This is a technique that Jean Haines taught me a few years ago. You take a clean piece of paper and just splotch it all up with colors that you like. Then you start painting in the shadows. It’s a very soothing way to paint. This particular painting was inspired by the lovely bouquet my husband made for our table that day, but I did not paint any of the actual flowers, mine are all imaginary ones. This painting has been sold.
Everyone deserves to have at least one pet that stands out from all the rest; maybe it’s that they’re beautiful, maybe they have personality, maybe it’s because they are just a member of your family that you really cherish. Enza is that cat. Born out in our back yard during a very dry spring, we first discovered her as one of a litter of kittens running to escape our neighbor’s lawnmower, as he tardily tended to his tall grass. Weeks later, I finally trapped the whole litter and the mother cat; they were all completely wild. We neutered the mom and let her go, but the kittens we socialized with lots of TLC and patience; it was a rare summer, both my sons were around, and they both contributed to the effort. When the kittens were all tame, I was to give them to the no kill shelter who sponsored them. But giving up all four of them was very traumatic. Enza chose me, and I brought her back home. Enza went from being a completely wild animal to the family manipulator. She invents routines to get our attention, she does tricks while guests giggle, she launches herself between us in the middle of the bed, something she started doing when she was so small we feared for her safety. The feral cat spay and neuter project uses art for a fund raiser. They have a little lobby where the walls are covered with paintings. The more you donate, the nicer a painting you may choose. This painting was made for that purpose. It is fitting that Enza’s largess extends to her extended family of feral kitties all over the Seattle area.
Aggie is a former feral cat and even though she was neutered at an early age, she has her preferences. She likes this big black boy cat a lot better than any of the cats she lives with. He’s neutered too, I took him to the veterinarian myself. I took him and his twin brother hoping to get a two in one deal, but it was worst than I expected, one of them had an undescended testicle so it cost a lot more than I expected. Aggie clearly only likes one of them, the other stays closer to home, 3 houses down from our house. She’s gotten to the point that she doesn’t like to stay inside at night because the boys are outside playing. It’s either put up with her howling and galloping around the house all night, or let her out and sleep in peace They know we don’t approve of their relationship and what’s so funny you can see it in their faces.
My sister rediscovered the pleasures of gardening this season. With her hardworking husband, they have turned a suburban yard into a thriving little farmette. My sister is brilliant, she has lots of good ideas. In fact, this painting is taken from a reference photo of her augmenting the soil with coffee grinds she got for free from Starbucks. She drove all over town and ended with hundreds of pounds of the stuff.
I’ve been working on painting Megan since I saw her last month. It’s very nice to paint a pretty girl with a flower, but in this case I felt it was really important to show in the painting what her passion is. She’s started on a career in the culinary arts and before I saw her in May, I had never heard of a culinarian. As she described with excitement the cooking contest that she had been a part of, I knew that this young lady was going places. Here, I offer you; Megan