hibiscus and varnish trouble

Unexpected day to myself. 

I realize I have done this color combination before, but the blues and oranges make me happy. 

I planted a double-hibiscus a few months ago just for this purpose. The flowers only bloom for a day or two before dropping off, so I stalked this one and nabbed it at the right moment. I dig the delicious red shadows in these flowers.

Advice welcome

 This week I put on my chemical mask and varnished some paintings. 

Here is the thing about varnish: it combusts if you ship it by air. Possibly. So if you live on an island, you are stuck using whatever varnish the overpriced art store has had shipped in by boat, because you can't order anything else online. I'm okay with this, because I am a fan of not blowing up airplanes, but I am just really bad at using Damar varnish. If I put it on thin it catches every surface irregularity, if I put it on generously it puddles. This time it did something worse:

It went on smoothly and then it crackled. I don't know what went wrong. Surface problem? Brush problem? Could I cheat and use deck varnish, or does it all turn yellow over time?

So annoyed. 

Somebody put a jar of semi-gloss art varnish into a little canoe and send it over for me.

Avocado

The cat had his procedure, so I took a day off to make sure he didn't bust a stitch. Painted an avocado while listening to a crime-solving podcast, wondering if it's too late to quit my job and become a pathologist. Probably I'd have less time to paint produce if I had a job that didn't let me take a day off to babysit my cat's balls.

I painted a bunch of boards in different colors to use as backgrounds. A blue background looked good, but the kids went nuts for the shiny gold, so I went with it.

My ward, unbothered

I'd like to be a painter who gets the form down in thick, lovely stokes, but I am a terminal dabber. 

In other news

Got screamed at by a shirtless guy for closing the library. He came back a few days later and tried very hard to be charming, hoping I would not recognize him with a shirt on. Nice try, Ed.

Tried to have an inspirational Banned Books Week story time, but dropped a book truck on my foot at the outset and it went downhill from there. 

A few more cat procedures may be in order before I feel like going back to work.

bulbul

Some guy on a black motorcycle is on the loose in our town shooting people (ok, just one person. In the leg. But still) and the police haven't come by yet to interrogate the big black motorcycle sitting in our driveway. Or the big black motorcycle in the neighbor's driveway. Or... ok, it looks like the guy across the street has one in his driveway, too. It seems that everyone in Wahiawa has a motorcycle, actually. Sorry about that, detectives. Good luck.

Demotivational painting 

Have been feeling uninspired, painting sloppily and then wiping everything off with a rag. Got mad at a seed pod and a shriveled nut, threw them out the back door, and painted one of the rescue birds, instead.

Fidget the Red-Vented Bulbul

This is not a happy picture. This particular bulbul escaped the aviary, panicked, and drowned in the toilet. It was a bad way to go. My mother, the local Bird Witch who rehabilitates these guys, was very upset about the death, and so she opened up the flight cage and released her other young rehabbed birds - then worried that she had made a mistake and doomed them to die in the wild. She did not doom them. They have been returning every day for dinner, chasing her from her car to her front door when she gets home from work. It's good for her, and it's funny for me. We're still really sorry about Fidget, though. 

Currently in rehab: Spike the Red-Whiskered Bulbul, who has undersized wings and flies like a chicken. He smiles, which is weird for a bird. 

I need to take a break from plants and birds and paint some faces and bodies again. People with faces or bodies are encouraged to come sit for me. I have a kegerator and cookies. There's a cupcake in it for anyone with tattoos.

Wilted purple flowers

I love these aluminum panels, but the little bastards are hard to get an accurate picture of because the oil doesn't sink and there's a lot of glare. They look like candy when I varnish them, though.

One of our library patrons picked these flowers from her yard and left them like a little wilty offering on the reference desk. I don't know what they are. Spent the afternoon piling all kinds of crap up on the table, trying to make an interesting still-life that would trick people into thinking I was cool, but I just couldn't get into it. Ended up sweeping the table clean and just dropping the wilted flowers onto a blue piece of paper. DONE.

Glarey glare glare

Someone gave me shit for not signing my art, so THERE, it is signed. Am a real artist now.

Monday painting - ex-limes

A few weeks ago, someone at the library gave me a branch of kafir lime leaves. I was all set to paint them when my model was tragically murdered.

victim and suspect

Luckily, that is why I take back-up pictures, and I had already drawn it out, so I went ahead and started painting it anyway.

First step: get it covered with paint. Second step: fix it. Will work on it in the evenings.


In other news

* Someone dropped the porta-potty key down the toilet hole. Also the lock. And the cleaning guys stole our hand sanitizer. Some helpful person has been locking the stalls in the open position for an endless line of liquor store customers to use - will figure out who's doing it and shake my finger very sternly. So the portable toilet situation is starting to get some results.

* The man decided we needed to cut down a tree that had gotten too big and was breaking up the back wall, so he had me stand and hold the ladder while he chopped the top off and pushed it onto the roof of the garage. I put on a tiny child's bicycle helmet in case a tree trunk and a concussed man and maybe a collapsed garage might come crashing down onto my head. There was a broken saw blade, a horrible crack, a thunderous crash, and then a terrible moment when the trunk swung wildly as it went down and hit the edge of the building - but the roof and the ladder and our brainpans all survived. I went straight inside and had a Cocoweizen, which tasted a lot better spiked with adrenaline.

This is fine, I will just stand down here and see where it falls

* My favorite and best Canadian librarian came to my house. While we were standing around taking pictures of her fairy project in the banana tree, a streaking light made us turn around, and we watched a meteor burn across the sky and flare out. "That was a fucking fireball," I said intelligently. Sarah laughed, because this happens wherever she goes. She is very relaxed for someone who keeps getting space rocks lobbed at her. Next summer, Sarah. We will take out Lake George with a meteorite.

* Went rollerskating and was the only person not to bust my butt, owing to my A+ strategy of pottering around the perimeter very, very slowly and getting lapped by preschoolers with walkers. Preschoolers who ended up on their backs like flailing, screaming turtles. Ha. I win, babies.