Weird locusts

A small sketch of my new painting project which is about these locusts that look like horses. What more is there to say?

Two works finished

Woops, got so carried away with painting that I didn't keep up with all the step by steps. It was the NYC heatwave. I couldn't go out so I just sat in front of my easel. Sometimes, for variety, I stood in front of my easel.
Here's the two pieces: The Losing Team and Blow. I'm loving doing this work but today I must go out and buy more paint. I'm using a lot more paint with this technique than I used to. And brushes: I'm messing up my little brushes, which I never even used before.
I'm curious if anyone will figure out they are apocalypse paintings and/or assign hidden meanings to them.

Losing Team

Here's what I'm up to with the Losing Team. It says: "You find yourself on the losing team", on the upper curve of the yellow part. I traced the curve, then I scanned it into Illustrator and picked out a suitable typeface. I used the pen tool to create a curved path that matched the scanned curve and wrote the words. Had to do it 3 times: the first time the words were too big, the second one, I lost, and finally got it right. Lesson: next time, do a bunch of different sized types. I also decided to paint the halo around the lamb in gold.
And also, here's the finished drawing for Blow. I have to decide on the color scheme.
My next project will be the locust that look like horses and eat you. I bet you can't wait to see that one.

Blow

Here's the smaller piece I started. It's about 12X16. From the Escorial Beatus, if you are interested. It's one of the trumpets blown but I forget which one...the second? Anyway, I liked the tones of brown. Sorry, the photo is a little skewed.

3 Against 1

OK, I cheated a little. 3Against1 is already finished. It took....maybe 2 weeks to do. It's not that hard ...sort of coloring in the lines. Maybe I shouldn't admit to how easy it is? I drew this one 'sort of' free hand. Meaning I did graph it out but changed the figures as I went along. Artistic vision or lousy math? I don't know but I can never fit the image in the grids I make.
But I'm having so much fun doing these paintings that I've started 2 more...REALLY and truly just started them yesterday. Here's one of the beginnings. I think I'm calling it: the losing team.

Final Version and something new

Ok, here's the final, I think, version of The woman and the Dragon. I had to do some final touch-ups on the outer frame. I tried making it look old and antique but it just looked like a dirty canvas. So I redid the whole thing in white and painted the edges in Paynes grey. I also studied some other versions of the same image and realized that my instincts had been right. That wasn't St. Michael on the upper left: that's the woman. So I had to redo my little narrative that I had written in the spaces where the original had Latin 'stuff', to include the woman's part of the story. And I added a little guy in the lower right corner, for my own amusement. So I think it's done.
And here's the next piece I'm working on for BWAC's Big show. To me, it's not so big: 60X36,

Silos Apocalypse, Part 2

I've continued to work on the Silos painting, and here's the lastest update.
Last week, I went to the Morgan Library with my 2 sisters to see a show about these apocalyptic paintings from Spain so I got to view in closeup how they look and also, how they were done. It's appears to be tempera or gouache and they covered mistakes with white paint, which has held up quite well over the years. They had almost an identical image, with the seven headed beast. Also, they were not as small as I had thought they would be...maybe 24 inches long.
So, here's the update. The painting is not quite as bright as the photo. I'm still learning as I go. Yesterday I had to cover a lot of the detail of the faces that I had done because I needed to white out the too thick lines and other mistakes. But it's all good, as the medieval monks used to say.

Pier Show 2007

Here's my two paintings for this year's BWAC Pier Show, in Red Hook Brooklyn. Yes, I am a little discouraged that they haven't sold. The large one is really beautifully colored....oh, am I supposed to say they are both beautiful? Well, you always have a favorite child. I do like the other, it's the mermaid image that I saw in France. I did a lot of glazing on it to get the shadowy stone column.
Are artists supposed to be ego maniacs who never say they are discouraged? Certainly I HAVE met a lot of artists like that but I'm not discouraged because I think the paintings are not worthy. It's something about the energy of the show. It seemed very low key at the opening. Que pasa?

