sad sad day

It's a sad sad day.

Today I saw Grant handling another woman's rack.....







and hers is much larger than mine......
















he was shocked to be found out!

Double rainbow

Today on the way home from my 9 hour work day, Grant and I saw a complete rainbow - the entire bow.

And it was beautiful and wonderful.

G's table

Grant had adventures in lathe-ing this week. He turned the legs himself and all the joints are mortise and tenon - meaning no screws, etc. His boss was very happy with it, and our most experience carpenter at McCarter complemented him on it.

Nursery

AND here are pictures of the nursery with furniture, but no baby yet - so it's still nice and neat!

Finally

Now that I'm not so livid about the whole thing - here's a shot or two of the yellow brick road:

First one is the one on canvas, with the red swirl.

Next one is the swirl, which was the one that I understood to be only yellow, and they decided that it needed have red, too, at the last minute. You know - the one on the stage they told me about two days before I was supposed to be done. Yeah that one.

lots of fun.....

Happy Sidewalk Sale

Happy sidewalk sale day!

I'm very excited.

And I'm over being angry - but it took three times watching "It Feels like Christmas" from Muppet Christmas Carol to get me there.

you can't even believe how angry i am right now

flames on the side of my face

murder murder

effing yellow brick road

Torture Time

If you ever want to torture Sue, make her paint nice neat lines, off-white on dark dark brown, for hours.

Listening to country music.

And just for funsies -throw in a giant grasshopper. Hide it, so it seems to loom out at here when she least expects in, then have it try to eat her.

Guess what I did yesterday....

Striving for perfection

"Have no fear of perfection. You'll never reach it."

Salvador Dali said that. And I think more than a few people need to hear it.

I know quite a few people - you could be one of them - who can't seem to apply this - mostly in the area of decorating. It can't be perfect - it will never be perfect. But sometimes imperfect is preferable to nothing or too little.

The odds are very good that lots of things will work in your space.

First - choose something. It could be based on a magazine photo or just out of your head. If on first impulse, you thought it was the coolest thing ever, chances are you'll keep getting that feeling. And bold is not bad.

Second - stop second guessing yourself. If you change your mind a hundred million times, you will never get anything done, and chances are that person that you ask for advice in decorating will stop giving you their opinion, because you won't take it anyway.

Review: Choose something, then stop second guessing. You'll get things done a lot quicker.

For everyone else. You can't be perfect either - so stop stressing out!

One step forward 13,000 steps back

Guess what Sue did yesterday. No, she did not sit leisurely in a chair, reading a book, or pass the day simply backpainting, or making something look aged and dirty. Give up?

She walked the equivalent of, at the very least, 2.5 miles.

On the paint deck.

With no shoes.

Very slowly.

Backwards.

The way you paint fabric to look like fabric, my friends is to pull a horsehair broom with a crazy haircut that you have dipped in paint, as straight as you possibly can, over a large expanse of, you guessed it, Fabric!

Think - those guys who rake the sand into pretty patterns in wonderful tea gardens. Except more and in a larger space.

The first weave was very Zen. You know - before my feet started aching. I did, however, come up with a Chinese Proverb.

The barrel rolls once

twice

three times

as it slows

to peer at the sky

Kinda Zen. Kinda odd. You think you get it but then it makes you wonder: Seems simple, but it's a proverb, so it can't be just simple. And why a barrel? Where is it rolling? Is it rolling on its own, or was it pushed?!

Just anomalous enough to be confusing. That's what I look for in an ancient proverb.

So, a very successful day.

but my feet still hurt.

Silly Painter things

Booo - I post really pretty pictures of pretty things I've painted and no comments? That makes me sad.

I've been thinking of starting a new segment of blog posts. If my camera will take video - which it might. It will be called either "Silly Painter Things" or "Whatcha doin'?" This is how it goes. When we do something that we suspect other people would look at us like we are nuts, I'll take a video and you can guess what we're doing. Maybe I'll just go with "Silly Painter Things," because then I can still show silly things that we do that are obvious, but just silly.

Something very tragic has happened. Two days ago a squirrel took five of my green tomatoes off of my tomato plants, and left one half eaten on my balcony to taunt me. There was only one little green tomato left on the plant. Yesterday, even that one was gone...

Sadness

I am a Rockstar!

And very humble.

How much of a rockstar, you ask?

This much:

And they loved it!

You can see more finished details here.

We're going on a safari

As you may or may not know - I am painting a nursery for our friends Mark & Melissa. The theme is african animals.

I started yesterday, and Doug is my assistant. This is what the nursery looked like the end of yesterday.

This is what it looked like the end of today:

Tomorrow it will be splendiferous (and possibly completed!)

My favorites are the giraffes.

The mother and larger baby are positioned so they will be looking into the crib.

More detail picture of elephants, zebras, and lions here.

Let me know if you like it!

Naked Lemons

I've started to make a bottle of my very own limoncello. I got the recipe from a book by my favorite travel writer, Frances Mayes. She lists a well-loved recipe that is well established in her small Italian community, so it must be good. There are lemon peels percolating in some VERY strong grain alcohol right this very minute. In about a week I'll strain the newly flavored alcohol, add a simple syrup, chill, and viola - summer in a glass. If you're nice, maybe I'll share.

I used the naked lemons to make a grapefruit lemonade.

My balcony garden is coming along nicely. I've had many glasses of mint iced tea, and my basil is trying to take over the world. My tomatoes are still green, however.

Big news - Grant got me a new lens for my camera, and I'm excited to take some rockstar photos of the cabin in the summer this weekend.

Watercolor girl

Nothing going on = no posts. I've been having a lazy summer. Almost too lazy.

But lately - I've gotten on a water-coloring kick. I haven't really done much water-coloring in my life. I just tend to mess around with it every once an a while. Although painting backdrops on canvas can be quite similar. Water-coloring is nice, because it dries very fast, so the pieces moves along quickly.

Here's some of the fun.

Window out on the shed out by Uncle Bri & Aunt Sherrie's cabin:

The cabin in winter:

Pretty Butterfly:

And since I was messing around - I thought I should try to get some work done. I wanted to see how my Elsa from Dustbin Children would look in watercolors. She looks awesome! Much more exciting, Don't you think?

I've already re-done three of the illustrations. And hopefully more today!

PS: Grant is 6'4" - I always thought he was 6'2"...... freak...