Whidbey Island - final day

If the pain is any indication, my buns are going to be a couple of hard little cantaloupes after this weekend. I have hiked so many miles uphill, kicking leaves and chasing bunnies and visiting every little shop. I bought kind of a lot of chicken and rabbit merchandise.

Today’s phenomenal meal was breakfast at the Braeburn. I parked my aching butt at the counter next to a couple of salty old locals who were dressed like movie extras pretending to be a couple of salty old locals, and I ordered the dish the waitress recommended, which was probably just the most expensive thing and not the tastiest, but I didn’t care. When am I ever going to have eggs Benedict with curried oysters, wild mushrooms &  bacon again? Never, if the gods favor me. (Actually, it was really very good, but my body took about an hour to decide whether oysters and bacon were my natural prey. Luckily, I am built like a trash-foraging animal, and just about anything you can slop on a garbage can lid is my natural prey.)

My third painting was better than the first two, if still a bit sloppy and problematic. You have to paint through a pile of shitty paintings to get to the good ones, there isn’t any other way around it. I learned so much from Elizabeth. She took my brush and dabbed at my painting, saying, turn the form with chroma instead of tone if it’s starting to look hard. Use bigger paint piles. Softer brushes. Really goop it on. Wipe it out with a pointy q-tip when you fuck it up. Don’t go dark to light, go darkest-darks and brightest-brights to keep them clean, then work the middle values to turn the form. Make the eyelid crease bloody. Err on the side of too much color, so long as the values are right.

I was so sad to see this last day draw to a close. As we washed our bushes and said our goodbyes, I went back to look at the samples Elizabeth had taped to the wall; past demos she had made for other classes - quick studies, ranging from outlines to finished work. I kept coming back to a partially-finished sketch of a girl with her face upturned, just a mark where her lips should be and one eye finished with such deft little brush strokes that it made my heart hurt.

I went out of my head and bought it.

It is my first real original art purchase, and it means so much to me, coming from this experience and this artist.

In the dark and the rain, I hugged my sloppy paintings to my chest, the little Zanzinger study carefully covered in plastic wrap, and as I was trotting along under my umbrella, I realized that it was one of the happiest moments of my life. Really. The last time I was this happy just being me - not having anything to do with love or kissing or babies - was when I was 16, skinny dipping with my friends in a freshwater pond in the rainforest. And when I was 11, sitting on my favorite cliffside rock on Black Mesa, watching the wild horses kick up dust as they ran. When I was 4, riding in my toddler bicycle seat behind my mother, smelling the rainy Indiana summer and feeling like I was flying.

One last night by the fire with my knitting and my book, then back to life as usual.

This is what I want to do.

I’m having a lot of feelings tonight, folks.

Whidbey Island - Day 3

Hello I am a little squiffy. Today was so good.

• Saw so many rabbits. And leaves. Still really happy about the leaves.

• Painted a thing. It was a bad thing, but I painted it, and it was not more bad than other people’s paintings.

• Went to the hostess’s house with everyone and was so impressed by all the artwork and statues and  cuckoo clocks and Labrador dogs and craft beer that I died. Had meaningful conversation about gender politics and naked witchcraft.

• Went out to dinner with Elizabeth fricking Zanzinger and we both had shitty Rainier beer because we are classy ladies.

• My phenomenal meal of the day was actually just the beer and a salad at the pizza joint, but the company was outstanding. Discussed metals and gold leaf in contemporary figurative realism. I told a  breastfeeding cat story.

• Drove up all the wrong roads and got honked at. Was dropped off safely at my little room.

Really first rate day. And I have a fire to sit by, a book to read, and a down mattress to sink into. I am never leaving.

Whidbey Island - Day 2

I tried so hard to stay up to a reasonable hour, confused by the dark evening, but I finally gave in to travel exhaustion at 9pm and crawled to bed. It was too firm. Wondered if I could make a nest out of pillows. Then I climbed up to the loft bed and realized it had a thick down mattress pad on it. VICTORY. I think people who sleep on hard mattresses are noble and agile, like mountain lions resting on big rocks, but I am a soft burrowing creature. I thunked down into the pillowy top bunk like a brick and slept  until the sun came up. It was a miracle. Or the NyQuil. I am battling the onset of a chest cold, because of course I am.

By the time it was light out, I was almost late. I pulled on my sweater and boots and coat and hat and mittens and started walking down to town, feeling very pleased with my winter gear and thinking I probably looked just like a local resident. While I was huffing up at the sky, trying  to see my own breath, a man jogged by in little running shorts and a long-sleeved tee. He waved and smirked, amateur. Whatever. I am not that devoted to blending in.

