A Post for January - Time Flies

        Not only does time fly, my fire painting has objects soaring from the house, belongings/lives disappearing to dumpsters, things coming unscrewed.  Just last night I was needing my camera to photograph the paintings for a show and I realized my two digital cameras got lost in the fire. I am amazed I got out of 48 Stults Road with my purse which I sometimes search for.

        HouseFire1 and HouseFire2 will eventually have more pointed names. They may not be art but were therapeutic. When distressed by the bad things, I discovered drawing/painting helped. I stole from Medieval paintings and El Greco to express. They still aren't finished but I love them. Little jewels for me. I hinted at the angels and the grace we experienced amid the unpleasant.

        The fire paintings are 14" x 11", oils, Winsor Newton Griffin Alkyds. I used Gamsol for my thinner and Galkyd Lite for my medium. No smell in my temporary 4 x 6 foot studio. Fast drying all. Alkyds are a genuine oil color made with pigments that are modified with alkyd resin. They can be mixed with traditional oils and thinned with usual solvents. They dry to the touch in 18 to 24 hours and can usually be varnished in 30 days. Blick art store says the colors remain workable for 4 - 8 hours and dry at the same rate to a uniform semi-gloss finish. I love alkyd oil paints which I have used for years! Click to enlarge.

March Madness with oils, yarn and wood

      School is over, but I am cheered to be painting in oils again rather than acrylics. I changed models and Joe was the victim. Also, I worked on and added to some of the self portraits (last blog) and did a painting that only the children, their mother and I like. I wanted to paint them in front of the stage set of our house which they love, but it was too saccharine. So,  I added above the house, part of Rousseau's The War to suggest the troubled times that hover over the world. Nothing connected or was unifying, so I took fence, windows and flowers from Rousseau's other paintings, but I couldn't paint the children in his naif style. An art teacher once said that if you try to paint in another's style, it won't work the same, because you will miss some elements that unify, make it original and fresh. Click photos to enlarge.

       For a break, Joe and I headed to NYC and ended up looking at a lot of contemporary art. What variety! I won't say "anything goes," but the thought is liberating. In the car on the drive home, I crocheted a Ninja, brontosaurus or alligator scarf for David. He had asked, "Linlin, will you make me a scarf?" when he saw my knitting the girls one. He will never use it, probably, but I stitched 2 1/2 feet from NYC to Boston. It was hard to get back to crocheting, but I kept trying and now I am fast. I was interested to see the pattern the yarn made. I tried knitting it, but the crochet made a better design.

        On return home, Joe cut back panels for the 1/4 inch plywood tile squares Beth cut for and corralled the children at the elementary school to paint for a fund raiser. Joe sanded the edges and glued them on the birch panels and evened the sides with his power saw. He varnished with polyurethane and added hangers. The class offerings will be auctioned.

      At the same time,  I took up Kathryn's new beginning art class charge to use cad red, cad yellow, ultramarine blue and black and white to paint gradations of these colors. That was fun, but I realized that the turpentine from my earlier painting life seemed a bit toxic. I did some research and think that Gamblin has made some healthy offerings for painters these days. They list these at their website re "studio safety." I will use more brushes in the future and try Gamsol. I am looking forward to making 8 or 9 blocks for Katie's quilt for Project Hope, a children's book theme, all after Easter this weekend.
Spring brings new life :*) Thanks for dropping by!