Thursday. Rain. And more rain.

Rain Rain Go Away

I know a calender filled with nothing but sunshiny days isn't really very likely here in the foothills of western North Carolina. There are four seasons, and each one brings it's own kind of weather. It just seems like Mother Nature would be nice and give us a little break after all the cold and snow of Winter, rolling us right along into a lovely green Spring.

Nope.

In early March she teases you with some warm days. For a blissful few days you get to throw open your windows and let the warm air circulate through the house, pushing out all those closed-up Winter blahs. It's so nice ... and so deceiving.

Hot on the heels of those tricksy teaser days Mother N. likes giving all that impending green a good head start with a month of rain. Buckets of it. Good, old fashioned 'gully washer' downpours. She also likes to turn the temperature back down a bit so you have to shut all the windows again, and crank your heat back on. Not so nice.

Y'all, I can't begin to express just how ready I am for warm days and sunshine. Yeah, yeah ... I do love my fuzzy socks and my warm sweaters. I really do. But I really, really like sunshine. I hope it gets here soon.

Namaste', y'all ...

12 weeks with little green pills.

The mysterious Vitamin D ...

Picked up a prescription today for a mega, massive, OMG dose of Vitamin D, pretty green pills which look small and relatively harmless ...

Seems the blood/lab work I had done indicates I have a Vitamin D deficiency. Basically, I've felt like this ...

... for over a year now and it sucks in a major way. So much so that I finally caved and went to the doctor fully prepared to gobble down just about any medication he pimped out to me. All my symptoms seemed to fit Hypothyroidism, and I was expecting to end up having to take some kind of nasty drug, every day, for the rest of my natural life. Was a bit surprised by the Vitamin D diagnosis. Not happy about it, but honestly, I'm really glad it wasn't something "serious". Either way, I'm to the point that I'll do pretty much anything if it will just make me start feeling better, ya' know?

Hopefully, in a few weeks I'll start to feel like this ...

This would be even better ...

I'm aiming for this ...

Namaste', y'all ...

Troublesome turtle in my studio; turquoise with sparkles in my kitchen.

Shame on me for not posting for so long. I've been busy! Painting! Turtles! Turquoise! Fun!

Right off the bat I'm going to say that I'm well aware a sparkly turquoise kitchen isn't everyone's cup of tea. Kinda' like a '57 Chevy Bel Air, only without a set of wheels. This color has a bit of a retro vibe (which I love!) yet a dash of contemporary style, too.

The paint color is 'Water Lily' in Valspar Signature Colors semi-gloss paint Valspar Paint Crystals in silver, both from Lowe's. Personally, I think it's awesome. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good photo with the sparkles. They are very subtle in daylight, but by golly they are absolutely gorgeous in the ambient light from the living room in the evening.

Every time I walk into the kitchen I see how this wall over the counter glitters like crazy and I can't help but giggle.

I actually have very little wall space in the kitchen. I think that's how I can get away with such an intense color without it being completely overwhelming. I really like the dramatic color play between the black tiles and appliances, the honey oak cabinetry and that screaming turquoise.

Of course, there's still work to do. Have to make curtains. Add (and remove) some accessories. I'm thinking about accent colors of lighter aqua, shades of lavender, maybe wee touches of butter yellow, and copper - which would match my kitchen faucet and cabinet handles. We will eventually replace the linoleum as well. My 'some day' vision with the room is a blend of the retro and the contemporary. I'd like to find old canisters to paint, or maybe a set in a bright copper. I really want everything to be streamlined and uncluttered. Less is more with this kind of paint job!

Speaking of paint jobs ...

My sea turtles looked like this the last time I posted their progress ...

They stayed in limbo for a couple of days. I looked at them, looked at them, and looked at them some more. I carried that canvas all over the house, propping it up in different places, evaluating it in different lighting and from different angles. Just so you know, the intention is for this painting to hang over the commode in the master bath ... yeah, I know.

I tried adding more white swirls. I tried adding more ... well, I tried a number of different things and it simply wasn't happening.

Yes, I started over.

I broke out the Golden Molding Medium, large palette knife, several colors of paint, and swished it all over the canvas ...

Got some great texture ...

I really like the swirls and mixes of color ...

I added one turtle back (instead of a herd!) ...

Slapped some color on it ...

Tried some spiral stuff ...

