Nanny Annie

What a huge blessing in such a tiny package.
born Dec. 15, 2007
to my eldest daughter.
rejoicing, enjoying, helping out, cuddling, cooking, burping, changing and all that.
by the way, it's a boy.

No Cussing

Now it is my turn. I went to help care for my dad who is now 95. We have caregivers 24/7 but the burden is still on my sister, who lives there, ultimately for all big and small decisions. Four years ago when my dad had a stroke and mom was dying, we had brought him home from a rehab center and hired full time nurses. Over the next year he healed from his stroke, but his dementia remains. One thing he has not lost is his sense of humor.
I do not know how this would come across to someone who does not know my dad, but he is full of corny jokes and puns. Clever things, sometimes, like:
PROCRASTINATE NOW!
So I went down in Novemeber to help my sister care for him and I took one turn as the night nurse. I said to him: "Now, Daddy, I'm going to be in this bed right over here. If you need anything, just holler. But no cussing; I don't answer to cussing." And what did he say in response? He said, "OK, no damn cussing."

Abstract

Good things. Immersion. I painted with about 15 others all day, went home exhausted at 4, slept, woke up and painted for a couple more hours.
This class was for acrylics, but she said you can use watercolors. The technique: lay down a slick medium first so that whatever you paint on from that point on is quite removable. It does not work with watercolor, because watercolor does not dry permanent like acrylic. If you go to add more color on top of yesterday's paint, yesterday's paint dissolves and mixes into the new pigment.

So let's see what happens. It was all experimental for me anyway and the first time learning abstract on purpose. I am not planning to paint using these techniques at this time, but I wanted to learn about design and whatever else might be helpful.

I looked at Carole Barnes' website and saw strong design. I asked David Dewey if he knew of her and he didn't but he said go ahead.

I think everyone enjoyed it. First day our instructions seemed to be to play in the paint. In and out the side door went the paintings, out to dry and back in to layer up again.

Carole is a good communicator and had lots of quotes, books to recommend, pictures to show. She kept moving, no lulls.

The process: play with the paint, put down the first washes of color. Let it dry. While that's drying start another. Begin to add more, lift off. Lifting methods included scraping, wiping, stamping, brayering, scratching, rolling a toilet paper roll over it. Basically adding texture of any sort.

The idea then is to add design elements to it all. I think I stayed in chaos and just kept playing in the paint in some of my pieces. She works on several at a time. Not my goal, but it is what I do at home, too.

But at least you have something to do while the paint is drying.

One of the nice women announced that there was a daddy long-legs in the bathroom and that she had named it Charlotte. I wonder if she would think less of me because I sent Charlotte for a drowning lesson - after she was already squished. Am I bad for not letting all God's creatures cohabit my space? I didn't tell her. The little brat in me wanted to tell her just to see if she'd report me to PETA.

Lots of red-rusty-orangy brown came out in my paintings. I put cerulean next to it with Verditer blue in it. Yum. I covered up the bright yellow and opera pink she started with. Nor did I favor any Thule blue. I kept trying to do what she was doing as much as I could without acrylics but it finally hit me it wouldn't work the same way, just do something in the abstract realm. When you put transparent watercolor onto the sealed surface, it beads up and won't stick.

What happened on several paintings was that I would see a form and get an idea and follow up on it. Then I would build the image around that idea.

Example, at one point when I was lifting color in swirls off my page, it looked like a fetus, so the painting ended up being of my pregnant daughter. I found it emotional to work on. I painted out the alarming red background and put in a soft blue cocoon around her to protect her and cushion her from harm. I felt like crying at times...the joyful excitement of her becoming a mom, and the knowledge that she will have pain, not just in delivery but in raising this child. I wish I could shelter her from the pain.

Another one, again begun the way Carole showed us on the first day with bright yellow and pink. I added in shapes around the edges and at one point it reminded me of my walks with the dog out in my old neighborhood, through the very dark woods and out under the power lines. Early after my husband's death, I would often come around a corner and be hit by a big yellowy glowing sunset and it would make me gasp, because it reminded me of what I saw when he died. I would immediately start to cry. In those days I used to always cry, yellow sky or not, when I got to the path where there were no neighbors to see me.

So hmmmm, that painting became the point at which we'd walk out of the woods into the open area and in this painting there is a beautiful yellow sunset. What surprised me is that it is emotional to paint such things.

I will to go back to painting the way I have been, recognisable, but with economy, trying for beautiful color harmony and learning to design the space on the page.
But this experience will affect my work. Possibly the most valuable part is being with other artists.

The second painting posted is IKEA on a Saturday...don't go there unless you love mobs and chaos. What a fun place. I miss it. I laughed a lot working on that one.

Don't Know Nothin'

Lake Wobegone ND

My sister, father, cousin, nephew, nephew's girlfriend, nurse and nurse's son were all there when I arrived. We had the run of the Inn right downtown, Victorian charm.

