Just playing about, really

Turns out the hardest part of this blog at the moment is getting the watermark to work!  either Picasa or I  is/am incapable of doing it twice the same way, which involves a lot of searching and cursing, but eventually I do get there! Don't ask me why this paragraph decided to center itself.  Blogger's ways are as unfathomable as Picasa's.

And here I show you my outdoor studio setup while the weather is good.  At least for watercolor painting.  Most of the crayons in that box are just lying about doing nothing.  I use the three tubes there, and maybe two crayons.  My entire panoply of brushes and pen are set up there, and the paper is taped to delineate areas for painting.

Just as I was thinking about painting and could I get my lazy old self up to do it, the Prime delivery arrived with my new paper, 140 lb, much heavier. So I had to try it right away.  It does stand up better, though  it doesn't improve my skills...more to do in that area, I think.  A lot of it is about remembering what to do.

So I set to work and decided to make very small images, just because they're nice to give and have and so on.  No closeups until this set is done and the tape off.  And since setting up these bits and bob outside involves several trips, several openings and closings of the screen door, to keep chipmunks out and cats in, I thought I had to get this better organized. So I've coopted a nice old sheet iron teatray, which is now my watercolor setup tray. Also the tools can stay on it, high up away from cats, to dry.  And it's one trip out to get set up.

The cats love me to make art.  They purr away in the background, watching and supervising.  I think they like it because then I'm not niggling at them, brushing them and clipping out mats, and cleaning the sleep from their eyes, and generally acting like an overbusy human.

But I have been stitching busily, too, and here's the update on the golden series piece I've been on:

notice the brass chain now stitched around the periphery of the inside of the "frame" motif.  That's the same old chain that has now been used in innumerable art pieces, jewelry, you name it.  

Another artist gave it to me years ago because she had no use for it, and it was good stuff.  It actually lends a nice physical weight to the fabric, too, always a good point if you're making art to hang.  And as I get into designing this piece more I expect more chain will put in an appearance.  I don't know what if anything is going inside this frame motif, which is only a part of the whole work.  When I know I'll do it, and show you!

Off to loaf about now.

Ta dah! revealing not only today's paintings, but...

But also what amounts to me as a technological breakthrough.  Thanks to Handsome Son and Quinn and my own artistic inability to let well enough alone, I have succeeded in learning to watermark my work.  Since it gets pinned and borrowed and generally moved about by other people who don't think to ask, I may as well have my watermark on there so that if that happens I can at least be credited with it.  Best I can do right now, I think.  I have a thing or two more to learn about sizing, but for now I have started. I think it's not as important what it says as the fact that it's there and it puts people on notice that I have done this.

Anyway, technological feats aside, I have been doing a couple of small rapid paintings each morning before the day gets too hot.  The birds appear around me, they like the atmosphere of peace, I think.  And the paintings are more in the nature of a meditative practice than anything else, no stress involved, just absorption. 

This is art in your pajamas!

 Sunflowers and marigolds, late, against the fence

Copper birdfeeder, courtesy of Heather, awaiting the arrival of copper birds..

It's the best kind of work, where you are engrossed, looking, acting, thinking without words, and surprised at what happens!

For those interested in the techie side of this, these were done with caran d'ache watercolor crayons, partly used as crayon, partly used as if they were pan colors, and a bit of finish work with the Pilot Extra Fine point pen.  Limited palette -- a yellow, a brown, some red, bit of orange.  On watercolor paper.  And again, full transparency, not bragworthy, just offered humbly.