so much for the mild winter, painting update, and mysteries

Our mild winter is scheduled to come to a screeching halt the second week in January as a polar vortex comes spiraling down dropping us into the 20s for two nights. Damn. Everything blooming and still green will die back. This is what's left of the monster rose bush. All that growth was upright but without all the growth underneath supporting it the first windy day blew it over to rest on the ground but I love the puddle of petals at the bottom. Sorry the picture is so dark but it was midday when I was over there and I was facing the sun. 

I’ll have to deal with dead banana trees which is a major pain in the ass chore. And I’ll have to cover the ponytail palm which is another pain in the ass chore especially if it’s windy which it usually is when I’m trying to cover it. And I’ll have to bring in the plumerias and the night blooming cereus which are even bigger than they were last year. The cereus is going to get pruned back some because it is just a monster. The biggest plumeria is planted in the ground and two pots are sunk. I’ve already talked to my grandson about helping me get those out and in the garage next Saturday. In anticipation, I rearranged the garage Sunday and brought the extra folding table in and set it up in front of the etched glass windows in my bedroom for the smaller things and the stag horn which is also bigger and almost too heavy for me to lift. Guess I’ll start moving things in towards the end of the week.

I worked on my painting all weekend. I’m not completely satisfied. I toned down the yellow a little more by adding a light blue wash as suggested by a commenter. The green at the bottom still needs…something. Composition-wise, the green is too even across the top for one thing and I’m thinking the background needs some subtle vertical elements. Also I can’t decide if the green is too dark or not dark enough at the very bottom. If it’s too dark overall, there’s not much I can do about that. So I’m going to just let it sit for a few days. I’ve removed the cut outs protecting the trees so this is how it looks now. I don’t think I need them for whatever I do next if anything but if so I can put them back on. Most of all I keep telling myself that this was a learning exercise. As usual the colors come out a little more saturated than the actual painting with my phone camera.

We’re all aware I’m sure that Jimmy Carter has left this earth. He was a better president than he got credit for I think and robbed of a second term by republicans. Carter had already reached an agreement to get the hostages freed from Iran but Reagan did an illegal backroom deal with Iran to hold them until after the election. Reagan won and thus began the movement of wealth up to the richest Americans and the hollowing out the middle class. After leaving the White House, Carter devoted his life to living his religious beliefs, doing what he could to help and lift up those less fortunate, a rare thing these days. The world is poorer in deed and spirit with his passing.

Two mysteries…

I got an anonymous comment, which I allow, on my last post yesterday, but mostly they are legitimate comments. Not this one. It was one word repeated at least 100 times, one big paragraph of the word ’die’. Why is it haters are always anonymous? Such a cowardly act. Was this supposed to make me sad or fearful? Did my art offend them? They don’t like roses? Or just some rando picking me and that post at random to vent their own unhappiness.

The other big mystery happened today. Got a package delivered from Amazon addressed to me and with the correct address; a bottle CO Q-10 gel caps. I didn’t order them, there is no charge on my credit card, and there is no record of the purchase on the account our family uses. Ah, mystery solved. My brother ordered them but his app had me as the default from when he sent me salmon for the holiday and he didn’t notice.

 

windy sultry day, mulling over my painting

There’s a strong south wind blowing today and it’s overcast and sultry, spitting rain now and then. I had the door to the little backyard open for a while. The rose bushes are at the south end but that wind blew a single rose petal into the house.

I mentioned previously that the roses were blooming. 

This is the sister to the monster rose bush over in the shop yard that I cut back drastically last month. While I was doing that this one in my yard just outside the fence around the little backyard exploded with growth. It will also get cut back severely when it stops blooming. These both came from cuttings I took of the one I had at my city house that my neighbor gave me as a cutting off her rose bush. I actually made three. The third I sent to Mary Moon and it now lives in Florida.

I’ve been working on the background of my painting. I’d like to get it finished before Monday. No particular reason for the Monday deadline other than I just want to be done with it. As I posted, the first little wash was a bit of blue at the top and I really liked the way it looked but then Thursday I started adding the yellow and green of the distant foliage and I really am not happy. Now that the first watered down yellow base wash and the light green base wash has dried the yellow is so intense even watered down and I’m wishing I had just done a patchy blue all the way. I mulled it over Thursday night during wakeful times, trying to think of what to do. I even thought I could cut the tree trunks out and place them on a new sheet of paper which would allow me to do a different background and also give a little dimension to the finished piece. (I may still do that). But because this is typical for me, not liking where I’m at in a process, whether I’m carving a model out of wax or sketching out a design for an etched glass commission or doing anything really, I’m just soldiering on.

