Spin and the re-vamped studio

It's been a while!  Again.  I'm hanging my head, totally disappointed in myself.  Now that I've "stepped" back in here, I've taken the hardest step.  I've been painting and it feels great.  I didn't post step by steps for these but instead will post the finished pieces. 

Nothing great, just having fun and getting back into it. 

But first, I have to explain that my kitten died.  By the time Scottie was about 2 1/2 months old, his health went downhill very fast.  The vet said he was born with a heart defect - that his body was growing bigger but his heart was staying the same size as a tiny kitten heart and it couldn't keep up.  He also said there was an extremely loud heart murmur and that such heart murmurs were rare in cats and even rarer in kittens.  Scottie was SUCH a sweetheart, always wanting to be cuddled.  I like to think that we made his last days easier and comfortable.  The tough part was that I lost two cats within three months, both to heart problems. 

Spin, on the other hand, is doing wonderful.  She's just been spayed (three weeks ago) and is now back to her crazy-playful self.  She is the most curious cat I've ever seen!  Here she is sitting on a shelf in my painting room / studio. 

One of the things that got me back in here was that I revamped my studio.  Put in lots of those plastic drawers for storage, got rid of a lot of unused things and plan on putting a LOT of paintings up all over the walls.   I took the shelving unit out of the closet and instead, put in a shelf and those drawers.  I like it much better.  BUT, I couldn't throw out that shelving unit so I put it to the back of my painting table which gives me lots more space there, too.  All in all, I have much more space to work and enjoy it a lot more.  Sometimes, I put one of Spin's beds up on the painting table and she loves sleeping there.  That's only if I'm working at a different table or the computer because I've found she cannot sit on the table with me as I paint.  That creates major problems!  More pics to follow ......

I've been working on the pears, hopefully tonight, it'll be finished and I'll post it.  Then I'm going to paint two paintings of a Canadian flag, cut them into strips and weave them together.  I'm hoping that when it's done, it'll look as good as Suzy's do here. 

AND, we've got two cats now!  Baby kittens that we brought home a week ago.  They've been to the Vet's for checkups, shots and Advantage and he says they're about ten weeks old (eleven now). 

Mine is the gray male and since I loved Scotland so much when I was there last April, I call mine Scotland - Scottie for short.  The black female is Zach's and he calls her Spinner.  Scottie is stood in a little bed I made for them out of a plastic bowl with rounded lips and an old worn-out pair of heavy fleece sleep pants.  They love it!  There's a padded pillow underneath so it's nice and soft.  I was planning on making it out of a basket but when I was in the Loonie store, I saw this and thought how much smoother it was than a basket.  I'm still going to do the basket one, I think, as well as this.  They both fit in right now, but not for long.

Grisaille Pears update .....

Here's the latest on the pears!  I still have to scumble darks into the reflection area as well as work at the highlights on the pears and in the reflections, and more in the direct shadows.  Also, the lower stem.  But ..... it's coming along!  I think when it's done, I'm going to crop a bit off the bottom.

I almost hate to finish it because then I have to start another and I just don't know what to start next.  Though, I *did* take some good shots of Ornamental Cabbages on Saturday.  Or perhaps, jellyfish ......

I'm liking these pears ......

This morning, I got up early, cooked *another* turkey - but this time, not to eat as a turkey dinner.  This time, the entire turkey went into 7 large turkey pot pies!  With homemade crust.  That was tiring!  I kept coming into my painting room to paint and rest from it.  ;-)

I hope you're painting and enjoying life ...

ps - I don't think I mentioned previously that this is on a 1/4 sheet of Arches 300 lb CP.  Watercolour, of course.  :-)

Grisaille Pears update and Happy Thanksgiving Canada

If you're a Canadian, like me, Happy Thanksgiving!

I started this grisaille painting about two years ago.  (Two years!  I really AM a slow painter, aren't I?)  Here's the last posting I did on it. 

