On the calm black water where the stars are sleeping

Did a bit more on her face trying to get the proportions just so.  
Not quite there yet.

Just a wee bit of grass...

K and I went out painting last week, down by the Laguna, found some cool grass by the edge of the water...  Above is what I did that day.   


And this is what it looks like after working on it in the studio for a bit.  It's about halfway finished, I think.

**update**
Finally finished:

Spinning The Thread of Life with Thought and Memory (unfinished)

(oil paint, pen, coloured pencil on pine frame)

Another piece that I've had sitting around for a while.  Originally, it only had the figure, straining against the sides, trying to escape the 'box'.  Then I added the string and the crow on the bottom holding the end of it.  After I drew it I felt really bad at creating this world where a crow was being jerked around, like I'd tied a REAL crow to the end of a string.  So I stopped and stuffed it in a box...  Until last night...

I added a second crow and continued the string past the bottom crow, giving them both a more 'active' role in the situation.  But then I needed to do something at the end of it...  

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Lately I've been reading more Norse mythology and a bit of it seems to have worked its way into this piece.   

• The most logical choice for the end of the string was a spool or spindle. The Norns are Norse demi-goddesses of destiny, dieties who "spin the threads of fate" of both gods and men.
• The crows turned into Odin's two ravens, Huginn and Muninn (their names mean 'Thought' and 'Memory') who fly about the world delivering messages and gathering knowledge.  At night they return and perch on Odin's shoulders and whisper into his ears everything they've seen and heard.

  So this is turning out to be a Norn spinning the thread of someone's life, deciding their fate, with Huginn and Muninn watching closely (and maybe lending a foot or two) so they can tell Odin all about this new person coming into the world...  But even as she's spinning she's getting tangled up in the thread as well, maybe losing a bit of her objectivity...?

I love it when these things happen.  This thing has just been sitting for the last 6 months because I couldn't figure out how to finish it.  Then everything just falls into place.  Stuff I've been reading, pictures I've been looking at, all just seem to fit together perfectly to make it complete.  

  ---   
norn=woodsprite?  The woodsprite was my consolation/therapy piece for not being able to finish this one when I started it.

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.

I've been toying with this idea for ages, finally decided on the right figure and composition this week.  

Now that I have the room, I decided to take advantage of the space and use my overhead projector for the first time - almost four years in storage, it's about time I used it. But the smallest it would get (and still be in focus) was still too big for the canvasses I had.  So I went to the hardware store and picked up a few sheets of 2'x4' birch plywood.  It's the largest painting I've done in a long time.   Eek!! 

I've been making it a point to stop periodically and take pictures of each stage. I've never done it that way before, since I generally like to finish paintings in one sitting...   I have the feeling that it's going to take me a while to finish this one.    

This is just the underpainting to get the  colours and shadows figured out before I start the real painting...

Out of the Rolling Ocean - still splashing in puddles

My last "studio" was definitely getting a bit claustrophobic by the time I moved.  Working in such a small space I'd started to produce very small pieces, didn't have room for anything I couldn't hold in my lap...  So when I moved I chose a place where I could have more space to work on larger pieces.  I get this nice big (relatively speaking) studio and what do I do?  

I keep working small!!!  

1.5" x 2" !!!!  

I gotta stop doing this!