Yesterday I took a wet paper towel and lifted some of the first yellow wash pigment and then used a sponge to splotch on the next orangey yellow. Then I waited for the paper to dry so I could add the last brownish yellow with a brush though I may put a light wash of brown over the whole thing. Then go through the same process with the green shrubbery at the bottom.

Turns out I didn’t get any more time to work on the painting yesterday because yesterday was Marcmas! Our son came out for a visit from the city and our daughter came over with her traditional gift of bagels from The Bagel Shop in Houston and then we all went out for a late lunch and margaritas at the Mexican restaurant here, just our core family. Of course I love my grandkids and great grandkid but there’s something special when it’s just the four of us, when our kids aren’t distracted by their spouses, children, and grandchild.

I did a bit of the brownish yellow which looks more yellow orange, so here's how it was this morning.

It’s a little misleading as the tree trunks aren’t the ones I painted but are cut out from a copy of the picture printed on card stock, taped at the bottom and top to protect the ones I painted while I work on the background. I think I’m going use the sponge instead of the paint brush to add more of the brownish yellow and then the brush to add in some brown. I may even put a light wash of brown over the whole thing to tone down the yellow because I want the tree trunks to be the focus of the painting, not the background.

Ended up I used the sponge with the brown instead of trying a light wash. I'm more pleased with it now. Tomorrow I'll concentrate on the green tones at the bottom.

a quiet day

I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t do christmas. There are many reasons and evolutions of my dislike of the holiday. I’ve written about some of them in the past and may do so again in the future, but not today. In a way, now, it’s one of my favorite days. Weird, right? But it’s a ‘dead’ day. It’s a day in which there are no expectations, no demands on my time or attention, no things that need to be done because the country has basically shut down, quiet and still. I couldn’t get anything done even if I wanted to. It’s a day when I can do whatever I want or not do anything. 

So what did I do yesterday? I wrote some, sort of a chapter in the biography of my life which I may add to at some point and I may or may not ever publish. I worked on my painting finishing the last tree and starting on the background,

I made an apple crostata with some of the apples from SHARE. 

I fed the outdoor cats and gave them their daily dose of affection. Even Twin who now lets me pet him fully with long strokes before I put out the food instead of just his head while he eats though I have to approach him slowly. It took almost a year for him to trust me enough for this while I’ve been able to pick up and cuddle the other two for six months.

And now that the day is over I can post a picture of my latest drawing. I did it as a gift for my brother. He and Pam exchanged gifts every year but it’s been decades since I sent him anything even though he always sends some edible goodie to me. But Pam is gone, the glue that held us together so now more effort is required of me to have a better relationship with my brother. So, one of the things my brother does is keep honey bees, hence the subject of this drawing. The bee itself is 3" x 3", colored pencil.

Speaking of bees, this bumble bee was burrowing deep into the throats of the pink trumpet flowers.

light, a star, painting progress

Now that I finally hung all the rest of my crystals in the east facing windows and the tallow and the pecan behind it have dropped all their leaves and the mornings are clear my room is awash with prisms cast on the walls, ceiling, floor, cabinets, inanimate objects, even the dog; some sharp, some indistinct. What took me so long to get them all hung!

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Last Friday was the open house at Hesed House and Kate, who did the origami workshop was showing people how to make a star so of course I showed up. 

The other thing was that Kel who was an intern at Hesed House for a summer, who had led the series of cardiac drumming sessions, however long ago that’s been (a year and a half, longer?) has graduated college with a degree in physical therapy and was back for a visit and a one time only cardiac drumming session that night and so again, of course I went to that. 

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This year in an effort to reclaim the solstice, to be an active part, however small, of the ancient traditions of the longest night and the faith that the light would return and that nature would reawaken, I gathered some of the roses in bloom, I cut a small bough from the cedar tree, made a small altar and lit a candle during the longest night. 

Of course, down here with the mild winter we are having this year, nothing has gone to sleep or rest. The roses and other things are in bloom, some of the spring weeds are already sprouting, the days have been mild but I will be glad for the longer hours of daylight. 

