Fragile Industries

Many apologies to my tenant this week as I am late with introductions...caught a nasty cold from me better half. Fragile Industries is a varied and dynamic site with posts about exciting assemblage/altered art work as well as website issues and philosophy...a post with Talking Heads song Once in a Life Time. Ironically this song was running through my brain all day to day. Was also very intrigued with book selections, esp CS Lewis' C.S. Lewis: "The Weight of Glory"
"I am trying to rip open THE INCONSOLABLE SECRET in each one of you -- the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence." There is much too this blog and I am sure to go back many times. And so should the rest of you.

Hollow Tree

A small painting on board that I did in Landscape class, for some reason my instructor really liked it. Product did not actually coincide with my vision, but it does have a bit of a zing on some level. The perspective is looking down into this hollow tree that has a triangular hole in the back where bright light comes through. Was quite tough to paint as a subject, for me anyway. My paintings will also get more color bang if I switch from Winton student grade paint to Windsor and Newton professional...or so I am told. I added the frame and border, makes me like the painting a bit more. Maybe I will go back and paint it again another day, did learn a bit from this one.

Buffalo Gals

This is a journal, I altered the cover, but the inside is blank. The photo is my grandmother's aunt Liza...the pretty one of the 5 Sykes aunts that she was so fond of. As a military wife she was able to travel the world, living for many years in the Philipines, and is buried in Arlington cemetary. I have a number of photos of these sisters from the early 1900's as the older brother was a photographer. My grandmother us to say that family was not especially wealthy or poor, but they were "good livers." Seems we should all aspire to be such.
Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed sang "Buffalo Gals" coming home from the school dance in the movie "It's a Wonderful Life." t An appropriate journal for a Buffalo Gal to record events leading up to and after dancing by the light of de moon.

Mama Makes Stuff

My tenant this week is a Florida artist, "Fidget." Her site features her work, guest artists, as well as tips and how toos. A very expressive first Altered book is a must see and there is a link to her gallery as well. She is very supportive of the visual arts and crafts of her fellow moms out there, and wants to feature them in her blog. Creating is great therapy especially at a time in your life when demands are high...I started painting and creating when my kids were toddlers and it was the best thing I ever did. Keep it up!

A Bit Chilli Tonight

Indeed. So here are some chilies in a bottle that I painted in a class on light and shadow in Still Life. Spent a great deal of time on the background before I even began painting the objects, three hours. Then next class painted the rest, did a raspberry glaze over the table that the chilies were on. The box behind the bottle was one of those gold godiva chocolate boxes. Hope to take a class on glazing over the summer. Tomorrow is landscape painting class, it is very rainy here though and we may have to meet in an alternative in door space. My canvas is stretched and brushes are cleaned, must remember to take a real break at lunch tomorrow and not try and paint the whole time.

Philadelphia from Bartram Gardens

A close value painting I did in Landscape painting class. From a distance and with a soft and fertile landscape spread before it our city of "Brotherly Love" appears welcoming and still obtuse. So far I have only been able to paint it from a distance and feel a strong compulsion to include urban elements in all the landscapes. Capturing light is the most gratifying experience, although when I do finally get it, it is almost by mistake. So far the wind has been the most biggest obstacle in painting "en plein air." Oh, and a wet black lab that ran by and licked my painting of the inside of a hollow tree.