As the snow receded, it became apparent that our cozy "deer yard" had gone to the dark side.  I gravely underestimated the appetite of a deer herd.  The large yew which survived the weight of the 250 year old white oak which collapsed on it fifteen years ago now makes a better window than a door  The hollies, both male and female, are no longer attractive even to one another.  The horse chestnut sapling is missing its buds, as are the euonymus foundation plantings which, to compound the affront, had been stripped of their leaves only a month ago. We were kinda counting on those buds.

To add insult to injury, it seems that NONE of the neighbours near or far has lost a single leaf.  Did we single-handedly support said deer herd???  Granted, they kindly donated loads of fertilizer (as a thank you gift, I suppose), but it's been a bit of a lop-sided relationship. 

I have begun to wonder if there is sign language involved.  My maternal grandmother, a kind and generous person, fed hundreds of homeless men who rode the rails during the Depression and who apparently headed straight for her kitchen when the trains stopped in town.  Years later I read that such men left chalk marks on a gate as shorthand for what one might expect from the householder.  I have to say goodbye now and head for the garden.  That pesky chalk mark must be somewhere out there and IT NEEDS TO GO.

The Queen of Hearts had something.  This is the time of my year when being an artist loses all of its scant allure and I start to nose around for other pastimes.  

Of course this feeling springs from the fact that our annual show is imminent.  

Challenge #1: this event always necessitates the premature naming of offspring yet to be conceived, let alone born.  I toy with various vaguenesses such as:  "Her Face" (12 x 16 - glaze oil on panel) "A Bunch of Flowers" (20 x 24 - oil alla prima) but seeing as I don't actually know the size or medium yet, let alone the subject matter,four of this year's works will have to meet their public under the moniker "Untitled" -- code for "just finished, probably still wet."





"Time, Time!" cried Bilbo Baggins.  "Time" is the answer, but there's never enough of it, pre-show.  Jon believes that large glaze oil paintings are my metier.  Easy for him to say.  If you have endless time and good feet, glaze oil is your baby.  But baby won't be hurried.  If I try, chances are that even I won't like it. Seeing as it will probably spend eternity in our own living room, I know it will whisper "Feh" every time I glance at it.  That said, I don't want to saddle anyone else with Ugly Baby either.

 Some artists can paint furiously and brillliantly.  I am simply not one of them.

Even when the paintings have been "finished,"  they are not "ready."  That is, they aren't wall-ready. That might involve continuing the image around the deep sides or staining the edges of a panel or buying a frame to surround it.  It is this stage which is hardest on my clothing budget because paint or stain or blood turns up everywhere.  I do not recommend cream leather seats in artists' cars either.

And invitations.  I probably should have waited until after our show to upgrade my operating system. Okay, okay,  it hasn't been upgraded since I bought it in 2009.  But the warning from artist friends not to upgrade was only recently outweighed by the clear and present need to do so.   I tried to stream Shomi and got a hurtful message along the lines of "Wow, that's some ancient operating system and we don't like it." So Yosemite was unavoidable.  Now suddenly I'm in a different country;  the inhabitants may speak the same language but nothing's quite right.  Remember Ray Bradbury's short story, "A Sound of Thunder," where a time traveller's inadvertent crushing of a butterfly profoundly reshapes the present to which he returns? Once that insect was flattened, there was no going back and now I really really miss my 15000 "keywords" which let me find a photo immediately.    Yes, Apple granted me the ability to send show invitations as an iPhoto jpeg; it also, however, saw fit to remove my ability to choose bulk mailing. Dead butterfly. And no more printing of my own business cards.  Doubly dead.  Apparently iPhoto is also doomed.  RIP Snow Leopard.  

Apple giveth and Apple taketh away.

And this is why artists look haggard at shows.  And shop for croquet sets.

 

Less than a week ago, we were snowshoeing, albeit in heavy and granulated snow.  To my delight, I spotted the scene I had photographed and painted years ago  (see the linked website zannekeele.com by using the tab above -  "Find my Website" - and look at the banner.  I recognized it only because the time of year was the same and the water was that particular green-gold characteristic of the river in late winter.  Although I had flipped the right-left orientation so that the two paintings that were inspired that day would work as a pair, those leaning trees framed by that water were unmistakeable.  I read somewhere yesterday that one theory about the human love of film and television is that they remind us of moving water.  The writer didn't question the underlying assumption;  I would ask, why are bodies of water so hypnotic? I think that it is the shimmering colour produced by sunlight penetrating to the river bottom and being reflected back;  The sunnier the day and the lighter the substrate, the more brilliant the colours. In this sense all transparent media, whether water, glass, watercolour or glaze oil, behave the same.