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I finally had some time this weekend to work on my painting. Now just one more trunk to do and then I can work on the background.

object #4 and random pics

My life in 100 objects. Object #4 is my ponytail palm. 

This was a wedding gift from one of the guys that Marc worked with at the Hughes Tool factory where he was working when I met him and was still working when we got married. The ponytail palm was small and unpotted when Henry showed up with it at our wedding. I remember a picture of Henry sitting on the couch holding it around the one neck with it balanced on his knee but a quick run through of the picture album from that day did not turn it up. I wish it had so you could see how it started and how it is now. Or maybe it’s just a memory in my head, seeing Henry sitting there with it on his knee. Regardless, I potted it up and over the years it sprouted two more necks, kept growing getting put in ever larger pots. Eventually it got so big that it couldn’t be moved around and it lived on the driveway in front of the garage converted into the shop. 

The last time I repotted it it went in a 3’ diameter formed plastic circular pond in which it continued to grow until it burst the sides of the pond and was probably about 8’ tall, up to the eave of the shop surviving our light freezes during the winters, too big to even think about trying to cover. Then we had a winter that went into the 20s  that killed my plumeria tree that was in the ground and froze the ponytail necks all the way to the bulb. I was afraid that the whole thing had frozen but it sprouted new growth in the spring. A few years later when we bought the shop across the street out here and we sold the Houston property we managed to get that enormous and heavy busted pond full of ponytail palm bulb in the truck and brought it out here where I planted it in the ground on the shop property on the south side of the concrete bunker with the help of my grandson. Of the last four winters that have sent temperatures into the 20s even though I covered it, during the first two all the new growth froze to the bulb, but the last two, last winter and the one before it, I managed to cover it more effectively and the necks have survived. They aren’t tall enough to be seen and it has at least 24 sprouted all over the bulb which you also can’t see because the leaves hang almost to the ground. It looks much like Cousin It, a big round bulb with a mop top and is now almost four feet in diameter. Just for perspective, that concrete wall behind it is 4’ high. I have had this plant for as long as Marc and I have been married…48 years.

Other random pictures…

I turned a tub over that was upside down over behind Pam’s house and this little lady was hiding within.

One of the leeks from making the potato leek soup. I love how they look sliced in half lengthwise.

Minnie on a cold morning. She was in my lap and I had gotten up to get a cup of coffee. She was peeking out from the blanket covering her when I came back.

The pink heritage rose in the flowerbed in back. I’m going to have to prune it back some this spring. I don’t want it getting bigger.

This is a Christmas decoration in a neighbor’s yard on the next street over. It reminds more of Hansel and Gretel than Christmas. 

dreams, painting progress, origami

I dreamed about my sister last night. There were two scenes. The first one I was walking into a space to see Pam and a woman I didn’t know was there and told me she and Pam were going to make skirts and my sister was pulling out her dresses from a closet and hanging them up on a hook. Pam said the woman thought she should make her dresses into skirts. What about the skirts you and I made (this never happened in life), I asked. (A man’s name I can’t remember) borrowed it she said and hasn’t returned it yet. That she was going to do this with someone else made me sad and I left. The second scene I was going to lunch with some people, one was a man I had just met, at a cafeteria or someplace like that and we had to get in line but I heard that my sister was outside and I went down some stairs to find her leaving the other people behind. She was there with another woman. I asked her why she was being with people I didn’t know when I hadn’t seen or heard from her in a week. The other woman gestured to Pam and pointed out that she was pregnant. You have a whole new life and new friends that don’t include me I said, to which she did not reply. Well, I have to go feed the cats, I said and walked off feeling immensely sad and then I woke up near tears.

I think I should be happy. I think maybe this dream was telling me that Pam is well and having a good life with new people and pregnant. In this life she had to have a hysterectomy after her second daughter was born premature. She wouldn’t be able to carry another baby because her uterus was not strong enough. I hope she is happy in this new life because I don’t think she was happy in this one, not really. I could elaborate on that about why but I won’t. There were good things, of course, but life just didn’t turn out for her the way she desired.

When I went back to sleep I dreamed that I went to an art gallery that was having the opening of a show but it was just a big warehouse type building filled with trestle tables and where food was being served buffet style. The ends of the tables were about 5’ from the wall with the art so that you couldn’t step back to look at it, just up close. The art was kind of modern and not very good I thought. After I had gotten to the end of the wall I turned to my left to leave when the man I had just met in the dream about Pam was coming toward me. He took my hand and said let’s find someplace to sit so we can talk and then I woke up.