Silos Apocalypse

I started work on this idea of mine that I've been mulling over for some time: to paint large versions of those wild and crazy medieval Spanish illuminated paintings of the apocalypse. I chose St Michael Fighting the Dragon from the Silos apocalypse.
This is the preliminary drawing, done directly on the canvas, which is 28X42. I mention the size cause it is much bigger, of course, then the illuminated painting. I just went for it and drew directly onto the canvas with no preliminary drawings. When people say this in books and articles their work always seems suspiciously neat. Whereas I've already run into trouble trying to cover my 'happy mistakes' so as to have that pen and ink look of the original. Not that I'm trying to recreate the original. For one thing the proportions are off, so things are a bit stretched and squashed. But I am having fun!
I decided to just go for it after reading a quote from an artist yesterday who said she chooses what to work on based on the idea: If this is the last piece I do, what do I want it to be?

Dream City

Haven't posted in a LONG LONG time but here's a watercolor from way back when. Painting in watercolor was extreme painting:taking me months to complete and driving me crazy with uncertainty. You know: the blah stage, the ugly stage, the too-beautiful-to-touch stage. Plus spending all that time on my inner life was quite intense.
I did love the results. This was one of my last: an abstract city, loosely based on my true dream city, Gerona.

Birds on Ice

Even though I always say I hate birds, I seem to photograph them and draw them a lot. Here are some on the lake across the street from where I live. I used the 'sport' setting on my camera to catch the seagulls flying overhead.
P.S. I say I hate birds because I have two bird watching sisters. Do you know how boring it is to go on a walk with a bird watcher? They can spend, and I am not exagerrating, HOURS studying a dead, decomposing bird. Yet everytime I ask them about a bird, they never know what it is!
So, yes, this is a photo of seagulls and ducks. Isn't it enough to know that? NO, what kinds of seagulls? What kinds of ducks? Just don't ask my two sisters.

Fixing Your Feet

Fixing your feet is the name of a new link I've added. It's a site run by John Vonhof and it's all about bad feet. Specifically, feet that are injured or could be injured in extreme events, such as marathons or long hikes.
OK, OK, I know this is not riveting information for most people but I've been reading his book, a very big book, from cover to cover for the last few weeks. I read it every night before I go to sleep.
This morning I got up to make pancakes for my husband and there, miraculoulsy you might say, this foot shaped pancake appeared. I photographed it with my favorite Raggedy Anne doll, surrounded by the type of products you would want to use if your foot ever looked this bad.
Don't even think about bidding for it on Ebay, I ate it right after I took the picture. This is my body.

Sunrise Too

Or is this Sunrise #2? I can see this right out my bedroom window, while I'm laying in bed and it is Very distracting. In this case, I had to open the window and let in the below freezing, below zero, air to take the picture.
Personally, I'd rather sleep, but my sleep and my dreams are all shot to hell. Today is the worse day. I actually had to resort to an extra cup of coffee, something I've been trying to avoid as a recovering coffee addict.

A cheap Frame

I 'made' this frame from a cheap $6 frame I bought in a discount store. I took it home, put a glob of gold acrylic paint on a piece of board and used my finger to dab and smear the gold into all the grooves, on the ouside and inside edges of the frame.
If I put too much, I just wiped it off with a paper towel.
I also toyed with the idea of dabbing the whole thing but decided to keep it simple and anyway, I didn't want a gold frame.
You can also admire the photograph if you like. I took it in Prospect Park, played with it in Photoshop and had it printed by Snapfish.

In the Kitchen

A drawing I did yesterday. It was inspired by conversations I've been having and even though these conversations are not directly related to my childhood or even to my mother, somehow, I guess it brought stuff up.
I'm not trying to be unpleasant, just expressing certain truths. MY truths.
It was fun to work in pencil again. I haven't really drawn in such a long time.
Last night, as I lay in bed, unable to sleep as usual, I called on my mother to bring me a dream. "Where are you?", I asked, knowing her body is gone...but where is she?
Nothing.
Suddenly the bed began to move, to turn completely around. I really didn't want THIS kind of response from her. I didn't realize I had segued from awake to asleep, just like that. I got out of the bed and started to run away. Except I was running thru the streets of old New Orleans, where my mother was born.

