Lockdown #2

The second lockdown is going as well as the fireworks ban; not at all. The public is mutinous and there are even more people out spite-jogging than before, we’ve had twice as many pickups at the library (I’m an essential worker this time). But the surge testing is happening, after a bumpy start, and we signed up for sticks up the nose like good citizens. The kids sneezed onto theirs, so they should get extra accurate results.

I am happy to stay home on the weekend. The kids and I experimented with alcohol inks, baked cookies, picked lychees, and hung out in the yard trying to peel off the dirt glued with fruit juice to Plucky’s face. She’s a mess in lychee season, owing to her lack of hands. Bad planning there, Plucky.

I have developed a new harebrained scheme.

Here it is:

While the library has hours of intense activity and checkouts, it also has hours of quiet waiting, when I’m stuck in a chair by the door, feeling my life ebb away and staring at the rotating racks of trashy paperbacks. They used to hire artists to paint the covers for romance novels, but now they’re all photographs of models in cheap costumes. It aggravates me, both as an art person and as a librarian.

Problem: romance novels covers should be painted
Problem: I am stuck on a chair with idle hands for hours a day
Solution: PAINT ALL THE BOOK COVERS

So I’ve got a new sketchbook, and I can sketch the covers while sitting at the door, then paint them on my lunch breaks. At the very least, it gives me figure painting practice. At the very best, I develop a fun collection of work, bag an agent, become a book cover artist, quit my job, and move to a cabin in Alaska.

guns + babies = SEDUCTION

 First try:

 Reference: A Bandit’s Kiss, by Maria Green, c2000

Mr Handsome looks weird and her legs got away from me under that dress, but I am happy with it as a first go 

Bewbs

It's fun. Yes, I think I'd be perfectly happy to someday retire and be a scary lady in the woods painting incongruously sexy book covers.