A Root with ambitions to become a Stick Insect

I made a volcano in the yard today

Actually I cheated since I used wood instead of rocks or lava or magma. But it looks just like a volcano and is the perfect size.

Illuminated Alphabet!

Well mostly. So far I've only done the vowels

And sometimes Y

 And S, because that's what my name starts with

And Q, because I felt like it.

More to come...

Magnificent!

an earlier attempt

Commission! (Updated)

So a friend of the friend I painted Jack for has commissioned me to do a painting, of herself & her much-loved beasties. There are a Rabbit, a ferret, a turtle, a Jack Russell terrier and a Rat(deceased).

This is exciting to me because it's the sort of work I most want to do, and it sought me out! It's like the Universe wants me to stay home in my painting hoodie and make Art.


it's my favorite hoodie

It's only got paint on it recently, and only because I wear it ALL THE TIME. It was made by an Artist as well.


I make my own canvases. This one is 2x4 feet

The beige spots are not schmutz, they just didnt get primed yet



Puttin in the big pieces of color. I've got sketches going of the animals, but must compose the rest with paint. The tablecloth will not be that hideous shade of pink. More tea things & delicacies to be added. This is about one-third finished; I think the background is trying to punch above its weight but, it will eventually get sorted. The egg floating above it is part of my easel : p

Questions? Comments? Suggestions?

Also a guy I know who doesn't like heights sought me out to patch some bits on his roof, around the plumbing vents. I don't normally get paid to climb up on roofs and Boy Howdy is it fun, so double excitement this week.

*UPDATE!* the roofing job went well and hasn't leaked as of yesterday's downpour. I didn't fall off either, butt I have noted that there is no comfortable place to sit on a 45-degree angled roof. Don't let the ridgeline fool you either; between that and my constant crouching and/or crabwalking, my underpinnings were very very sore.

The things we do for money....

Updated 1-29-12

it's weird doing faces. There's always the gnawing dread that you'll show a person their portrait and they'll recoil in horror and go. "I don't look like THAT!"

I may redo this part. Imagine less, trace more. Creep her Facebook photos ; )

Much better.

It was fairly dark when i took this pic. Submitted for final approval 2/6/2012

"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself." -Wilde

Sounds about right. Alice is a novice, a wanderer in a strange land. The Hatter is an adept; not a King or Queen, but well dressed, well fed, and in masterful possession of a useful Skill.


I prefer the term "Milliner to the Differently Saned"



Recent Doings Part 2



Portrait of a friend's Shih tzu

Jack, the King of Hearts



another one for Virgil
ad meioriam mephala gloriam



Portrait to vaguely resemble my friend Cody,

aka Coda Fett

Fett symbol



Recent Doings

MUSE

Our Lady Elation, the Joy of Creation.

She rises from a bright Horizon, into Dark that is palpable, but not tangible,

on her gaudy gauzy Wings

another Chrysalis motif, from a sketch i did maybe a year ago

in the Moleskine which has become one of my favorite things

sketch



around-the-housecoat

Flannel and fleece and those little coins as buttons. Surely a prosperity charm will work better if i wear it.

A Mask

i made for a friend's altar to San Simon, or Maximon as he is called in the folk traditions;  a wooden deity, a troublemaker, a link between the underworld and Heaven. more here.

Sad Story

A guy I know from school posted on his Facebook page a little tribute to a life ended too soon. Apparently he was at a restaurant and bird flew in. The staff chased it and shooed it and just as it was about to fly free, some horrid person smashed the poor thing with a food tray. He was moved enough to be sad about it on the internet & to value its tiny life.

Bummed

This week has been difficult.
I'm building a house, because that's what I wanted to do, as soon as I could start walking towards something that was mine, a piece of ground that nobody could kick out from under my feet.
I'm building a house, and it's slow going, because I'm doing it myself, and the stones are heavy and the mortar bags are heavy and I can only fit ten cinderblocks in the trunk of the car at a time, and the wood part isn't quite straight, and it's too hot or too cold or it's raining, or sometimes I just sit in the wheelbarrow and stare out at the world and watch it spin.
But I'm building a house and it's going fairly well and I'm proud, and when I am there, I am enough.
Somebody kicked in part of the door last sunday. I'm not sure why; there's a big part without a roof yet that's much wider than the door. Nothing was taken, nothing was disturbed, but that painted panel of the door was shattered to reveal empty space.
It pisses me off.
Worse than that, though, it makes me feel small.
It's slow going and it's hard work and it's scary enough without Persons Unknown going out of their way to destroy things.
Stop shitting on my dreams, Harpy.
Maybe the work for me to do is to let go of the illusion of control.

So I patched the door with plywood on monday, and today I drew another pineapple and wrote Don't be an Asshole on it. I took the broken pieces up the hill and shot at them. I think I hit what I was aiming at a few times. I had the foresight to bring earmuffs and the balls to yell Woohoo! a couple times though I wasn't really feeling it. Left the shell casings scattered about as a deterrent.
I put up some plywood at the back and along the sides but didn't paint it yet. I raked up some leaves and burned them because that feels like Home.
I'm going to keep building, though every step means more that can be lost.
Looked at wildlife cameras online.

I'm menstrual and weepy and just an embarrassment.
I used to have a friend who was the same.
In some moments we were the same. I can count the differences, and oh boy can I count my flaws, but I need people to relate to.
I need some good words from someone who believes in me.
I'd like to pass some words on to whoever it was.
Who cannot build, must destroy, etc.

8 January 2012

A soul-sucking expanse of primed concrete

Lily pads!

Not sure what's next, but that's OK

3 Kings Day

Is today, thanks Virgil for eminding me.

 

I haven't got any camels or horses for them, so we can suppose they just walked.

Melcior, the Crimson King of Shambhala, who journeyed down from his mist-ringed Tower with its telescopes and scrolls and endlessly comfy armchairs;

King Balthazar Abraxas Obama, up the mountainous roads from Agartha, seeking, his eyes on the Sun, and ignoring the dust in his sandals;

Gaspar the King of Perilous Starlight, who came South from Hyperborea, pointing out the path by the light of Great Nibiru.

They return by different ways than whence they came, which is perhaps a wiser way of doing it.

Perhaps they stopped in New Zealand for a bit of a vacation first.

A New Year's Revolution

Rise and Root

Read more here, 

at another of my favorite places, the Hermitage