Two to chop

I dread finishing an outdoor painting in my office. I just don't paint the same.

I get tight and finicky, painting from a photo, because I see more detail and want to paint it. The impact is lost.

I can't just work without interruption here. Because I paint in my office, business, e-mails and bills surround me.

I can't work creatively with anyone in the house.

All my distraction shows in these paintings.

Perhaps I can chop a couple of smaller ones from them, like I did a stack of paintings for the small art show.

I'm going away next week... twice.

Mom does not have cancer, glory-hallelujah!

Time to refocus. Center down.

Carving Day

I took Starbuck, my painting puppy, and went back to the Chuckery Friday morning to get a better look at the Cuyahoga River. I was very happy with the foliage I had painted on June 24, but the river looked like a white gravel road and not a fast flowing river with white caps.

Not only did I fail to put a teabag in my thermos so that I took a break with a bottle of hot sugar water... I failed to bring a knife to scrape out whitecaps and reflections.

How to freak out a passing hiker: "Gee, do you have a knife I can borrow?" Didn't happen.

Instead, I rummaged through the car and found nail-scissors. I spent about 2 hours painting in more shadows and carving out white caps ...

... or something like whitecaps. I discovered they last less than a second. They would not pose for me!

A window of serenity

I painted this on Thursday afternoon, July 6th and was able to call Mom just before she was prepped for exploratory surgery.

"Mom," I said, "I'll have a painting for you when you come out of surgery... something to look forward to."

The timing of one of my best paintings on one of my Mom's worst days is a comfort to me. The lump was not on her colon as we expected, but a tumor on her ovary.

We all are in need of peaceful scenery... something to focus on other than the horrors of possible cancer.

A window of serenity.