Wow! Look at this lucky find!

I went out to Pinellas County yesterday to buy some of my favorite cover stock from my paper supplier. There is a frame shop down the street that I have been in before so I thought I'd just stop in to browse. I wasn't really looking for anything in particular, but they often have really nice open backed frames for a fraction of the cost of some other places, including online websites I buy from. The place is on Hercules Street in Clearwater, called. Vista Frame Galleries and this frame was just sitting there...hanging on the wall. It was a no-brainer to buy it, for a ridiculously low price, thanks to the owner, Peter, being so helpful and nice to me! I knew it would be a wowser (as my dear Mother used to say), and it certainly is!

Waiting For A Shell to Roll In

Waiting For A Shell To Roll In      9 x 12    watercolor on canvas

I really enjoyed working on this painting. You will be interested to learn it is on a watercolor canvas! Yes, it is a new product from Frederix and I bought it by mistake thinking it was the old stuff. In my Sampling the Media class I had two students who wanted to try watercolors so I thought we might experiment with these canvases. It was strange at first...kind of oily, but what I loved about it was that you could just wipe out sections that were not working and do them again. Not possible on paper! If you don't like the whole thing you can just rinse it off under the faucet and start over. In the end I sprayed it with fixative that the company recommended, and when tested it is waterproof...so I mounted in an open backed frame like an oil or acrylic painting. Very nice. I am sorry to say I don't know which ocean this is....probably the Gulf of Mexico but it could be the Atlantic at Misquamicut, but the color of the water and sky seem to imply tropical waves.

New Work

I have been busy...so busy I have not had time to photograph and upload new work to my blog and website! So here it is, finally. I will start with two new Genesis Paintings.

 Genesis: Cherries       Egg Tempera      8 x 6

 Genesis: Jalapeno Pepper     Egg Tempera    8 x 6

 Stargazers in a Blue Vase      Oil        24 x 18

Early on this painting had Miss Puss in it. She was peeking around the vase and was about to attack the flower on the table. I didn't realize it until much later that she looked very puny. I also had an emotional difficulty getting past the fact that these lilies are death to cats when they lick the pollen off their fur, and I found that out just after I brought them home, thanks to a friend I met in the supermarket. I locked them up in the bathroom so she wouldn't get to them, and used them in another painting. But this painting of these lilies with Miss Puss didn't look very healthy so I painted the cat out and I have a nice flower painting.

MISS PUSS AND THE FLOWER SERIES

Miss Puss and the Fallen Flower        Oil       20 x 20

Miss Puss and the Sunflowers       Oil       20 x 20

Miss Puss and the Roses         Oil            24 x 18

Miss Puss and the Gerbera Daisies     Oil     24 x 18 (Work in Progress)

I am also still working on Awe, which has come to a standstill for awhile. I am hoping for some more time this summer when I don't have as many classes and the snowbirds are home with their Windows 8 problems! I think it will be a productive summer, and I am looking forward to conducting two Monotype workshops this summer. I always look forward to doing some new monotypes and I also have a new digital editing workshop at Carrollwood Cultural Center so I am still busy but not quite as bad as it was this winter and spring!