This month I have been experimenting with alla prima painting.  Certainly, it is less labour-intensive than Renaissance-style glazing, which takes many days and at least six layers.    The pay-off at the end is the addition of final transparent glazes over lighter sections, which almost immediately light up and glow. On the other hand, alla prima painters like Richard Schmid, Elizabeth Robbins and David Lefel produce luscious results.    They paint mainly opaquely and more thickly in a gestural way, using excellent drawing and a mastery of colour to pull it off.  Most importantly, of course, they finish a painting in one go.      

So.... how to combine the virtues of both?

I'm experimenting this weekend with a swan whom I photographed in early winter at the lake.  I painted her yesterday over a longish day (which almost necessitated a nap in the middle), but opted to undershoot some of the areas so that I could glaze them later. Today the painting was mainly dry so I was able to glaze the blue shadows on her chest and flank into deeper values and I detailed the reflection a bit too.  

Sorta alla prima?

Because I have been rifling through cupboards looking for objets to set up in a still life tableau, I am finding some old treasures.  Years ago (remember the missing flatware?) I stopped using the Wedgewood that my mother helped me select at Birks.  My taste ran then to ornate, but Mom was a mid-century teak collector who prized simplicity of line above all.  She convinced me to choose the pattern "California;" which is perfectly white with a gold band.  Her winning argument was the insight that all food looks terrific against white.  I was struck by her point and chose the pattern she recommended.

As a break from painting yesterday, I carefully washed the California and the beautiful old Limoges which were also white and gold, though with scalloped edges and tiny fleurs de lys, which my dear Aunt Hazel had given me.  The porcelain Limoges is far more delicate than the English bone china, something my aunt realized when she as a newly-wed had received it as a gift from her rather challenging mother-in-law, who had shipped it from south-west U.S. in a crate without any padding.  Aunt Hazel's gift to me was comprised of the few miraculous survivors of that hellish trip.  I treasure them and rather admire their will to live.

Of course, Mother was absolutely right.  Everything except beige food looks great on those plates.  In general, white enhances the juiciness of other colours and I used it shamelessly as a background in my watercolours.  In fact, until I took up oils, I didn't even own any white paint because the trick in watercolour is always to reserve the white of the paper, an intention more honoured in the breach than in the observance.

Oil is the diametric opposite and pure white as a super highlight is the very last addition to a painting. Generally, however, the best way to judge the colour you are mixing is to place it on a mid-tone background.  For years I have toned new canvases in Indian red or raw umber but it never occurred to me to use a mid-tone palette as well.  Elizabeth Robbins had an elegantly simple solution:  an old watercolour frame, fitted with cardboard backing under the glass.  Heading for my go-to second-hand store, I bought one immediately.  If the paint dries on me, a few swipes with a razer scraper clears the $1 palette admirably. Thanks, Elizabeth!

I often wonder how I would manage without the presence of the wise women in my life.

These lovely gentle creatures are on our minds.  Last week we ran into a small troop of ten of them, all does and yearlings, and several days later came upon their bedding sites -- large, gently-rounded hollows lined with leaves ;  I suppose their warm bodies melt  away the snow overnight, even fluffing  and drying last autumn's bounty.   Because they are so quiet and secretive, the lives of deer have always seemed private, even exotic.  Any evidence of their presence was grace note.

We were, therefore, both astonished and delighted to discover that the far side of our property is being used as a bed-and-breakfast.  I supposed we should have been alerted by the multiple deer paths in the snowy yard but certainly had never expected them to drop by for anything more than a snack.   It turns out that we've been hosting a neighbourhood pyjama party.  

As I write this, I am fighting the impulse to go out and see who might have checked in for the night.  In my opinion, the height of happiness would be to have a doe raise her fawn close by.  We have had a raccoon mother park her babes on our bedroom window ledge while she foraged during the night;  during the daylight hours she would guide them up and down the bittersweet vine until they had mastered climbing.  (If you have ever run across a howling baby raccoon stranded on a roof in daylight you can be sure that while Mom may have  tried in vain to teach the skill, Baby would be paying far better attention that evening.)  Our vines have shielded the nests of different birds;   many broods came of age beside the stone walls, and we had occasionally had to avoid a particular door until everyone fledged.  

That said, we are ready and willing to be auntie and uncle to a fawn!  This little orphan was adopted by a friend, whose three-year-old daughter christened her "Ceremony."  What a perfect name.