The workshop was beautiful. We drank coffee and watched Elizabeth Zanzinger demonstrate her methods throughout the morning, then drew numbers for our easel positions and spent the afternoon trying to do the same. My initial sketch was okay. And then I ruined it. Pretty badly. But the good news is that I didn’t paint appreciably worse than everyone else.

To console ourselves, we mobbed down to the seafood joint and drank beer and ate clams and laughed like fools. I have made a deal with myself to only buy one meal a day, so that meal can be fucking phenomenal. This is a good arrangement. The food is worth remembering for the rest of your life, and you’re hungry enough to eat all of it without a scrap of guilt. I mopped up sauce with table bread and I ATE IT.

Tomorrow we will have more work time, since today was mostly demo, so we will have many more hours to make our shitty paintings. I’m ready.

It was an amazing day with amazing people. I don’t know how I’m going to get back on a plane and leave this place. 

Whidbey Island - Day 1

(Still can’t upload blog pictures on my phone, which is all I’m armed with for this trip, but I’m on instagram as tempestpilot, for people who want to see what I’m painting/eating this weekend.)


You guys, Washington is the best. I rode on a boat, and saw a seagull trip and fall off the pier. And there are crows, and they say “caw caw” just like they don’t know that’s just a thing people say when they’re pretending to be crows. My cottage has a fake wood stove that just bursts into flame from time to time. The leaves are yellow and red, and so are people’s trousers. People wear TROUSERS here.

 If I see a squirrel, I’m done for, I’m not going home.

Update 1: I SAW A SQUIRREL. It was savaging a tree outside the art gallery. The whole tree. The owner was trying to talk to me and I just went walleyed and leaned over to stare at the squirrel. Points for not screaming “SQUIRREL” like an asshole.

Update 2: I am eating at a fermented foods restaurant, because people in Washington like to eat fermented things, I guess. So do I, probably. I started with a draft cider and it broke the keg just before filling to the top so I got half of it for freeeee.

Update 3: it is getting dark at 4pm, wtf. I am going to die walking back to my cottage full of fermented Welsch rarebit in the dark.

Update 4: I did not die. I saw rabbits frolicking in the autumn leaves. And a whole entire deer.

a fast little figure painting

Instead of overworking the painting for three days, I gave myself three colors, a couple of hours, and focused on painting the light instead of the shadows. This went ok.

It's a small thing; 5x7. I think I should do about 10 more of these, until I'm fast and confident.

I am having a few feelings about seeing Seattle again. The last time I went was 11 years ago, on a trip to a library conference just after getting chucked and divorced. I was walking around with my chest flayed open, bleeding onto anyone who got close enough. It was not a good scene. But I did enjoy the smell of winter and roasting coffee in the city, and the bobbing boats and snowfall in La Conner completely charmed me. When I am old and sell my home in Hawaii, I will buy a little cottage with a view of the harbor in La Conner, get full sleeves of mermaid tattoos from the old-timey tattoo parlor by the chocolate shop, and paint winter ocean scenes from my patio. I will knit fisherman sweaters and have two fat cats and a guest room for grandchildren. Mark it.

figure painting and imminent travel

I overworked this thing.

I need more models. I don't know how to do that. Imagine this for a moment - imagine trying to ask people you know to come over and disrobe for "art", and maybe some "reference pictures". Imagine them backing away slowly. Imagine the HRO meetings. Imagine the ones who actually said yes. Imagine chasing them out of your house with the Claymore sword in the closet. Imagine asking your online friends, instead. Imagine what horrors they might send.

Hmm.

The good news is that I've added 40 lbs to my bench pressing this month, and it's starting to show around the shoulders. These are like REALLY SLOW "before" pictures. I feel a little weird about sharing these, but hey, it's my stupid blog, this is my stupid learning process, and it's nothing I wouldn't show my mom anyway.

Process:

Ramping up for my painting trip to Whidbey Island this week, and beginning to detect a strange fluttering hint of excitement in my crusty old husk of a heart. Spent hours scouting restaurants and breweries, scrolling through photos of oyster entrees and alluring sandwiches. Finally remembered to check the weather forecast.

RAIN. In Washington? 

Yes, it will be a harrowing tale of survival against the elements as I press through the sleet and make stops to fight off hypothermia at every coffee shop and chocolatier and microbrewery along the 20 minute walk to-and-from the studio.

WITNESS ME.

Halloween 2017

Two firsts:

* The first year trick-or-treating at our new house (where we have lived for 3 years).