Hated that so I used a small palette knife to mush paint/molding medium on the turtle ...

Put some detail on the shell ...

Close up of detail ...

And that's were it is at this point. I'm still working, still looking, still pondering what I feel it needs. I want it 'calm', but not quite so plain. Today I intend to paint a white "waves" around the big gray circle. Have no idea where it will go from there. We'll see what happens!

Oh, yeah ... just for snorts and giggles ...

With wheels!

Namaste', y'all ...

Some days are kinda' like a surprise party!

Thursdays are my "town" days. I get up, get ready, and get myself into town to take care of assorted errands like hauling off the trash, going to the post office, grocery shopping, etc. Yeah, I know, it's a blast.

This morning I took a detour on my way to the PO and stopped at a one of the local thrift stores to do a little pilfering. I'd been trying to get there for a couple of weeks but they were closed on the couple of days I had ventured into town. I'm still on the hunt for cheap, repurposable decorating stuff. So far I haven't had much luck finding anything.

Today wasn't any different in that endeavor ... although! ... I did make a great 'find' for one of my favorite hobbies. A stack of knitting magazines! I saw them as soon as I walked in the door and immediately asked about price. I was hoping for about 25¢ ea. or so. Nice lady at the counter said, "Dear, those are get three free with a purchase." Naturally, I wasn't deterred. I asked again, "Yeah, but how much if I just want to buy the magazines?" Nice lady got all flustered and called for back-up.

Nice lady #2 came out of the office and nice lady #1 babbled out her dilemma over my wanting to pay for free magazines. Nice lady #2 says, "Sweetheart, those magazines are get three free with purchase."

?What the heck? I may not be the brightest crayon in the box when it comes to math, but come on ... really? If I'm offering you money for something you planned to give away for free, wouldn't you just say Okay! and take it? Isn't that pretty much a no-brainer?

I put on my best smile, swallowed hard on the sarcastic remark I wanted to make, and instead replied, "Yes ma'am, I do believe I understand that. But I don't want to purchase anything, I just want these magazines. All of 'em. Now, how 'bout I give you five bucks and we call it a happy day?"

Nice lady #2 got all flustered and flapped her hands around in the air a bit.

I stood there, smiling, magazines clutched in a death grip in my arms. I think my look of crazy determination tipped her over the edge because she stuttered a couple of times and then said, "Well, um ... well, um ... I guess you could, uh ... put a little donation in the jar and, uh, I guess we could let you have them."

I slapped five bucks in that donation jar faster than a duck on a June bug and made a bee line for the truck. I didn't want to give her even one minute to think about it. Deal. Paid. Done. Gone.

This was my haul ...

Am quite pleased and will be sitting down with a lovely cup of tea to peruse my magazines later this evening.

When I pulled in the driveway I saw a box on the back porch. Thrill! My Dick Blick order came! I'm the proud new owner of these wondermosly fantabulously froggie-green paintbrushes ...

They are the Liquitex Freestyle. I saw them a couple of months ago at A.C. Moore Arts & Crafts store in Asheville and have been sending up prayers ever since to get them for my very own. And Ta! Da! Mine! I'd gotten the Dick Blick catalog (which is pretty much a book of crack for artists) in the mail the other day. Big ol' sale they were having. I didn't see the brushes, but when I checked their site online ... Low & Behold! ... those pretty green babies were right there, on sale, my name on them. Called the husband and warned him. I even got expedited shipping.

I have a particular piece I want to do with these. I think they'll be perfect for portraiture work and other similar types of painting. Can't wait to get started!

As an added bonus to the day, the sun was shining and the periwinkle along the driveway is blooming in a lovely carpet of little purple flowers!

Namaste', y'all ...

Back to square one.

Sometimes you work, and work, and work on a piece of art and nothing comes together on paper (canvas) like your head has visions of it being. That, y'all, is most definitely what's happening with these sea turtles. UGH!

After the texture medium was good and dry I used the Elmer's glue to outline the turtle shells ...

A couple of hours later I put on the first layer of color ...

Then more color ...

Detail of color ...

More color and a dash or two of iridescent glitter for fun ...

Detail of color and glitter ...

When all that was dry I washed on a mixture of white, very pale purple and aqua to begin the foaming of the waves ...

I tweaked and tinkered and tweaked some more until I realized it just wasn't coming together.

