Well Well Well 2014-W35

As in, how many times can you go to the well?  Three and counting for today's subject, another variation on our newest old friend, Bad Kitty.

And also, well well well...  next week marks the 2nd anniversary of the Painterly Thoughts blog.  I racked up more than 3,000 visits in that time.  I know they weren't me or my family so to my other friends and you strangers who stumbled upon it:  Thank you for your patronage.  I appreciate it.

For the last 10 weeks or so, the days have been getting shorter and in a few more weeks the nights will be longer than our shortening days.  We all know what that means.  Bears games and holidays and vortexes.  (Vortices, if you're fancy.)

As for today, we sure are having us a nice one as Labor Day weekend kicks off.  I think I will give myself some advice for a Saturday, and you are free to follow it yourself: don't make hay while the sun shines...  kick back and watch someone else do it!

Bad Kitty III

UFOs Everywhere 2014-W34

Relax, I have not gone Glenn-Beck crazy with flying saucers that are invading us because of Obamacare (better buy more gold).  I mean UnFinished Objects.  If your house is anything like my house, the place is crawling with UFOs.  I'm a fantastic starter, but when the novelty of the latest effort wears off so too does progress grind evermore to a halt.  Like yourselves, I never mean to do half a project, but let me ask you what the road to Hell is paved with...

Good intentions, that's what, in case your mother wasn't fond of that expression.  In my time I feel I well intendedly have paved a few miles on that road.  I wonder if there is a sign that says so, like the ones that tell you the local Jaycees pick up the trash along this stretch of highway 181.  (And thanks, by the way.)

One of my resolutions this year was to try seeing some of my many UFOs through to completion.  And I have done some, fewer than I would wish but more than none.  And I still have a third of the year left to build on my success to date.  Which brings us to this week's painting.

Back in June some of my art friends came by to paint en plein air back in my garden and I began painting on a horrible paper called Yupo, which for starters isn't even paper.  It's the same stuff you recycle as plastic (5).  After three minutes, I said "hell no" and ran in to grab the real deal.  But that piece of Yupo has been mocking me ever since with it's masking tape and three lousy flowerheads and nothing else.

Well, in the war between humans and plastic paper, I decided humans must win so I pulled it out to paint.  Oh it vexed me.  I'd say one panel is okay, one is not horrible, and one is horrible.  But here's the thing:  all three panels are done.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, René Magritte.  Here is completed UFO, 8-23 edition, and I hope one day my heirs will have the good sense to throw this one into the recycling bin.

Jardin, Oui, Belle, Ma Non

Sketchy, Two Ways 2014-W33

First, because obviously these are sketches.  Today the Truman Irregulars Summer Sketch Club was at Rosehill Cemetery, and these are indeed sketches of a fine fancy monument and a sweeping lakeside willow tree.  So, see... I can draw.  I just don't like to very much although during high school and college I did more doodling than note taking. Eventually I'll circle back and find the lesson to be learned in that.

Sketchy the second way because although I could have pawned these off as from today, I actually drew them at a different cemetery and two years back.  It was the end of a hot July, the London Olympics were underway and I was eager to get back home to watch an "unauthorized" real-time feed of some swimming finals.  I so hate how NBC insists on the fake delay nonsense.

Anyhow, with nothing artful to show today except a well-mowed lawn (finally), I went with my sketchy sketchbook sketches.  But at least I'm getting the post up right in the middle of the first Dog Watch, as promised last week.  I do have a challenging subject I have been procrastinating to paint, so perhaps I will get an early start during the week and have it for you next week at our new regular time.  In the meantime, have a lovely week!

Deathstyles of the Rich and Buried

Dog Watch 2014-W32

You never know what you will learn on any given day.  I thought today's topic would center around my scheme to shift the "usual" posting time a little later in Satur's day.  Maybe 4-ish/5-ish, and that got me to wondering...  how many bells would that be in ship's time?  Because I figured "7 Bells" would make a cool title for the post.

It turns out, ship's time is a little bit interesting and not just due to the crazy bells.  The ship's crew will eat in shifts, some at 5pm and some at 6pm.  The bunch who are on duty from 4-6pm are working the "first dog watch" and they are followed by the (second but called "last") last dog watch.  Henceforth I'll be posting during the first dog watch.

Speaking of the dog watch, very oddly it so happens that today I am literally watching someone's dog AND I'd already begun a painting of said dog when I diverted to learn all about ship's time and the dog watch.  I love it when the universe stitches a common thread through such disconnected cloths.  

If all this wasn't enough to raise your eyebrows just a tad, get this...  I read this morning that our entire universe may in fact be a 

3-dimensional event on the horizon of a 4-dimensional black hole in a 4-dimensional universe.  I wonder what dogs look like there.

Shards of Olive

Whoops 2014-W31

I popped out of bed at the usual early time, and got right to work with laundry and some other chores.  I had meant to join some of my Truman art friends at their outdoor sketching club this morning but then one thing led to another and boom, I was on my way to Ikea instead.  Along the way I realized, whoops — no blog post and nothing to post in it.  So I'm afraid it's a rerun for today, and a late one at that.  I have been back from Ikea and took care of three other errands before I finally sat down to whip up this post.  It all began...

Four years ago at an event on Cape Cod, the event photographer took a great photo of me with my head in the clouds.  Art imitates life, I suppose.  It is my profile photo here, but even before the Painterly Thoughts blog came into being I painted this portrait from it about 3 years ago.  Since then, I have become the paterfamilias and if I were to paint me now I think I would have to lift a little (or lots) more black out of my hair here and there.  I still enjoy this one and I hope you like it too.

Portrait of the Artist as a Not Young Man