Burn Out

Above is a class picture from the second session, Nature Journaling: Art for Nature Freaks class...


Early morning... ugh!

Woke up EARLY today to take R(H)onda to Toe River Service to check out the funky noise and get an oil change. Mike was nice enough to take me, and let me borrow his car while he's at work.... so I don't have to wait and wait some more...

Yesterday was not a great day in the studio... I had decided I was gonna only paint owls... and then, I pulled out my encyclopedia of superstitions....

Did you know that if you have bad luck, you can reverse it by wearing your underwear backwards? Or that if you kiss your elbow you will immediately change sex? (I wonder the percentage of people who will read this and then try to kiss their elbow.... I know I did).

I found a superstition where if your lover is leaves you, you take the heart of a dead pigeon and stick pins in it for your lover to return.... so, i abandoned the whole owl idea and worked on painting a pigeon.

I started out by transferring some black and white gift wrap paper on (12x12) masonite board... I painted one layer of Gesso on it... I probably should have painted two layers... because, once I did the transfer process, the paper would not come off all of the way, and was turning the black areas white...

So, I decided to burn it out with a propane torch... which caught the board on fire... a lot. It smelled AWFUL... but it worked, so I continued burning it... It did turn the white areas a brown color, but looks pretty cool... like it's got a patina on it.

I spent the WHOLE day trying to paint a pigeon... It was not working.. so I finally took the torch... and torched the whole thing off. Yup... melted it right off the board. I'm mad that I didn't think to take a pic of it before... but I started on a new pigeon... It's frustrating... the colors aren't even close to being right yet..

My instructor my piece with the most potential is the small one (3"x6") of the sacred heart, with the angel and cicada, and the fortune cookie that reads "the one you love is closer than you think."

It's funny that the paintings that get the best responses, are the ones that I throw together, without really thinking... Maybe I should think less... Maybe that's my problem: over-thinking.

The T.A from the Nature Freak class, Ken, sent me some stuff.. A pic of our last class... and the huge puppet that we carried in the 4th of July parade... I glued it to a 12x24 board and started to make it encaustic...


He is so sweet... he also wrote a column about the milkweeed plant, and used my illustration, and sent me a couple of copies of it.