One Digit Off

In the Shadow 6 X 8 oil on linen panel

A recent upgrade in our phone lines resulted in a mandatory change of my phone number. I am now one digit off from an ” after hours spot ” known as a getaway for husbands and wives- not necessarily those who are there together.

At least 3 or more times a week, often in the wee hours after midnight, my phone rings next to the bed. It’s like a de-fib machine, startling me awake, with some voice asking if this is the club. Are they kidding? Why are you calling a club at 3 AM? How can you not know what number you’re calling at that hour? I’m not changing my phone again- I have cards, mailers, printed material and am not going to re-do everything.

Our other phone, which is a business number that rings in the house was also one digit off from a local electrical service company. Every day, we got calls from people looking to hire electricians.

Pre-dating these occurences was  my time at home in my teen years when after finally getting my own phone, I was yet again, one digit off from a well known dance studio and fielded more wrong numbers.  Usually resulted in slamming the phone down, feeling hugely disappointed that it wasn’t the object of my teenage heartbreak angst.

A funny pattern to follow you through your life, don’t you think?

I was careful not to have the lady in the shadow, above, have any digits off. She probably needs them all to dial my house at 3 in the morning when she’s looking for her boyfriend.

Maybe I need to release a few of these in the club to clear it out and allow me a good nights’ sleep……………

The title was not intended to refer to the case of the careless carpenter. He’s probably at the club too. Or working for the electrical company.

These Are a Few of My Fauvorite Things…

” Les Fauves “- The Wild Beasts. A group of modern artists of the early 20th Century. Those wild beasts played with strong color and painterly brush work.

I started this late in the day, outside during the workshop I took here a few weeks ago. The colors reminded me of the Fauvist movement.

I like the top two thirds of the one above this but haven’t found my bliss in the foreground. I’m going to walk away and move on to something new.

Like identifying these vegetables?/gourds?/cucumbers?/ that we carried at the VI Farmers Coop this past weekend.

Since no one was able to really identify it by spelling, it shall forever be known to me as the phonetic vegetable ” Kor-riley”. That’s the best I could extrude from a few local farmers who might have even pronounced it three different ways.

Bitter melon is what it’s known as in Chinese cooking. They sure  were the oddities of the market and despite their curious appearance, no one wanted to buy any. Even the vegetable kindgom has wild beasts, it seems.

Now it looks like we’ll have to monitor the statues too, as this fellow will barely pass the newly enacted Modesty for Statues Statute:

Wild Beasts are everywhere, so keep moving and ducking and painting.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Being

Body Language is the the generic and universal version of Berlitz.

Untitled 10×12 oil on linen panel

Untitled because we could all read something into her position which I can’t really describe as a pose. She’s in a position. And who hasn’t been?

I started this in the workshop I took two weeks ago and finished it in the studio. Funny how being away from the easel causes you to lose your brush muscles and painting confidence. Workshop paintings are started quickly and best moved along without too much anguish or you lose the feeling.

I used too much turp and the final piece, when I got it home, seemed flat and lifeless, well, almost like this subject. Fellow blogger, writer, and prolifically wonderful artist, Jala Pfaff offerred some great and generous advice. Describing it as ” oiling out “, which was to wait until it was no longer tacky to the touch and gently wiping a soft cloth with cold pressed linseed oil over the painting.

It came to life, alas, unlike the figure, who really had a bad day.

I used the same limited palette I’d been using during the workshop:

Alizarin

Ultramarine

Viridian

Yellow Ochre

Cad Yellow Lt

White

It makes for much less confusion and eliminates the ” Las Vegas All You Can Eat Buffet ” syndrome that ensues when you open every color tube like the days of Crayolas first box of 72. Whos’ skin color was that Flesh, anyway?

Here’s a gal who has no troubles with the heaviness of being……….