Doodling around...

A found painting at the bottom of an iron kettle...

   This was so darn pretty...on Thanksgiving day I had water with a cinnamon stick simmering in it on the stove...this old kettle has been a dear old friend for years...we've cooked many a chili in it over camp fires and wood stove fires...so seeing this amazing pattern this morning, I had to photograph it before I cleaned it up...

I've been a little busy...creatively coming along, doodling and looking, making plans for the future, but for now, laying low...I have hung up most of everything that came back from the gallery, or tucked them away if they're of the right size to tuck away...

Wall of a few paintings

 

I treated myself to an early Christmas present...

The price was right, so I got the big starter kit with all the goodies to do encaustics...I haven't done this since college...or the immediate weeks following graduation when I was melting wax in an electric frying pan I bought at a garage sale...so it's been awhile. Not sure when I'll start playing with this...it will need a designated work space where kitties can't get into it...as kitties are likely to do...

A work in progress...

 I've been working steadily along with The Sketchbook Project project...thought I'd share a couple of shots...

The back cover...oops, some stray blue paint...I'm working out how I'm going to decorate the outside...

Yellow in the middle...

A drawing in progress

I've been doing a lot of looking...my camera is building up an archive of images...I can barely keep up with the digital sketchbook...thought I'd share a few things I've seen lately...

A found painting in a grape leaf

I'm coming out of a period of very bad FMS flare ups, I've had a devil of a time with pain management, but it seems the worst part has passed on, and now I'm at a more tolerable level, the usual day-to-day aches and such...the muscle spasms were so bad I felt like I had run a marathon...
it's over with, that's all that matters now... 

Just looking through the lens of the camera, I find the things I like...

The next group of photos is a story about a kitty...

"Popeye" arrived on 10/28/2011

This little kitty has quite the tale to tell...most of it we will never know...we suspect he had an altercation with a car a few weeks ago, we found him hiding underneath our porch on October 28th, half-starved and with an eye injury that was quite gruesome (poor little guy did not need a mask for Halloween, he was quite the scary sight to see!) There was no way to save the eye, but the kitty could be saved...I'll admit, I cringed a bit having to take in one more stray cat, but I couldn't turn my back on him.

One Eyed Popeye, pre-op

 "Popeye" is doing well, recovering from surgery to remove his damaged eye quite nicely...he gets the stitches out on Monday...

Post-Op Popeye...24 hours after surgery

After several days on antibiotics to fight a bad blood infection, he had surgery to remove what was left of the eye on November 15th, and has been recovering nicely ever since...the sweet wee boy has made himself at home...

Popeye can't wait to get out of his fancy collar!

Such a sweet little fellow, we're happy to have him in our family!

Painting, painting, painting...

Detail of work in progress in the Blue Sky series...layers of color...

Work in progress, from the Blue Sky series 16 x 8 inches

The big one...

Work in progress in the Ancient Mechanism painting 16 x 8 inches

A night sky in progress 12 x 12 inches

Lots of work in progress, nothing finished, yet progress is a good thing, and I'm feeling satisfied with the way things are going...it feels good.

Moonlighting Gallery, 137 First Street, Liverpool New York

Our sign was installed on the store front today (at last)...now people will know who we are...it's so pretty!

Work in progress...

This is the top...

This is the middle...

This is the bottom...well, for now, that's how my mind has this little guy oriented, it's only 6 x18...

Oh, yes, here's some pretty fun...this is the early stages of new work, the sumi paper was mounted on the canvas yesterday morning, and I did the washes last night after everything dried...I'm loving the colors as is...I don't imagine doing too much more...but now is contemplation time...

and the sky was blue as can be...

The best blue ever...I lay flat on my back and stared at that fantastic blue and treasured it...treasured that it is there...I'm seeing it when I need it most...

I spent the day on the porch working on various bits of this and that, taking advantage of the gorgeous September day...it was in the seventies...

...and while lying on my back on the porch floor soaking up some sunshine (and popping my spine back in place, oh, yeah, that felt much better!) I saw these fantastic spirea shadows on one of the pillars...


Work in progress...progressing...yup, this is the one last week that I only wanted to show you the center because the ends were displeasing me so badly...nope, it's not done yet, but almost there...

I'm thinking about working in pastels again...ought oh...I smell new colors coming my way...

I'm still fooling around with my manuscript...yeah, the one I said I'd finish by Labor Day...well, I did...but not quite...I'm on vacation this week so I can take another tour through it again...and I think I will...

Work in progress..."Corrosion"

This is currently drying on my easel...I'm pleased as can be about this mess that I made today...I'm playing with modeling paste on cradled masonite panel...then I cut in shapes with various implements, used plastic wrap that I pulled from off the boards (instead of throwing it out, I put it to good use!) to squish and pull the texture, and then scumbled in the colors after it set up...

It's not done yet...almost...I need to live with it for a bit and see where I want to go with it next...I'm just loving the greens...in my line of work at the day job, I am around bronze sculpture an I love the polished surfaces, and even the corrosion is pretty...

Here's some shots of the details:


And I love ancient bronzes and such...and this thing too, it's an ancient machine that was found in the Mediterranean (I can never remember, let alone spell the name of the gadget, but I love it), has been an inspiration...

And then there's this lovely stuff...lichen


and this moss on a dead tree...

Beautiful stuff...