Sunny Side of the Street

Ah, don't you love how the moment you make some definitive statement, life intervenes to kick your a** ?

Perhaps it's just me (and that certainly points to perhaps changing my operating manual in this life) but it does happen that oft times we are brought up short by something happening that goes completely contrary-wise to what we have been stoutly claiming as the be-all-and-end-all-amen-exclamation-point.

So here I am taking my big foot out of my mouth yet again and wearing the sheepish grin akin to the lovely lady in the pic above.

After my grizzling woe-is-me blither in the last post, just guess what happened....ah, yes indeed faithful reader - we sold, not one but two paintings. 

sigh bloody sigh

Mind you, it was not completely smelling like roses as the first painting was bought by someone who had seen my work at UKEE DAYS that I had listed at an abysmally low price because the-wolves-were-at-the-door and I needed that filthy lucre. Ethically I didn't feel it was right to charge more so I let her have it at said minuscule price. Then I found out that this person was actually very well off and could have bought 5 originally priced works without blinking an eye. 

Well, bad word loudly said.

Then my Gallery Guy phones to say that he sold another painting BUT- and proceeds to rap my knuckles with vigor -  he had to come down in price drastically because of the prices I put on my work at UKEE DAYS.

sigh bloody sigh

Who needs enemies when I can kybosh myself much easier.

Other than that > we are finally enjoying a spate of excellently sunny days here in Ukee and I am inside painting. That's ok by me as I'd much rather be painting than anything and lying in the sun feels good for about 5 mins then I get antsy and want to DO something. Also my skin is still pretty unwrinkly at almost 60 so it's true what they say about broiling yourself. Add to that my slight phobia about tanning due to my mom dying from the very rare and horrific disease 'Scleroderma' and she baked herself to the color of a walnut . 

Ye-e-e-ah.

But all is not lost as I'm working on a whole new style of painting - it took me a good week of experimenting and research to figure out how to do what I was envisioning but I'm pretty excited to see what is happening. This came about by trying to figure out how to join -so to speak- my ladies with my 'old' style of landscape paintings. 

Sneek Peak at the layout sketch:

The black line is because I reproduce this on transparent film for my overhead projector - the best tool I've EVER used.

Can't wait to get back at it!

And now, to close: how Jams deals with the heat of the day:

That's her lying in the striped shade cast by the gauze curtain I have hanging in my doorway - keeps out the bugs and still lets in the air - makes for a great photo, huh? 

The pic at the start is an Art Doll by Lesley-Anne Greene - isn't it brilliant?! She's a Canadian girl too!