A Summer Story

On June 18, 12-year-old granddaughter Emmy sent me a letter. The first I heard of it was about two weeks later when she and her family drove up from VA for the 4th of July weekend, and she asked if I'd received any mail from her. I had received nothing.  

Emmy explained that she'd come up with a painting challenge for us but didn't reveal any details. We thought the letter would surely arrive while she was visiting.

Nope. Not then, not the next week, not the next. 

Thinking back to a mail carrier tractor-trailer accident earlier in 2022, I knew full well that mail can go irretrievably astray. As summer continued to unfold I figured Emmy's letter was long gone.

But … just kidding! 

It arrives August 1st!

The envelope shows not one sign of wear or tear. It sports a postal bar code but otherwise has not one clue as to its adventures over the past six weeks—the stamp is uncanceled; there is nary a postmark.

Inside, intact and patiently awaiting my attention, sit my marching orders.

Hi Gma! NEW CHALLENGE!!!! I want you to re-create a Claude Monet painting and please attempt to finish it by the time I leave from the July 4th trip. Once you're done, choose ANY artist and send a note back. I'm thinking we could do this over summer?? LOVE YOU.

—Emmy

p.s. (When we see the other's painting we could have to find the painting they re-created?)

With a planned visit from Emmy and family just three days ahead, I kept news of the arrival of the letter to myself, put aside all other studio projects, and got myself in high gear!

Watch out, Claude!

Dotty and Claude Have F - U - N Painting
9 x 9" appropriation of Monet's Yellow Irises with Pink Cloud
acrylic and oil pastels on drawing paper
floral
2022

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Yellow Irises With Pink Cloud
Claude Monet
42 x 42 inches
oil on canvas
floral
1917

On My Nightstand, On My Easel 8/2/22

On my nightstand:

there is no place I know outside today

W.S. Merwin, "A Momentary Creed"

On my easel: 

In cleaning out some computer files I found an image of a painting that had caught my eye who knows how many years ago. Before deleting it, I decided to let it become a prompt in my sketch book, a bit of a steal-like-an-artist copy-a-piece-of-art-you-like exercise to set me on an unpredictable discovery adventure.

work in progress, layer 1

work in progress, layer 2

Scrappy, part II

My dad and mom, born in 1926 and 1929 respectively, are the ones whose early childhood years take place during the Great Depression of 1929-1939. 

I'm the baby-boomer who grows up in a time of plenty but who has a mile-high stack of good-on-one-side paper at the ready for further service, who saves fabric scraps and buttons and ribbon and elastic bands, who reuses items until they are threadbare and beyond re-use.

At some point—before I start painting in 2014? after? can't remember—I begin amassing what becomes a scrumptious and sizable collection of print matter of every hue, collected from magazines, calendars, and junk mail, which I sort by color for use as collage. The best!

When I set out to make what becomes the series of postcards featured in my blog the past three days, I'm not thinking collage. But collage is what becomes the fun and flow of making those cards; collage becomes the fuel that sets my creative energy on fire. 

I rummage through my scrap collection looking first to match the background ink colors of magazine pages to the acrylic paint colors I've brushed into place, a very appealing visual task. Then I scrutinize for words that intrigue or resonate or bristle or surprise. Next come the very satisfying tactile tasks of tearing and gluing. Finally, after making discerning selections, affixing them with the greatest of care, and fussing attentively to detail, I subject the completed work to my paper cutter, letting the blade fall where it will with regard to the art, boldly chopping the completed piece into three postcards!

A scrappy little project from a scrappy little artist.

project as painted/collaged on a 5.25 x 11" piece of card stock

that was formerly a calendar page

project chopped into three postcards 

and rearranged just for fun

Upcycling

upcycling 'let go'—
old name but same task at hand,
lessons from the edge

work in progress
8 x 10"; acrylic and collage on gessobord

detail

detail

detail

detail

Sleep Cycles

You know how you go through sleep cycles at night, moving from light to deep sleep and back again several times? Seems that I am going through similar sleep cycles in my hibernation.

A few days ago I rose up from deep sleep to light and came fully awake briefly. Just had to paint bookmarks for Caroline and Emmy to accompany the books that are gifts for Christmas. As ever, SOOO satisfying.

Then … zzzzzzz.

       An illuminated novel by Dana Kumerow with 
        illustrations by Brittany Tate and Jen Walls 

                                     House of Dreams: The Life of L. M. Montgomery
                                   by Liz Rosenberg, illustrated by Julie Morstad

17-Minute Painting Hat

I wear many hats. Today, it seems as though I wore each one more than once, often for only a few minutes before I had to switch to the next.

I did put on my painting hat just long enough to take bookmark #3 from my current series and develop it a bit, focusing mostly on color-mixing and seeing how close I could get to where I want to go.

Got closer.

Went from here to here:

    

Summer Morning Amusement

I noticed recently that the quilted spread on the bed in our spare room at the top of the stairs had a bleached spot on it. My knee-jerk reaction was to want to mix up some acrylics, do the necessary color matching, and fix it the way I might fix a painting.

Each time I'd go in that room, the offending spot would catch my eye, irritate me, and have me itching to get out my paints.

Today I could stand by no longer.

Good as New!
88x108"; mixed media—oil pastels on cotton bedspread
2018
[not for sale]