After successfully procrastinating for three days, I ran out of excuses not to begin my first alla prima painting.  To be sure, since Elizabeth Robbins' workshop, there were a number of puzzle pieces to assemble before touchiing brush to canvas:  I had reread my notes, had purchased a fan brush and several colours which were not in my palette, and had oil-primed a canvas, in this case a birch panel. As I wrote several weeks ago, the cupboards were also plundered for interesting vases and fabrics and I had staged some still life tableaux.

Even with all that preparation, it took forever just to lay out the palette;  I had drawn the line at any paint containing heavy metals (cadmiums and cobalts) so substitutes had to be found or mixed.  And then there was the mathematical terror which every artist knows:  one blank canvas plus one dry brush equals nothing.

Four hours later, I had a rough but LOOSE still life.  The time between start and finish was fraught with regret:  Why on earth had I chosen a reflective gold bowl?  And why compound the challenge by then placing said bowl on a figured tapestry? Am I delusional?  

Anyway, I soldiered through and barely took a breath for the next four hours.  It's still highly reflective so the background will be quieter but I want to detail the roses a bit more.  Most importantly, the leaves definitely need work;  I was loath to spend the prince's ransom that viridian demands but my creative mixing produced too sharp a green.   I also moved the position of the leaves several times so that needs to be sorted out.  That said, I'm satisfied with the lack of over-working as well as the reflection and the overall feel.

Now it's back to the cupboards in search of more fodder!  Stay tuned.

Returning from our walk before dinner by breaking a path up the snowy embankment, we noticed the deer prints.  This came as no particular surprise.  In fact, we knew exactly where the footprints would lead: right to our foundation plantings of euonymus, where we would find nothing but naked sticks.  Sure enough.  

In warmer winters, the deer favour our rhododendrons;  it is so cold this year, however, that the rhodo foliage has given up all pretence of life;  vertical and dark, the clenched leaves have an air of sullen defeat. Our neighbourhood raccoons have taken to completely removing the suet feeder at night.  If we're lucky, we can spot it before the next snowfall;  otherwise, it's back to the Nature Store.  The squirrels have even figured out how to liberate peanut crumbs through the tiny holes on the peanut feeder.  One of them has almost no hairs on her tail and must surely be cold at night without her fur stole.  

There has been no sign of the chipmunk since his bolt-hole in the driveway froze shut.  No matter, he is sleeping off the winter in the tunnel which holds his stores of sunflower seeds.  No doubt the red squirrel is again sleeping up high in the old stone garage with her box of walnuts close at hand. 

Those of us with larders are incredibly lucky even if it consists mainly of root vegetables and cold weather crops like kale and brussels sprouts.  Conveniently, I even prefer these vegetables this time of the year to the imported tropicals.  So you should not be surprised that I was inspired to immortalize a beautiful Savoy cabbage early one winter.  The painting was done from life in watercolour with a restricted palette of cool blues and greens so that complementary background was a must.  I liked the painting and we enjoyed the cabbage again that night, even if it did feel a little bit like cannibalizing a new acquaintance.


 

I do honestly love winter.  I grew up thinking that block heaters and frost shields were standard automotive equipment and was surprised to find other cities where the males at a party did not go out in mass at 11 P.M. and 1 A.M. to run the engines.  I have many a time walked home on numb feet from an outdoor skating rink and thought nothing of it.  I think I am tough.  I have bragged.

Predictably, Mother Nature is punishing me this week for my meteorological over-confidence.    To begin with, it is exceptionally cold, necessitating even the wearing of face protection. While a balaclava may protect your skin from freezing, it also generates up-gusts of hot humid breath which frost sunglasses and render one blind. This weekend we had to turn around quite quickly because Jon judged that I had walked full blast into my full winter quota of trees in about ten minutes.  The next day we tried the river valley.  There are high cliffs on both sides and it always feels remote and wild - a good thing in better weather.  However, walking conditions that day alternated between open water, sheer ice, slush under snow, and thin snow crusts above knee-deep drifts; my yells of surprise each time I crashed through the crust yet again prompted My Beloved to ask me to keep it down.  Apparently his zen contemplation was being violated.

