Ronnie's Ramblings

Did you ever notice how fast time flies?  Well, of course you did!
Like for instance———–
How is it spring already when I only just put all my summer clothes and swim suit away?
How is it that my daughter just turned 50 when I’m still 50?
How has it been 2 months since I cleaned my house?
How has it been a year since my last mamo?
How did I get so old?
Where did last week go? Or last month? Or last year?
And – how has it been 6 months since I published my last blog post?

I THINK of it almost every day.  I WANT to write something.  I tell myself I’m GOING to write something.  But then………….

1.  I’m too tired
2. I don’t have anything new to talk about
3. I have an appointment………somewhere
4. My life is boring
5. I’ll do it first thing in the morning
6. I’ll do it in the evening
7. I’ll do it when I finish this____(fill in the blank)
8. HD wants to go “do something”
9. The kids call
10. The beach calls

Enough excuses!!!  How have you all been??!!  I’ve missed hearing from you!
So here I am.  Maybe with something interesting – maybe not.

I’ve been painting.  A few portraits and some other things too.  I joined a small group of artists and we meet once a month in each other’s homes to share and paint together.  Each month the hostess offers a challenge for us to work on during the month if we want to and then bring it the next month.  Sometimes I’m successful and sometimes not so much.

One challenge was to paint a wild animal.  So I thought I would try some watercolor effects just using the Golden Open.  I wasn’t totally unhappy with him.  But you can probably tell watercolor is not my “thing”.

One challenge was to paint leaves.  Epic failure!!  But I’m not going to let it get the better of me.  I’ll work on it some more but I’m not showing that picture until I can show you a picture after I fix/finish it.

One of our challenges was to paint from life.  We did a still life using items from around my house.  It took me a while but I finally finished it.  I rather like it!

I recently went to a mixed media workshop taught by a well known artist, Christine Peloquin.  She has been published a couple of times in the  Somerset magazines and does beautiful work!  We collaged backgrounds with fabrics and paper then painted whatever we wanted.  Lots of fun.  I think I might do another one sometime.

One more workshop I did was Palette Knife painting!  Can you imagine?!  ME?!  But it was so much fun.  I learned a lot and maybe I can use it in some of my “other” painting.

So that’s it for now.  I’ll show you some more in another post.  I don’t want to use up all my material now.  Then I would have to wait another 6 months to write again!

Hope all your days are Paint Days!

Ronnie

Now that the girls have had their birthdays I can show you what I painted for them.  August is my oldest granddaughter and Grace is her sister, my second oldest granddaughter.  There’s a boy in-between.  I haven’t painted him ………..yet.

Some of you are already familiar with August (Auggie).  She went to England with me a few years ago.  I also blogged about her when she got married and when she had her baby girl, Annaleise.  I took this photo about 10 years ago and have wanted to paint it for a long time.    It’s just the perfect pose and the lighting is perfectly dramatic.

I gave it to her for her birthday and I think she liked it.

And here is Grace (Gracie – or Gracie Bug) .  She is our singer/dancer/pianist/violinist.  She sent this graduation picture 2 (or is it 3) years ago.  And I knew immediately I HAD to paint it.  After a few years of painting portraits I finally felt that I had enough knowledge to attempt it.  I’m glad I did.  I think I did okay.  Anyway she likes it.

So that concludes the 5 paintings I have been working on for the last few months.  Whew!!

I actually have a couple more paintings finished but I can’t show them on line because I painted pictures of people without getting their permission.  So you’ll have to come to my house to see those. (wink wink )

I’ve got another one started and will show it in progress as soon as I have some progress.  This one won’t be a gift, so I can show it any time.

I’m also developing another still life type painting.  I’m not at the painting stage yet on that one.   More about that later.

So here’s the question.  Is it in poor taste to display – in your home – a painting of yourself that was given as a gift to you?
What do you all think?

I know you wanted to hear more about my grandsons….right?

Our grandson, Isaac, visited from Oregon this month.  I think he might have inherited my love of all things artistic.  Or maybe he got it from his mother, Kalen, our daughter-in-law, who is also very artistic.

We were looking for something interesting to do one day,  so we found a scenic place at one of the parks to do some plein-air painting.  The first time for both of us!
It was 96° in the shade but we were happy to be there trying something new.  Isaac did a great job and even finished his at the house that night.

We used my Golden Open acrylic and plenty of water.  I prepped a wet palette of paint before we left so we didn’t have to take lots of supplies and paint tubes.
I haven’t finished mine.  I didn’t have as much energy as Isaac did after being in that heat all afternoon.
I did manage to get to the couch and put my feet up though.

I think he did a wonderful job!

All I got done on mine was the basic sketch, but I promise I’ll show mine later when I have it more finished.

I definitely want to do this again.  But here are some things I would do differently.
1. Wear shoes and socks.  The ants were biting the heck out of my feet and legs.
2. Take some mosquito repellant.  (HD warned me, but I forgot)
3. Take a shade umbrella.  Our views were limited by where we could find shade.  And the shade moves!  I started in the shade, but the sun was soon shining on me.
4.  Take a small cooler to keep my water cold.  Warm water——UGH!
5. Head out earlier in the morning – or go in the winter.

With those little corrections I think I would definitely enjoy doing this again.  I didn’t think I could do it.  I tried not to worry about how the painting was going to turn out.  I knew I didn’t have to show it to anyone and Isaac wasn’t going to care how it looked.  So I just let go and painted.

I would advise anyone to try it.  Start out with an inexpensive canvas or canvas board.  Or you can tape a piece of heavy water color paper to a large clipboard.
You will be surprised by what you can do!  And if it doesn’t turn out very well, you can paint over it or throw it away.  Who knows, though??  You may just like what you do.  You have nothing to loose!

And take plenty of water!

Our second summer in Florida and we’re finally getting the hang of it.
There are only a few places to “be” when it heats up.
1.  In your home – with the A C
2.  At the mall – with the A C
3.  At the beach

I’ve mostly been staying home and staying cool.  So I’ve gotten a lot of painting done.  I’ve finished a painting I started about 10 years ago when my Grandson, Evan, was only 8 or 9.
He joined the Navy this year!
I think he was – maybe 5 – in the photo I was working from for this portrait.

So I just can’t resist showing a photo of him now.  After all, I AM his Grandy!

AND……………..I think his mother must have know something from the beginning……………

I hope you all are having a productive and fun summer.
School has already started in some areas!  I can’t believe we are already at the end of August.  But I have to say……..I’m looking forward to winter.

The down side to working on five projects at one time…….it takes a long time to finish any one project!
The up side is that when I get frustrated with one problem, I can put it aside and pick up a different one.  Maybe that problem has solved itself while sitting in the corner??  No.  Not so much.

Well anyway, I did finally get another one finished (I think).  So that just leaves three more to finish.  Hmmmm  I think maybe I’ll start another one today.

I’m calling this one “Apothecary”.  This little chest of drawers was not really a medicine or spice chest, but rather a nuts and bolts chest in someone’s work shop.  But I like to think of it as an old medicine chest of drawers.  My new friend here in Florida says you can paint it however you want “as long as you have a story……”

Anyway, I think it made a nice little still life set up.  I don’t know what I’m doing with this painting yet – other than hanging it on my wall.  It’s a 12″ X 12″ canvas and is painted with Golden Open.  I love that I accidentally used colors that work well in my house.  (not that it matters so much when you are creating art).

This is a new style of painting for me and I’m enjoying trying new things, pushing myself to stretch.  After so many years of teaching it feels really good to concentrate on learning again.