We were on the third floor and took our suitcases up the outdoor steps in back because it would have been pretty hard to get them up the circular stairwaay inside, probably 18-20 inches wide, hardly room to put a foot onto it.

So Father's Day weekend was supposed to be Rally in the Valley. There were pictures on the front page of the paper and captions, but no schedule of events or where or what about anything. don't know nothin.

Apparently they had been trying to find out where things were happening since they got there a few days ago, but no one seemed to know. After a while they suspected that it's a insider event and that we from outside were not wanted there. very strange.

I came on Saturday evening and had been up at 3am and 4am the past 2 nights, so I fell asleep with my clothes on up on my bed....I heard the fireworks but was too tired to go watch. I think they viewed them from the landing at the top of the outside stairs. After that there was apparently a thunderstorm. I heard some noise but I was too tired to care.

We took Daddy to the house he grew up in. He gets energy when he is here. He walks and does not faint. If the nurse says, are you tired, do you want to rest, he says no are YOU tired? She took him to the park and was a LONG way from the Inn and said we can take a taxi for $3.00. He said no, we can walk a little and rest a little, walk a little, rest a little. At home it's once around the circle and he's done, bored.

So Valley City. I woke up early and searched everywhere for my coffee and tried hard not to wake my dorm-mates (5 of us in the upper room sleeping) but I had to unzip my suitcase in more than one place. It was scissors I was looking for and finally went all the way down to the kitchen and found a plastic knife and took it upstairs only to learn I could pull the coffee open with my fingers. No one else got up except nurse for 2 hours. I read my Bible and prayed and then walked around the neighborhood. Such a tiny town, NO CARS; I could have walked down the middle of the streets and not bothered anyone. Many charming old houses, my favorite was painted light blue-green.

Long about 11am it dawned on me that it was Sunday, and I wished I had gone to church. I saw people coming out and even if there were a later service I would have wanted to have gone home to change clothes.

I have never lived in a small town really.

Nurses son attracted the popular girls in the front yard of the boy who apparently was not friendly with these girls. So they are hanging around flirting with him and the dad comes out drunk and yells at them to get out and throws a rock at nurse's son. We think we'll be front page news tomorrow on the police blotter, since that surely tops "snapping turtle reported in middle of highway; officer removes it."
Poor kid ... the police came by to interview him. Apparently he was here last year with my dad and his mom the nurse and made friends with the kids here and had been emailing with one of the girls. Interesting.

Well, we didn't see ourselves in the Dont Know Nothin Journal but neither was the police report in it, so maybe they only do it once a week.

There was a house a couple blocks over for sale by owner dirt cheap so we looked at it. Sister and nurse were ready to sign but all I could see was that every surface needed replacing and it was ugly and not that big. price was too good to be true. The idea of having Daddy up there every summer, though, now that's a good one...get him away from the monotany of home. His wife and all his siblings are dead and only his kids remain. I told sister I could never get my older kids to spend their precious little vacation time in North Dakota! No mountains.

So Binford, tall graineries, and cement factories, a ball park? No, a bull riding ring. Small houses and a neighborhood around Daddy's house. Oh, he says, Uncle......long pause.....I can't remember his name, lived in that house. The owner is there and lets us look inside. The kitchen cupboards made by my Farfar (father's father in Swedish) are still funcioning like new, precise fit and original hardware still working. Two other built in cabinets in the living room made my him.
'
Daddy cries a little and says this is the best part of the trip. We drive up and down many of the streets in the neighborhood; I stick my camera out the window and snap more charming pictures.

Apple Boats

Now really, is it that hard to slice up an apple? Yesterday I made my way as fast as possible through Costco's refrigerator room. Grabbed some carrots. The weeds did not look fresh enough. Weeds are my daughters' name for Spring Mix Salad Greens.

So now they have a package of apple boats, apples that are already cored and cut into slices. Well, I never! (As Mom would say) I was almost tempted to buy them. 8 packets all ready to stick in your lunch and go. Then I thought, how brown and mushy will they be by the time I eat them all?

My husband liked apple boats. I learned early on in our marriage that he was used to having his apples cut up for him. Personally I eat my apples with my teeth and throw the core out when I'm done. Don't you? So I remember the tiniest glimmer of annoyance upon learning that he wanted me to cut up his apples for him. And that man loved his fruit.

I'm wondering if it had anything to do with his mustache. But I think it had to do more with the way his sweet mom served him apples. He liked his orange slices with the points left on so he could pull the flesh away from the peel and somehow it kept the juice away out of his mustache. How would I have known? Do I have a mustache?

It is another little ripple in the ever widening circle which started when his death made a big splash in my lake. Huge boulder crashes into the water. Giant cannon ball splash and big rocking waves. Years later the rings are almost inperceptible but they are there and I suppose they always will be. It made tender thoughts come up, that ripple.