I only cried once. Later, in my utter joy at having survived, I might have given our back door a tiny kiss.  I know what you are thinking and simply ask you to remember that we all can't be troopers all of the time.   On the plus side, I did take some nice digitals in the valley of the shadow, as well as some good ones today. May wait until my stone studio warms up a bit before painting them, however.  And while it was just as cold today, the glorious sunshine distracted me from my frozen bits and for a moment I caught myself thinking, "I LOVE winter!"

We did a long walk today, part of which involved crossing a high bridge.  I kicked myself for not always carrying my camera.  Today there were three shots I missed:  the great blue heron  hunched on a branch frozen into the river;  the pattern made by winter maples against the snow;  and the gin-clear water, stones gleaming through from the river bottom.  Our house is constructed from such river-stones, their tones ranging from creams to raw umbers to oxide reds.

Winter has its own unique beauty although I do have more trouble getting good shots.  There are few close-ups to be had, for one. Usually what draws my eye are the cobalt shadows in strong daylight (which we have had precious little of lately). The other winter jewel is sunset, whether reflected on the river or painted across the horizon.  Usually I'm either a bit too early or a bit too late as our walks are often dictated by Jon's ETA.  Somehow this monoprint of the tree line on our street managed to catch both:  the low sun poured through and laid down those splayed blue shadows.


For a different kind of good time there is the feeding station just outside my studio window.  Right now the redpolls and downy woodpeckers predominate, although the grey squirrels now excel at ascending the pole and wildly leaping to the "squirrel-proof" tube feeders, where the first one there fends off the rest of the queue while balancing on two legs.  We go through a lot of sunflower seeds but it's a small price to pay for the entertainment.

Years ago I remember walking past such a feeder near the house and having the feeling that I was being watched.  Taking a better look, I realized that a squirrel had removed the lid, lowered himself upside-down into the tube, and had momentarily stopped devouring sunflower seeds to eye me with terror.  I had missed him at first because his colour morph was black and my casual glance had read him as a mass of sunflower seeds.  Only watchful eye gave him away.  I didn't have the heart to frighten him any more so I just walked away.  When I went back later, he had successfully extricated himself, thank heavens.  I had no desire to remove Fatso by his tail.

As luck would have it, I did have my camera, so before my strategic retreat I took a shot and sent it to the manufacturer.  Never heard back. Funny, that.

Day One:  Those of you who know me well will not be surprised to hear me admit that I have a tendency to become overstimulated.  

When my physics prof at university started on the far left with e=mc2 and four blackboards later had derived one of Newton's laws of motion, I was so impressed that I couldn't sleep that night.  Years later, when another professor, this time a Hassidic rabbi, lit up the lecture hall with an equally brilliant exploration of comparative theology, again, no sleep.  

And here I sit now, practically vibrating from a day with the luminous Elizabeth Robbins, who painted not one but TWO superb oil still lifes today in a workshop, all the while wielding her brush with a light touch not unlike the effortless way Yoyo Ma holds his bow. The word "gob-smacked" must have been invented for just such an occasion.  I was transfixed.  In the afterglow, drunk with excitement, I stagger around the house, set up spotlights, transpose today's notes, edit the digitals, and google artists whom Elizabeth has recommended.  I suspect there will be lots of time throughout the night to think and plan.  Teeny bit overstimulated.
 
Day Two:  Yes, sleep would have been preferable, but the long night did give me time to think through how I could set up a similar studio still life arrangement.  After climbing onto the kitchen counter multiple times to fish out old but beautiful crockery from the top shelf and digging through the linen closet for interesting textiles, I rigged up a light/shadow box and started arranging flowers.  Fifty-some shots later, the roses were totally ragged and so was I.  But Step One is done.

What I really want to work towards is looser painting.  I'm quite a "tight" painter, I admit.  The only time my florals were completely "loose" was after eye surgery (I had to wait to have a new prescription before I could even order glasses), and I compounded the reduced control by choosing watercolour on yupo "paper."  This is one of my favourites from that period, long gone in a charity auction.