FOOLING AROUND

Fooling around with the gouache, birds and sunflowers today. It felt heavy handed so I tried one just ink and white gouache.

SUNFLOWERS ON SUNDAY

A joy in the sunflowers are really the birds; black backed goldfinches, grackles, doves, large and small.

The plants are loaded with blossoms, now.

 Many of my plants are falling over. I don't know why?

ROLLING UP A PAINTING

This painting's stretcher bars were warped. I noticed it when I exhibited it at ACC Cypress Campus this last Spring. It is old and has had a storied life already. It has some nice passages so destruction or conversion into book markers didn't seem appropriate. At least, not yet. I took it off the stretcher bars today and rolled it up for storage. 

BUFFALO DAWN, 60"x48"

Here are a couple of details from the painting.

This a piece of PVC is 57" long. After I found it in a trash pile, I washed it, left in the sun to dry. This piece of 3/4" cardboard makes my table big enough for the operation. The small tube on the left is a roll of 48" wide glassine.

Then I put the painting face down on glassine, taped together to make a big enough piece.

 Pulled out the staples, removed the stretcher bars and rolled it with the glassine around the PVC.

A lovely flower peeking out through the glassine. Next I'll wrap well in good ol' brown paper and put in the storage closet.

I'm glad this painting has a shot at resurrection someday. Might not, but you never know.

A NEW HOME FOR CRICKETS

A friend bought CRICKET DAWN before she relocates to Santa Fe, NM. I am happy this painting has found a good home. This is balm for my hurt pride. The awkward, refused commission last week. Roller coaster ride of being human is entertaining.

CRICKET DAWN, 14"x18", acrylic on canvas

COMMISSIONS

Commissions are dialogues.  Author of the work and a customer who is always right tries to find the common ground. I find it very difficult to see through another person's eyes. I find it difficult to see and translate through my own eyes. 
This is a recent commission. So far, three times the customer has asked for revisions. That is one more than I will usually accommodate. This is making me sad.

acrylic on board, 12" x 16"

TODAY'S SUNFLOWERS

These sunflowers are top heavy. Many are falling over. They don't hold still, either. These are gouache on the handmade paper from Florence, Italy (Firenze).

OLD ARTWORK -SLIDES TO DIGITAL!

Converting slides to digital files is an adventure in the nether land between technologies. First there is language. At the stores, the clerk doesn't seem to understand my questions. I don't understand her explanations. 

WARZONE, 36X24

WARZONE sold when it first showed. I don't like the reproduction but it is digital, now.

Here is another from long ago. I heard that this painting, RESONANCE was destroyed.

RESONANCE, 59"x42"

I like this reproduction, change from slide to digital, more. This digital file is from Holland Photo.

WATERCOLOR PAPER

"The paper is half the drawing." Thus spake I in teaching and also using watercolor or gouache or anything on paper. What a difference on this white Canson watercolor paper. Not better or worse but very different for me, the author of the work and for the image!

 I started these 4/24 but took them out and finished them today.