Seattle Vacation

I am enjoying some time in Seattle with Elisabeth and Zach.  I am making friends with my new "grand-dog",
Chewie.  He is an Australian Shepherd-Golden Retriever Mix.  He looks like a caramel retriever with chocolate drizzled over top.  He and I spend some special times together; like when he gets restless in the morning and Z and E kick him out of their room and he comes upstairs and curls up outside my door.  Then I let him in and he lays next to my bed till I can get dressed and make coffee.  I haven't figured out how to get him on the airplane back to Tucson.  I am allowed 2 free check-ons but I don't think he would care for the accommodations or the luggage carousel.  Zach and I gave him a bath today, which he detests.  But he is soft and shiny again.  I made a pair of new covers for the Ikea barstools in their kitchen.  I have also canned pickles, dilled green beans, blueberry syrup and blueberry jam over the last couple of weeks.  Tomorrow Elisabeth is off of work again for a few days, including her birthday on Sunday.  We will probably go out for dinner at a nice Italian restaurant.  On Tuesday we go to the outlet mall and Dakota Pastel Store.  Wednesday we babysit for a friend of her's baby girl named Treska.  I have never heard of the name before.  Wikipedia says it's a river in Macedonia.

2 Weeks from today I will be flying into Phoenix and then driving home, sans dog.  Maybe we can Skype!  Woof, Woof!

Toughest Day

I think I can safely say this has been one of the toughest days I have ever experienced.  Today was the day we had to have our beloved Abby put to sleep.  She was the best dog I have ever known and I miss her so much already.  She herded the kids when they were young and spent 13 years looking after all of us.  When it became painful for her to get up the stairs where she has slept next to my bed ever since we brought her home from the pound, I knew we didn't have much time left.  I even spent a few nights, when she was really bad, sleeping on the couch downstairs beside her.  But lately she could hardly stand up, and stumbled over the doorjam to painfully relieve herself outside.  So before my departure for Seattle we saw her to her next life.  She would have been lonely and in pain had I waited any longer and maybe even left this world without my being able to say goodbye.  So farewell, Abby.  I miss you and love you.  And I do believe that all dogs go to Heaven.

Why do I always run out of paint?

The bathroom is nearly finished and I'm out of paint.  How can such a little bitty room take so much paint?  I think I only need another pint.  Of course if I only buy a pint it will need a pint and a half.  The regular rules of math must not apply to paint.  It never covers the calculated area of the wall...minus the windows and doors...times 2.5 coats... Wait!  I always forget to calculate the quantity of liquid the average paint roller retains no matter how hard you roll.

Mixed bag of ****, fun decorating fun grandkids,and the Abby dilemma

The bedroom is painted except for a bit of touch up on the trim.  I don't want to do it till I'm into the trim paint for finishing the bathroom.  The bathroom has the 2 coats on the ceiling, all the cutting in on the walls, and 1/2 the first coat on the rest of the walls.  Soooo...it's on to the rest of the first coat, and then the second/touch up coat, and the trim, and oh wait... The grandkids are here for a one day visit so that Megan can pickup Brian Robbins and his wife at the airport.  I am really looking forward to seeing them.  But today is devoted to a little clean up and battening down the hatches.  I should still be able to finish the painting before the Seattle trip.

The thing that weighs heavy right now is Abby.  I alternate between obsessive worry and distracting myself from the clock ticking on her life.  She is partially blind, mostly deaf, and is having a lot of trouble getting up and down because of her arthritis.  The latter is the biggest issue in a two story house.  It is impossible to untrain a 13 year-old dog who has always slept next to your bed.  So she depends on Morgan to carry her up at night.  And now she is waking up at 3 or 4 in the morning to go outside.  She can manage to get down pretty well most of the time, but if I try to go back to bed she barks.  She doesn't want to stay downstairs by herself.  A few nights I slept on the couch.  Last night Morgan came back down so I could go back to bed.  It gets worse every day and I will be leaving in a couple of weeks.  So I am thinking of putting her to sleep before I leave.  Sam says she pines when I'm gone and with everything going downhill so rapidly I am afraid she will need to be put down while I am away.  So end it all a little prematurely for convenience sake?  Now you get the guilt, right?  I have already had one bad dream over this.  I see more in my future.