Blue Dream

This was a dream where I was trying to carry a baby across a street full of jagged shards of ice. In the gutter a frozen river. On the side, neighbors bore witness to my efforts, which seemed to be failing. I slipped and almost dropped the baby...but I didn't.
The street is my childhood home, where my mother died last year and which I never expect to see again. Except I am ALWAYS there in my dreams.
What was most notable was that the whole scene was in shades of blue.
I've been trying to sketch my dreams, without worrying about their perfection or finish. Just painted drawings on paper.

Cassoulet is not a Desert

Well, I forgot to take a picture of the Cassoulet. I guess I was momentarily blinded by it's exotic beauty. A pot of beans and ducky and porky sausages and meats in a clove scented sauce. The restaurant, Capsouto Frere (http://www.capsoutofreres.com) in Tribeca was so elegant, without being stuffy. Meaning waiters who were always there when you wanted something but didn't ask you how you like the food just after you had stuffed food in your mouth. And tables just far enough so you don't feel crowded. Wood paneling and a cute French guy who owned the place. Cute in the Lifetime movie sense, if you know what I mean.

Our Lady of Rice and Beans

This morning I received this beautiful hand made pin from my 'baby' sister, Marina. Yesterday was my birthday and I'll write more about the cassoulet experience tomorrow. But this pin seemed to be the answer to yesterday's meal: You can eat French food till you explode (or stroke out) but there's no place like home. The ultimate comfort food for us is Rice and Beans.
Just look at that face of contentment. Can't you just hear her saying, "YUM". Or, as my late mother, the greatest maker of rice and beans, used to say, 'Num, num!"

Head In A Bed

This is a sketch from a dream. In the dream, I am in New Orleans and I get lost in a hospital and find myself on the outer perimeter of the building, where patients who are not worth saving have been left to the mercies of nature. One of these figures is just a 'head in a bed', someone who has lost all their faculties. In my dream, he is really just a head, lost and confused with his hair curling out around him to create letters and words, maybe the words that he himself cannot express.
Someone used this expression years ago about my husband. They said that I would be able to travel again when he became just a head in a bed. Need I say that it was a horribly heartless thing to say?
So far, this has not happened to him. He still smiles and laughes. Not very often and in a very blunted way, but still he surprises me.
It is not his head that is pictured here. It is actually someone I knew as a teenager: Vincent Schiavelli, who died recently. He was gigantic and grotesque and yet he was dating my friend Dolories who was about 4 feet tall. What made me think of him, I don't know. There sure is a lot I don't know.

Mountain River

This was a painting I did a few years back. It's of the Pyrneenes, where Wil and I went hiking on one of our trips to Spain. We were very high up and the atmosphere was thin, thus the strange, penetrating blue of the sky. When we walked into the shadows the air was icy cold, but if we stepped into the sun, like on this bridge over a small river, it only took minutes to get a sunburn.
Wil was having me do all of the driving by then and it took hours to get up the mountain to the park. When we arrived at the entrance there was an ominous sign: over the road and high in the trees, someone had strung bunches of dead animals. Going home our furry friends were still hanging there. It was harder going down the mountain then going up. The tight curves and hair pin turns were hypnotizing after awhile. When we finally came to the highway, my eyes could not adjust and I actually saw the road crawling away from me, an optical illusion after I had so tensely watched the road for so long.
The painting is about 5 or 6 feet tall. I hung it in a show for BWAC and it didn't sell. The day I went to pick it up I was told a young man had wandered in while the show was being taken down and bought it. I was happy but sort of sad too: it is the biggest successful landscape I have done. Imelda