* The first year my kids actually helped carve the pumpkins instead of drawing the faces and then screaming EEW and running away. This is largely because Zenny wasn't scared of getting her hands slimy, and the boys decided they were at least as brave as a 4 year old.


We did not know that trick-or-treating this year should have been extra spooky, because this morning we learned that one of our up-the-road neighbors had been burgled last week and there is a stolen assault rifle on the loose in the neighborhood. Suburbia!

The scariest thing we saw, luckily, was the neighbor who couldn't find any Halloween decorations and lined his walkway with real fire shooting out of sterno cans.

The oldest cousin bailed on us for the 3rd year in a row in favor of people with video games - this time groaning that his girlfriend MADE HIM hang out with her - so we replaced him with Gavin's best friend from robotics. People crap on teenager trick-or-treaters, but they are the best. These kids have no shame, and they are A+ trash-talkers.

My mother and aunt manned their candy distribution post on the other side of the island, and Facetimed us to watch the kids collapse with sugar poisoning at 8:30pm. We chucked the preschooler in bed and stayed up with the big kids to watch Stranger Things and rummage all the Three Musketeers from the candy hoard.



PICTURE DUMP

We made it halfway to school before I looked over and saw what he was wearing

shaaaark, "desert hobo", Victorian ghost child, "plague doctor"(?), makin' bacon pancakes

the look you get when you ask your child to pose with the cat food

glow sticks as shark organs

We had fog and frickin LASERS. 

I feel greasy and old here, but whatever, that is how it is now. 

The night was alive with the howls of "bacon panCAAAAAKES!"

Solidly successful holiday, folks.

murder rabbit has technical issues

One of the problems I have with the new iphones is that they don't support the crusty old blogger app, so I can't upload pictures unless I email them to myself and add them from the desktop computer. And our desktop computer blew up because some genius plugged it into the wall socket right next to the power bar (NOT ME). That's part of the reason I haven't been posting much in recent months. 

So all I've got right now is my murder rabbit costume. I will return later with the Halloween Post Nobody Asked For. 

Proof of holiday spirit/peer pressure:

not a pumpkin

I really still don't know what I'm doing, but the only way out is through. Plunge on.

This painting could use a second pass to clean up some of the wonky lines and add texture to the background, but I'm happy with it as a one-sitting portrait. 

Also pictured: the small painting I'm waffling about adding a complicated background to - I like the hair and ear, but not the face, so I either have to fix it, finish it as-is, or abandon it. Meeehhh.

tacos

The trip kicked up the mud in the water. I pulled out autumn decorations and lit scented candles, figuring a change of seasons might improve things. When that didn't work, I baked cookies. When that didn't work, I painted. I bought a miniature pumpkin to use as a model, thinking I could somehow make it look more interesting than just a miniature pumpkin - and I failed. It just looked like a stupid boring pumpkin with some dead leaves around it.

*sad trombone*

I sat and stared at it and wondered if I could even paint at all. Considered pitching my easel out the studio door, but the studio is in the basement, so I'd have to heave it up a flight of stairs. Pitched myself out, instead. Probably should have pitched the miniature pumpkin.

The next day I had a doctor's appointment down by the art museum, and decided I should go sit with the dead artists for a bit afterwards. I did not do that, however, because while I was in the waiting room I became sidetracked by the office decor.

Buddha says, "You're going to feel my hand for a moment."

A women's doctor's office needs uncomfortable pictures of fruit. Like lemons. Or peaches. Or melons. Or... TACOS*. I suddenly decided it was VERY IMPORTANT that I find a taco. And paint a picture of the taco. The taco would be everything the miniature pumpkin was not. I could get gold leaf and paint heavenly gilded tacos, and be famous for my inspirational taco paintings.

I need more friends, I think.

Anyway, my workshop is in 3 weeks. For the past month, I had been doodling pictures of cabled sweaters and tall boots in the margins of my planner during staff meetings, and then suddenly the air conditioning started working again, blasting the library with an arctic wind that cut through my leather blazer like cheesecloth. I looked at the thermostat. 68 degrees. I looked at the temperature in Seattle. 43 degrees. Wadded up my romantic fall style notions and marched down to the thrift store to buy the heaviest, down-lined-iest, fur-trimmed-iest parka I could get my hands on. Found something with Korean labels that looks as if it may have been made for surviving a nuclear winter. My legs stick out the bottom like Popsicle sticks. They will probably freeze and snap off. I don't need legs for painting, anyway.

and I guess it makes my arms different lengths

I don't know about October, you guys.

* the best fruit