To get back into some painting, I decided to work on it.  So, here's a few shots of what I did tonight on it as well as a few of the older shots.  Mostly, I added more colour to the pears, then put in the background.  The black background was tricky and had to be done fast.  It's three coats of WN Blue Black, a gorgeous black that has been discontinued I think.  The fourth pic shows the background still very wet.  After the three coats, I painted on a coat of just clear water to even out some darker areas.  Worked well.  Then, as shown in the fifth pic, I added some colour to the bottom section of the background.  More to follow..... 

 

It's been a very sad week for me.  On Tuesday, our cat, Moose, suffered from a blood clot (from underlying heart disease the vet said).  Poor Moosie was in such incredible pain and almost instantly paralysed in his two back legs.  We rushed him to the Animal Hospital and the very nice veterinarian there gave us the incredibly distressing news that there was no other choice than to euthanize him.   Moosie was twelve. 

I've often called him a cranky old cat but I guess he just had a very strong personality.  I sure miss him.  He would shadow me all around the house and I'd always be talking to him.  He'd sleep with me every night.  He'd meet us all at the door.  As soon as I sat down on the couch, he'd be there - patiently waiting with his head tilted to one side - until I'd 'settled in', so that he could hop up onto my lap / stomach and 'settle in' himself.  If I didn't immediately start stroking the top of his head and the sides of his face, he'd just wiggle his head under my hand until I did.  Moosie had his own way of getting exactly what he wanted.  He ruled the house for twelve years. 

If there is one positive, it would be that thankfully, it happened before I went to work.  I would hate to think of him suffering alone all day long until I got home from work.

It's hard learning to live without him.

Wordpress, bougainvillia and killing or curing a cold by swimming ...

I've been playing around with a wordpress blog and I think I like it (except for the 3 gig uploading space feature).  Wordpress is a lot more complicated to set up and get used to than blogger but I like that you have several different pages right there.  Kind of like another website!  So, I've been playing around with it.  If you visit it, please keep in mind that it's still in the creation stages.  And I've been sick and haven't felt much like doing much. 

But on the up side, I sat outside late this am and painted this.  I was actually drying off after a swim and was reading the latest Watercolor Magazine, then thought, "why am I wasting time reading when I could be painting?" 

So, I did this fast one.  Took about an hour.  It's a bougainvillia tree that is planted in a very large pot.  The total height of tree and pot is about six feet. 

**Some people** think this pot will be brought inside for the winter (it'll never survive outside) but ..... I don't think so.  It'll have to have ALL the soil knocked off the roots first, then potting soil put in.  Know why?  'Cause TOADS burrow into the ground of any of my plantpots and if a toad unearthed himself and hopped around in my house, I'd have to leave.  I seem to attract toads.  They seem to love my pots.  No one I know around here gets toads in their flowerpots but I sure do.  No matter WHERE I live.  There are many things that inspire me.  There are many things that do not.  Toads / frogs fall into the do not section of life.

So, back to this painting.  No drawing - I 'drew' it out with the paintbrush as I went.  1/8 sheet Arches, schmenke paints (that was the paintbox I grabbed on the way out).  I was going to crop out the tiles behind it but I kind of liked the pattern. 

I'm off to put together a Black Forest Trifle then more swimming.  Then .... maybe another painting.  (Don't faint, Teresa!)  Fast ones like this.  Fun - no pressure. 

Hope your day is going good.

Castle Windows

I don't have any progress shots to post today so I thought I'd post a shot from my trip back in April.  My niece spent her first year of Queen's University at Herstmonceux Castle in southern England.  It's closed to the public for tours when school is in session but because she's a student, we were able to walk about mostly at free will.  Needless to say, I took a few hundred photos of the place!  This shot is from a window looking outside into the centre courtyard. 

Even though I'd cleaned up my painting table, the studio room itself was getting messy and cramped so I've been really sorting things out well.  Especially the wall unit that contains a lot of supplies!  That is making it so much nicer to come in here. 

I've also been doing some research on jellyfish.  I'm ready to draw out the painting but was wondering if jellyfish live in an area with sea plants such as kelp.  So I checked it out online, found out they do and will now go ahead with what I'd planned.  I didn't want to put a background of kelp and other plants and then find out it didn't look real because jelly fish didn't live in areas like that.  ;-)  Now, I know.

That's my weekend.  How was your's?