My Room Re-do

I think I am almost done with the neverending paint job.  Just a bit of touch up on the trim and ceiling--- 30 minutes at most!  I have the new lamps in (sorry Megan but I'm keeping them) and next wash day I will put on the new bedding.  Still have a few ugly holdouts in the room, but the budget man says they stay for now.  Sunday is the grand opening for the Home Goods store on my end of town.  8am.  There is a $1000 shopping spree up for grabs.  I know.  I have no luck, but wait!  I won a $50 gas giftcard when I gave blood last time and I never win anything.  So maybe my luck has changed.  It is definitely worth a shot.

So the next thing is to paint the bathroom.  I want to paint the closet too but that will probably have to wait until after my trip to Seattle.  Once this is done I can get into the drawing and painting again.

Another Art Show!

Larry, my drawing and painting instructor, is arranging for another show in mid-October.  It will involve many of his students and be similar to the show we put together last summer at Tucson International Airport.  So the pastel of mixed prickly pear I had framed for the pastel show that never got shown will go in this one, along with my watercolor of a barrio door.  I can put in one more if I wish, but if it needs framing I'm not sure I can do it.  It would be great if something would sell this time but once again I won't hold my breath.  One thing I want to say:  I suck at naming my artwork.  For instance, my watercolor of pomegranites with a green pitcher is called, "Pomegranites with Green Pitcher."  So what do you call a pastel of prickly pear or a watercolor of a barrio door?  Good thing I didn't become a writer.  I could never get published if I couldn't come up with better titles than that.

Strip-tease

Emphasis on tease.  Stripping the wallpaper border is on-going.  I feel it taunting me.  So ignoring the last wall behind the heaviest furniture, I am moving forward with some of the painting.  The ceiling has one and a half coats but I have to run for more paint today.  And I plan to paint the other walls before moving out the heavy stuff.  Then maybe inspired by the progress, I can power through the last wall.  We still may have to sleep a couple of nights in the guestroom. 

Yesterday our power was out (from about 4:30 to 10:30pm) and the 112 degree heat gave us a run for our money.  I was glad I hadn't worn myself out earlier because we had to laze about like lizards in the heat. I did use some of the time to read some more in Richard McKinley's book Pastel Pointers.  Have to say it is the most comprehensive resource I have yet found on pastel art.  It covers materials, technique, plein aire, traveling with supplies, marketing, you-name-it.  Makes me itch to get back in the saddle again.
 
Meanwhile it's back to the necessary chores.  Pick up paint. Run to Costco. Let's get this room done.  Then maybe some new furniture?  Hmmmmm....

MIA

Seems I've been gone too long.  I am trying to get my house in order, literally.  Art is at a standstill while I try to get some things caught up around the house.  I have been wanting to repaint my bedroom, which involves removing an ancient Victorian-inspired (blech!) wallpaper border.  What was I thinking in the early nineties?  And now I have the tools which worked so well at my son's house in Gilbert.  Not so much here.  One hour later, I had removed exactly 4 ft. of border. At this rate I will have the border down in a couple of months.  I am currently trying to figure out how to get my steamer appliance up high enough to steam the paper loose.  I want the whole room done before leaving on vacation in August.

Art-wise, I had forgotten about the pastel show at the Drawing Studio.  All of the pastel class students received an invite to submit a piece for a show (and potential sale) in June.  I read the email and chose to formally frame rather than simply informally matt the piece as I thought it would travel better.  When I emailed for more details to make sure I priced it to cover the framing cost after the Studio's commission, I was told they were only hanging matted work to keep the show uniform.  Why didn't someone figure that out before sending the original email?  I was disappointed and didn't have anything else I wanted to show or the time to matt another piece.  So I missed the opportunity to participate.  Bummer!

The Value of Values

One of the challenges I am trying to master in my paintings is values.  I think it has a lot to do with the excitement I get out of using the brights.  And what I have discovered is that the brights look much more alive when layered over the appropriate darker values.  This absolutely aligns with what my instructor has told me.  Coming from watercolor, I am in the habit of starting with very light values and adding the middle and finishing with the darks.  That is not quite what I do with pastels but for some reason I have been grabbing the middle values in their most intense, truest hue, and then trying to fix it, adding darks and lights and eventually making a muddy mess.  So I am resetting my brain.  No more jumping in feet first without a plan.  From now on I am taking my time.  I am studying the subject to determine the order of things: where are the darkest darks?  middle darks?  Is it time to spray a little fixative to stabilize the layers before proceeding?  Patience is my mantra.  All good things will come when the time is right.  Better a slow great piece of art than a speedy mediocre waste of time and paper.

