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Hi Folks,
It’s been quiet on the painting front since returning home from my residency, but I’ve been busy in other areas of life. Honest.
Go visit multicraftual.wordpress.com if you are interested in crafting and want to watch my friend Liby and I in a new video podcast. We yammer on about crafting, we sing songs and put knitted garments on her cat pancake etc. Pancake is a star. The podcast is worth watching just for his expressions.
Crafting podcasts (and there are many: dramatic knits, stockinette zombies, 90% Knitting, the knit girllls, whatcha swatchin, yarnivore, craftstash, to name just a few) are most often watched while engaged in knitting or crocheting yourself. As I recently explained to my mother, it is not meant to be captivating in the same way a tv show or movie is… rather, it is like sitting down with friends to knit and gab together. That is the best I can explain it.
In other news, the Brit (husband) and I are gearing up for a move into a new home July 1st. Same town. Portales. It means “porches” in Spanish. We like it.
The move means less time in the future with the neighborhood cat Butters. Since I got back from residency, Butters has been visiting me every morning for pats and scritches. His meow is a scratchy pathetic sound like something from a dying animal. But he is nevertheless quite talkative and affectionate. I will miss him (and frequently walk through our old neighborhood just to visit him).
Butters, mi amigo
on the porch
Below are some close-ups of the puppets I made as part of my library cart. I asked the staff at elsewhere if they were an animal, what would it be and then made an animal-puppet version of them. The results were: a badger, a duck, a turtle, a mouse, an owl and a one-eyed brontosaurus:
hand puppets in the puppet theatre nook
badger
duck
turtle
mouse
owl
one-eyed brontosaurus
Here is the sewing workshop at elsewhere, where I spent a lot of time. Can you find me in the picture?
where's waldo in the sewing workshop?
This is the newly painted cart with my sewn puppet-theatre curtains:
Puppet theatre!
and here are the puppets I made sitting on the newly-sewn bench cushion. We have a mouse, a duck, a turtle, an owl, a badger and a one-eyed brontosaurus – in that order.
hand puppets in the theatre
Three of my latest creations:
Dinosaur, Cheetah and Rabbit hand-sewn puppets
I’m still working with them on conflict resolution:
Angry beasty and stubborn cheetah
I haven’t posted in a while but there are plenty of new works (and some old ones too) posted on my website! Go check it out. I’ve added some new galleries as well as some new works to some of the existing galleries.
Below is a snapshot of my new “Commissions” gallery on my website.
I do many pet portraits, house and property portraits and any other sentimental still life or landscapes you can think of. The majority of the commissions I do are for friends or family of the purchaser. They make great thoughtful gifts.
Commissions, various media
Yesterday my husband and I went for a bike ride in the morning and came across a meter-long snake a little thicker than my wrist coiled up on the road. Fortunately a truck was driving down the road at the same time and pulled over to inspect the reptile. The driver, clearly knowing what he was doing and what species he was looking at, picked it up by its tail and flung it gently to safety in the ditch. His twelve year old son was right next to him wide-eyed. “It’s a bullsnake!” he yelled cheerfully after us.
Later that day we made a picnic to eat in a state park. We pulled into a site and I made my way towards the picnic table. Then I spotted a note scrawled on legal paper held down by rocks. It read, “Black widow nesting under table comes out at night. Consider moving away rather than killing? Thanks”… It was night. Perfect time for a dinner picnic… and letting black widows crawl on your knees. We ate in the car and enjoyed the brilliance of colour through the windshield.
In this land of tough, rough, wild creatures it’s nice once in a while to focus on the gentle, non-poisonous kinds. Here are some ducks I sketched at Oasis State Park the day I spotted “Snakey“.
Ducks, watercolour on paper, 5 x 7"
Here is today’s painting with some detail pictures because it’s been a while since I’ve worked in a larger format.
Fox and I, oil on canvas, 24 x 30"
Fox and I, detail
Fox and I, detail 2
Here is another morning landscape study. One of these cows gave his neck a good scratch on this fence for fifteen minutes before joining the others for a snooze under the shade of the trees. I was pretty tempted to join them.
Snoozing Cows, oil on canvas, 8 x 10"
Hello again! My sincere apologies for being absent from this blog for an entire month. I assure you I spent the time well. I got married and visited family in two different countries followed by a honeymoon! I thought I’d never want to leave the sunny turquoise coast of Turkey but was flooded with excitement and relief upon returning home and finding my studio full of all my books, canvases and paper waiting for me.
Here is a painting I made just before I left in May. My new husband’s favourite part is the reflection of the egg in the knife. Mine is the shadow in the egg shell between the knife and spoon.
Are we late for lunch?, oil on board, 10 x 10"
Right from the sketchbook today: this is a mock-up sketch for an illustration of another little story I’m working on. It may soon be digitized so stay tuned – this could be fun!
Page 3 sketch, graphite and pencil crayon on paper, 4 x 4"
Drawn from a photo by Liby Ball who owns this miraculous cat.