Finishing Ship 2

For lack of a better name. After my first painting en pleine aire in Maine, I took many photos of the scene, different angles, different compositions. So I did a 16 by 24 version on drawing paper in about an hour. The French Ultramarine was too bright and thick and the shadows in the water were not correct, but when I stood back across the room, the painting had a powerful impact. The water moved, the values were there, you could move into the space with your eye. I had turned the photo and the painting up side down to paint the water and the reflections in it....to discourage getting fussy about accuracy.

so that spurred me to get a piece of good paper, 300 pound Arches cold press. I lay in the water and the basic shape of the ship and its baby boats hitched to its side. Learning: the key to my loose style is using brushes that are bigger than you think you ought to be using. don't downshift to smaller brushes until you must. To release excess pigment, touch the sponge or the paper towel.

I did a lot more lifting and changing of colors than I wanted to, to the point of losing the sizing, which takes away the ability to get that nice crisp edge. But I will learn from practice how much value to lay in the first time so that I won't have to lift and repaint. Now to finish: move the black water shadow over to match the ship so that it doesn't shout DRAWING ERROR. Even if you lift it again, there is such darkness in this part of the page that I don't think it will make a difference.

Questions that come up while painting. What does he mean about keeping the colors balanced the whole time in the painting? How do you do that? How does he know WHERE to put that touch of color. And how do I place the colors on the plane so that they lead the eye intentionally around the picture. I know there are answers to this question.

Where to sign? Finish the shadow around the pontoon, and define the motor on it just a bit more. Frame it and bring it to the Gallery next week.

How to Finish a Painting

On February 1, 2007, Kathy's House was pronounced done. Left on the table, I would go downstairs daily making changes, adding colors, lifting shadows, reworking. People think you can't change watercolor once it's on the paper. That is only partly true. This painting is worked to death. I didn't like it much and midway, I wanted to put it in a drawer and forget about it. But I chose to finish it on principle. I do not feel confident in what it means to finish a painting. I want to learn, so I made a commitment and continued. I did like it better as I worked on it, but the style I want is fresh and simple. I want to put down the layers the first time and be done with only minor corrections. This work is nothing but one big correction!
It was hard to leave it alone once declared done. I removed the tape. Note: do not use that kind of tape, it leaves a layer of glue and is very hard to remove. I think I like the edge to be drawn, not made with tape.
Having declared it finished I am glad the burden is off my back. I think Kathy will like it and I hope her sons will as well. I'm wondering if John Q. Public would be drawn to it at all.
The main thing I know from doing this work is that I will not choose this type of project if I want to use my gift and get the best to come out of me.

MAC Attack

As in new computer. Yes. Oh, yes!!

Weeks ago I contacted my patient nephew, who helps people with their computer problems for a living. He was kind enough to spend at least an hour on the phone with me trying to get my Y2K Gateway to boot Windows. .....Maybe the hard drive is on its last legs. OK, I told him, I have already decided that even if I can get this computer fixed, it is probably time to buy a new one and I'm thinking I probably want a laptop. So I said fast, reliable, easy. He said MAC.

Here we are, day one, fingers flying. I apologized to the Lord for getting so cranked about a material thing. Then I say no, I don't think I mean to apologize, no, just thank You, Lord.

I took pictures of the parts out of the box on my clear desk. I think the net thing is to load up my digital camera software.

So check in soon.

state park swamp

 

Looking for the Beach

Trying to find a new beach on which to walk with the dog, the state park entrance appeared, so we turned in. Trails. A nice couple told me the less traveled one was 3.1 miles, perfect. On the pine straw path I don't think I could really hear my hiking boots hitting the ground. It was hard to tell if I could hear my footsteps or whether I was just feeling the vibration in my body. I wondered if that is perhaps like being deaf, but still having a sense that is close to hearing..... I could hear the leather creaking a little when the wind was still.

The park rangers cut pieces out of fallen trees and put them aside in order to keep the path clear. Hey, if a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one walking there, is it blocking the path?

I talk to myself sometimes, but I forced myself to shut up. A quiet place is an especially good place to listen. My present worries calmed considerably as the walk continued.

A boardwalk traversed the mucky places, slippery with algae. The cypress trees come up out of the swamp on either side and the surface of the water reminds me of oil on puddles, all colorful. Made of kooties, I think, but kind of pretty.....and kind of spooky looking, all orangey, pinky, purple and bluegreen all blending into one another. Spanish moss was dangling off the trees. Then there were little trees trying to sprout up that reminded me of crocuses coming up in spring, only bigger. This secret forest hides right near the ocean. The path was narrow but we only passed about 7 other folk and went home duly exercised and thirsty.

mystery house with red lantern

 

the red lantern and sign are cut outs I've been messing with, trying to decide where to add red in the shadow...