dammit all

More fucking rain.

I got both my errands done Tuesday morning plus a minor rescue, going to get my sister from the tire store (flat tire, can't be fixed, nobody has the right one, has to be ordered, leaving her car at the tire shop), and got over to the shop and worked for an hour and a half, came home for lunch and General Hospital (don't judge) and as soon as it was over and I was ready to go back over to the studio it started raining. Really?! Had only rained hard for about 5 minutes before water started standing in the side yard and probably in the front and back as well. That's how saturated the ground is. It let up enough for me to get back over to the studio after about 40 minutes and I put in another 2 hours or so.

So here's Tuesday's progress. First I went around the edge of the feather with the black where the rocks are, built up the white a little more in various places as I went, and then started in filling in the rocks. As you can see I only got four done but now it ought to go faster. I don't have to be quite so meticulous with the rocks as the background will be the black sand mix.

I expect some of the black will bleed into the edges of the feather as it will melt before the white does (that whole soft vs stiff glass I mentioned before) and normally I hate when one color bleeds into the space of another color because I'm anal like that so I'm hoping it won't be too bad. At any rate, I've told myself that whatever, You. Are. Going. To. Like. It. Since it can't be helped and it was my choice to put black next to white though the feather is supposed to be gray. I'm at the point now where I'm second guessing the feather. Did I sift enough of the transparent gray powder? Did the water droplets I used adding the second layer of white disrupt the gray powder underneath? Just suck it up and continue on.

Wednesday's progress, shy of another two and a half hours, built up the black against the feather and the white as needed, more rocks.

And now for something completely different...

I'm turning a blind eye to politics lately. Just can't deal with it. Nothing seems to be changing for the better, the two democrat senators in name only holding up the show and in the meantime republicans are bearing down with their authoritarianism. Fucking Texas governor Abbott and the fucking under indictment lt. governor Paxton and the fucking republican state congress passed a heartbeat bill making abortion illegal in the state once a heartbeat is detected usually at about 6 weeks before most women even know they are pregnant and it's the size of a pea. Not satisfied with that, they legalized a $10,000 bounty for anyone who turns in a woman who had an abortion after 6 weeks and of course the doctor and the women will be prosecuted (fortunately a lawsuit has already been filed). And the democrats had to leave the state to prevent republicans from passing their voter suppression bill facing arrest when they return. And the gov wants Texans to pony up to continue to build The Wall along the state's border with Mexico. Our failing power grid? No concern about that, they're making money so what's the prob? And this is just local politics. I can't even read Heather Cox Richardson's newsletters anymore. So I'm glad to be back in the studio and away from the internet.

Pssst. Come closer, I don't want to say this too loud. Whispers it didn't rain here yesterday.