well, it’s settled

Seashells are stupid and I can't paint. Am a fraud and impostor. Trying to decide if this is a thing I need to persevere in and win, or if I'm engaging in a battle of wits against a piece of sea garbage. Bought an antler of ginger to console myself.

Also tried out my new respirator and varnished some chickens. This is a look that works for me because it distracts from my leg, which is held together with tape. It has been one of those kinds of weeks.

I am saved

So I cheated and ordered a box of hermit crab shells online. Now I have them ALL - the pearly stabber, the lurid hooha, the checkered flange. My favorite is the little round one on the bottom left; it is so delicate it glows, with warm shadows and blue highlights. 

Will get started immediately. Go jump a fence, entomology. 

do not want

The hunt for seashells led me to look up Pacific Island conch species, which made me curious about giant Pacific Island beetle species, which caused me to look up the invasive coconut rhinoceros beetle, which sent me off on searches for dead entomology specimens, which led to tutorials about how to murder and impale giant tropical insects in the comfort of your own home.

Lychee branch done

Finished. Pau. Moving on. 

My chicken infatuation has changed into something worse: seashells. I don't even like seashells, particularly, but I saw a painting of a whelk that was really beautiful and decided I should give it a go - and then discovered that I can't find any goddamn seashells for sale. In HAWAII. There should be shells for sale at the gas station. At Panda Express. I should be beating seashell salesmen off my car with a broom when I stop at red lights. I found tacky tiki sculptures in surf shorts and sunglasses, and tacky coconut shell bras, but no tacky seashells. Spent the weekend stalking around the fish departments of Walmart and Petco, pretending I have a naked hermit crab in need of a bigger shell, but they didn't stock them. The grocery store has a lot of shells with dead creatures still in them, but I kind of want to work on the thing for a few days without the cats eating it or social services showing up to make sure I'm still alive because of reports about the smell.

Annoyed.

Take the thing you love and turn it into a nightmare

HOME STRETCH. One more day of touch-ups and I am calling it on this beast. 

If anyone spots the word "hi" in the wood background and thinks I'm being the cute artist hiding messages in my paintings, let me state now that the word was already scratched into the side of the house by one of Larry the Mason's idiot offspring, and I only discovered it when squinting up close up for the painting. I don't hide messages in my paintings, because the entire text of Love Under the Republicans (or Democrats)* would be really hard to sneak in there.

And this time I am doing the thing: I am going to make prints to sell. In that spirit, I ordered a rubber stamp with a design of lychees and chicken tracks. (For stamping on the stickers sealing the plastic sleeves.) So I'd better follow through on this, or I'll be stuck stamping my name on grocery lists and work memos and children.

* This is my favorite poem:

Love Under the Republicans (Or Democrats) 
by Ogden Nash

Come live with me and be my love
And we will all the pleasures prove
Of a marriage conducted with economy
In the Twentieth Century Anno Donomy.
We'll live in a dear little walk-up flat
With practically room to swing a cat
And a potted cactus to give it hauteur
And a bathtub equipped with dark brown water.
We'll eat, without undue discouragement
Foods low in cost but high in nouragement
And quaff with pleasure, while chatting wittily
The peculiar wine of Little Italy.
We'll remind each other it's smart to be thrifty
And buy our clothes for something-fifty.
We'll stand in line on holidays
For seats at unpopular matinees,
And every Sunday we'll have a lark
And take a walk in Central Park.
And of these days not too remote
I'll probably up and cut your throat.

Good news, world

The tests are in, and the word on my heart is "huh, it's not supposed to do that". Went home with vitamins and instructions to call in if I die suddenly. So that's all sorted. 

I've got the house to myself for the week. Have been living off cereal, ordering aluminum composite panels and chemical respirators (in case the heart thing is related to painting - don't want to pull a Frazetta and have a stroke from breathing solvents), listening to Christopher Moore audio books, and working on my lychee branch. I brought the baseball bat into the bedroom so I can thump nighttime intruders, but then muted my constantly-buzzing phone alerts for the security system (MAILMAN. CAT. CHICKEN. CAR. CAT), so home invaders are encouraged to club themselves in the face with the bat, thanks.

Progress on lychee branch. 
Tonight I'm going to touch up the background and leaves/wood, and then mix my colors for the fruit.

The vitamin D supplements aren't making me chipper and sunny, but they're making me feel things, and let me tell you I DO NOT LIKE IT. Feelings, gross.

that's no good

The other day I nearly fell over on my evening jog, and it turns out I have a heart murmur.

Better hurry up and get that “self portrait at age 39” finished.

This one is painted on semi-transparent Duralar, and it makes a nice musical-saw-blade noise when you flap it.

In the spirit of getting goals ticked off, I started painting something to submit to a local art show. As Hawai’i-themed subjects go, my favorite is the lychee tree. I also love the waterfalls on the Koolau mountains after it rains, but landscape painting is too damn hard. Painting leaves, though, is very wonderful. I don’t know how that distinction works.

yesss

Quite a way to go, but I'm enjoying this one a lot. 

oh no, more chickens

After Sirius died, we fostered another brown chicken, but I haven’t bothered naming her. She came paired with another orphan and the two of them are collectively called “the chickadoos”. The other chickadoo ran away and then showed up last week with 6 babies, so she is in the coop of shame with her brood right now. I guess I’ll be painting her next, because apparently I have traded my fire hydrant fixation for chickens. I’m reading fancy poultry books at my desk and imagining a career as a blue ribbon chicken portrait artist, touring the country's livestock competitions to paint only the best and most ruthless of the chicken champions.

so beautiful

Plucky and the Chickadoo, ready to murder me for pancakes

 

Embarrassing. 
The rooster responsible for this has been chucked in a ditch by the Christmas tree farm.  
(Alive.)

Lines indicate frame size. I'm going to crop it in pretty closely.

So majestic

Book me now for prizewinner portraits, chicken fanciers. 

(BOK ME NOW, HA)

Plucky the Terrible Terror

It’s choke-your-children-with-coin-studded-pancakes-day, and I had unexpected time off with a barfing child (unrelated to pancakes). While she sat on the couch watching an old anime version of the Wizard of Oz, I painted my favorite and best chicken.

Plucky has survived the pox, learned to crow like a rooster, lays cute little eggs, naps on my lap, and likes chocolate chip cookies. Probably she shouldn’t be eating chocolate, but after she survived eating my titanium paint I stopped worrying about her diet. She gets chicken scratch and oyster shells like she’s supposed to, everything else is up to her. She’s 3 years old, so far so good. Also, she bites. I like nice people with a mean streak.

I think I love painting chickens. Oh no.

64 degrees

I’m trying some linen mounted on boards. It’s maybe not my thing. I like a smoother surface. But I’ve got three of these dang things, so I’d better gesso and sand the hell out of them because I’m not allowed to buy any more panels until I’ve used up the ones I’ve got.

Straight lines are still my weak point, but at least I made the motions to put them in.

My kid has been living in his puffy winter coat because it’s 64 degrees. Poor frozen child.

And then I had  a bit of time to add a layer to this never-ending beast of a project. Just another couple days on the arms and table to go. Or I could frisbee it out the window, my ever-ready backup method. I’ll leave it alone for a while.