Right now, I'm waiting for the nice, fresh coat of texture medium I spread over the entire thing to dry. When it's ready, it's going to get a pretty coating of gesso to obliterate everything I've done thus far and make it a blank white canvas again. When all else fails, drop back and punt.

Namaste', y'all ...

Sea turtles swimming in my head!

I'm back to being a copy cat again. This is from my 'clipped art' files ...

Turtle Wave Wall Sculpture, designed by Joanne Ferrara (whom, sadly, I can find no information on to share with you) which I found in the previously mentioned Touch Of Class home decor catalog.

I'm also inspired by these images ...

Sea Turtle. I stumbled across this painting while surfing the net. I was floored to read it was created by an artist in St. Charles, Missouri named Samantha Davidson ... who is 11 (yes eleven) years old. Holy crap! Awesome. Intimidating. I would like to have it for my very own.

Sea Turtle Wall Art. I found this, again, while net surfing. No information about the artist. Bummer. I love the colors.

Sea Turtle Tile. Hawaiian Tile created by artists Christiane Jones on the island of Hawaii and Tracy Lamon on the island of Maui. They do some very lovely work. What I like about this tile is, naturally, the color palette, but also the raised outline of the turtle and shell. I had the idea of doing something similar with mine and using Golden Gel medium to fill in the spaces to give the shells depth and dimension yet allowing the painting underneath to show through. Imagine putting a small puddle of Elmer's glue over a spot on a painting. When the Elmer's dries it will be clear and what's underneath will show through. Could be interesting.


At this point, I've gotten the canvas drawn off with the basic sketch ...

Added Golden Molding Medium with the help of one of my assistants ...

Which looks like this ...

And this ...

I've kept the areas for the turtles smooth canvas to do the outline/gel thing ...

It was all very tiring for the Studio Assistants ...

Tuck Butt ...

Zipper ...

Now I have to wait for the texture medium to dry. I don't like the waiting for stuff to dry part.


Namaste, y'all ...

No, I can not leave well enough alone and that is not a bad thing.

After I finished Dancing In Lavender - for the third attempt at this triptych! - I hung it on the wall and lived with it for awhile. Sometimes it's the only way to really know how I feel about a piece of art. I liked it well enough. I had even dared to think I would leave it alone.

Uh ... nope.

I couldn't exactly put my finger on it but something about it wasn't working for me. With it hanging on the wall, which is opposite where I sit here at the computer, I could look over and study it when I was online. I had to walk past it going to the kitchen or the bedroom ... or vice versa - from the kitchen to the studio, etc. I could either glance over at it in passing or I could stop and really look at it. I could analyze how it 'fit' in the room.

Over the past couple of weeks I grew more and more dissatisfied with how it looked. It didn't represent what I was trying to express. It didn't feel calm. It looked flat and uninteresting. I realized I wasn't pleased with the particular shades of purple I had used. It didn't have any sparkle. What to do?

By now, y'all should know I am a big, big, big fan of the do-over. Hallelujah for a fresh coat of paint - or in this case, gesso. Like an eraser on a pencil. Gotta' love it.

Off the wall and back to the studio it went!

I didn't take the work-in-progress photos because I pretty much did the entire background in one sitting. Anything that wasn't working was quickly painted over and I'd go at it again while everything was still wet. When I was satisfied with the background I let it dry overnight. The next morning I added the green lines and dots - got some kind of dot fixation going on - and let it dry for a couple of hours. Next came the gold. Dry an hour. Painted the edges (1.5" gallery wrap canvas) with the exact same paint we used on the living room walls so the image would visually 'float' away from the wall. Dry an hour. Hang it back up.

Am liking it.

Dancing In Lavender, version II ...

Detail of background ...

More detail of background. I just love the swirls and blending of colors! ...

Detail of gold sparkle ...

Side angle ...

For me, this triptych is so much more pleasing. I love the colors, pale and watery. It has an overall quiet feeling even though there is technically a lot going on with the movement of the colors. It feels restful. My only complaint is I wish it were larger!

Now I'm off to the studio to paint some sea turtles. My inspiration is this mixed media painting I did several years ago entitled Ocean of Time ...

I've been wanting to do another version, something larger but with the same expression. I pulled a 24"x48" canvas out of the closet and am going to start on it now ...

Namaste, y'all ...