we will all understand and agree that it is in no way juicy.

delicious, fat, unctuous, luscious, non-juicy brush strokes

Messy paint looks better when you back up a few feet.

There we go.

I never did get myself down to the print shop to make giclees. And the plan to visit Whidbey Island for another workshop isn't looking likely. I will remain here, singing barnyard songs, painting fat cats, and daydreaming about another life as a forensic reconstruction artist in Scotland - one who probably wishes she were a librarian hobbyist painter in Hawaii. That is gratitude for you.

*LIES. I will take neither. Get out of my house.