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I worked on my painting more on Sunday and Monday, haven’t had any time for it since so maybe Friday I can work on it some more. Reposting the most recent version so you can see the progress more clearly.

This is the current state after working on it two more days.

Yesterday was the origami ornament workshop. We made two, a big one 6 1/2” in diameter (blue) and a small one 3 1/3” in diameter (white). Robin picked it up quickly and finished her two before I did, but then I wasted time working on the tassel on the big one. The top and bottom were made separately and then stuck together with double sided tape which was the hardest part for me.

I got my first ‘are you ready for Christmas’ question today at the dentist’s office getting my teeth cleaned. I expect to be asked that many times in the next week, especially at SHARE tomorrow. I don’t bother explaining that I don’t do Christmas, just smile with my standard answer, ‘ready as I’ll ever be’. And by that I mean avoiding as much of the christmas ads on TV for christmas movies and merchandise, the christmas music in stores, and the questions about my supposed christmas celebration as possible.

One more thing. Those two cold nights in the 30s last week finally triggered color in whatever leaves hadn’t drifted down yet. My ginkgos were bright yellow, the crepe myrtles in the area were orange torches, the tallow trees were bright red, other trees varying shades of orange and yellow. All this color has been followed by a massive leaf drop. My pecans, gingkos, oaks, tallows, and crepe myrtles are all but bare now and the yard is covered with a layer of leaves

 

painting progress and other activity

I started on my painting Friday, got the first base color on the two large trunks. Now that it’s dry the color is a little darker than I wanted so I may try lifting some pigment off with a wet paper towel. I used different techniques on each one. The one on the right was color on dry paper and the one on the left was color on wet paper. The one on the left came out more uniform. Still have to do a lot of work on each one.

Last Thursday before yoga class I mentioned my most recent drawing and showed it to Stephanie and Susan and then showed them some of the other drawings, pictures on my phone. Stephanie runs Hesed House and they have a little market in the Welcome Center of handmade items from local artisans and some food stuff like the local honey and she said they are always looking for new items to add and what did I think about making prints of my drawings or even the originals as there was some nice wall space that needed something or note cards. I’d been thinking of having some note cards made with a selection of my drawings but it never occurred to me to have numbered prints made to be framed and hung. So Friday I talked to my kids, Sarah and Aaron, who both work in a print shop that has the equipment and skills to make quality prints and notecards. So, that’s happening. Sarah is going to come get my sketchbook and get the drawings scanned in and work up some samples for me to decide on size and paper.

I signed Robin and I up for a workshop next Tuesday at Hesed House. A woman is doing a series of little craft projects. The first was pressed flower tea towels which I missed. This next one is origami Christmas ornaments. You all know I don’t do Christmas, will not be putting these on a Christmas tree but I love origami and what the hell, why not? One of the first things I taught my grandkids to do when they got old enough to accurately fold paper was origami. 

Today is sunny but Saturday was mostly overcast with some sun peeking out now and then but most importantly, warm! A friend asked if the pink trumpet flower bush made seeds, it doesn’t, because she would like to have one. So I went over and cut three green stick cuttings and two hardwood cutting to see if I could get one to root for her. The hardwood and one of the green stick cuttings are dipped in rooting compound and in a small pot of dirt and in plastic bags to make a miniature greenhouse ( my sister’s trick). The other two green stick cuttings are in water so we’ll see if I have some success. If Pam were still alive I’d give the cuttings to her and she would hand me back 5 new plants. 

Remember that cheap $14 bird feeder I bought that turned out to be…cheap? 

I enlarged two of the slots a little but it still doesn’t allow the seed to flow easily and the cupped dish that holds the seed also holds water when it rains. It had three tiny holes that were supposed to drain the water. Guess what, they don’t so yesterday I used a screwdriver and a hammer to punch 5 bigger holes in the tray.

Here’s my progress yesterday on the painting. I tend to overwork stuff and I definitely did on these tree trunks, kept adding and lifting pigment and degraded the paper in a few places trying to get it to look more like the picture. So last night as I was going to bed I had a sort of epiphany. The picture is the source of inspiration, not what the painting needs to or should be. So I hope I’ll be less anal, as my friend Gene would say, going forward.