A Break from Classes

My sister is returning to California today.  We pick up my grandson in Chandler on Wednesday and come back only to pick up my daughter and son-in-law from Seattle at the airport around 11pm.  We have all three of them for about a week.  So I am taking a break from pastel classes for a session.  I may still make it to some of the drawing and watercolor classes around the family visits.  I think all of the classes will be on sabatical through most of June, July, and August.  So...here is where I become the dedicated artist that works independently and steadily without supervision or deadlines.  Hmmm.  I have always worked better if I have structure.  I know it is just a mind trick but I may have to give myself assignments and block out a calendar.  Meanwhile, I have some housekeeping to catch up on before company arrives.  And babyproofing.  Which involves stowing the pastels safely away.  It only takes once to remind me of the potential for trouble.  My grandson, Hunter, once got into my transfer paper and was only to happy to show grandma his graphite blackened hands. 

Art and the Tech World

I've been fighting with my computer for the last 24 hrs.  It seems to think it's on vacation.  I may need to have my tech expert clean its clock. So, I have been working on my pastel homework assignment.  It is supposed to be a landscape with leanings toward the abstract.  I am not sure if it is as abstract as Pat had in mind.  It is much more abstract than I would usually work.  When I get a handle on the uploading thing I will start putting pictures of my work up so you can get an idea of some of my struggles. One of the things I am trying to get used to with pastel is working from dark to light.  In watercolor you work in the reverse of that.  You have to save your whites; protect them at all costs because you can never get them back once the paint is touched to paper.  With pastel, I fight with the idea that you work your darks first.  What is the policy when your darks are in the foreground and your lights are in the back?  It then becomes counter intuitive for me.  This is the reason for the blog.  I am looking forward to having feedback when questions arise. I also need critique on my work since most of us become myopic when we get creative.  Not sure if I will have time for new posts next week since I have family coming for a visit.  But I will have my homework ready, even if my house isn't spotless.

The Purpose

I want to start off with the original purpose of this blog, which is creating art.  I don't know that I will always stick to topic but it is important to get started right.  Today I will talk about color, because that is what seems to bring most people to the world of soft pastel.  I had originally been working in graphite and colored pencil.  Graphite boils it all down to seeing the form.  The pencil point is quite specific and a bit time consuming.  But the effect is gentle because the black is not inky but really warm.  Colored pencil gives you more scope for the senses but once again is slow and steady.  Now pastel!  That color is so immediate and Wow!  I read about the structure of the medium, and there is science behind the intensity of the color.  The particles of pigment are linked together into a stick with a binder.  The substance and quantity used determines the hardness of the product.  Less binder, more velvety pastel.  This immediacy of pigment to paper is one reason why pastels appear so intense.  The other reason is the science of light.  Because the particles of pigment are crystalline form, light bounces off the tiny facets and reflects back to the viewer.  Paint pigments can't do this because the particles are floating in a medium and can't pick up the light in the same fashion as pastel.  So there you are.  If this didn't bore you maybe you will come visit again.  But I had to share what makes pastel so addicting.  It's color, color, color!

Old Dogs and New Tricks

Well, this is a fine mess I've gotten into.  I have to credit Pat Dolan for pushing me off this particular cliff.  Pat is my pastel instructor and she said Yes! I should start a blog so that I can talk about my experiences in art, especially as someone new to pastel painting.  So this is my blog.  Its humble beginnings can be likened to a simple log cabin, because I certainly have few skills in this area.  I am in my pajamas, it is two o'clock in the morning, and I decided I would just google "how to start a blog".  And here I am!  Okay, I guess this shows some skill.  I can turn on a computer.  I can surf the web.  I can shop online.  I know you think that last bit has nothing to do with blogging, but if I hadn't bought those pastels online I would never have met Pat and she wouldn't have encouraged this insanity.  Now for the things I don't know about blogging.  I don't know how often I am expected to post.  I don't know how to put pictures on it.  I don't know how people will find me.  (Should I google me and see if I'm here? Or maybe that would be google maps)  I can certainly think of several good reasons why this blog is a bad idea.  My typing is so rusty.  I am not widely known for sticking with things.  I am no expert on anything so I'm not sure what I should be contributing to the universe.  But I will go ahead and put this out there and maybe go back to bed.  And when I wake up it will all have been a dream and Toto and I will  be in black and white once more.  After all, there's no place like home!