Some dreams and some painting prep work, Part 2

Monday morning when I took Chief out for his wake-up outing, he looked up the hill, so I suspected the nearby presence of deer - and that reminded me of a bit of my dream. Much of it is vague - something about driving up a hill kind of like a ramp, in snow or something; having trouble with the car, I think; but I think there was something about Harry Potter in it, and then a bit I remember vividly: a young buck deer behind us, me and Paul, as we were sitting on a kind of mound or slope at the edge of the parking lot, woods behind us. I think I invited the buck nearer, maybe challenging him, as I like to do. His head came towards us, accepting the challenge, I think, and I got nervous, somewhat nervous about his antlers, but even more about a very small, very sharp greenish spine at the base of each of his antlers that I thought was poisonous. He was trying to scratch me with it. I grabbed his head and his antlers, trying to keep out of range, confine his head, wrapping my arms around, wrestling with him. I did enjoy the close encounter with him, the feel of his antlers with his muscle behind them.

I looked at needing to keep some balance, as far as keeping housework going as well as art, so I did a bunch of dishes and then cleaned our pellet stove. It was a mess! Another new watercolor brush arrived (another lovely gray squirrel quill), yippee!, and I bought myself a canvas drop cloth I've since cut in pieces to spread on the table and the couch when I do my gessoing, and another piece to protect my drafting table when I paint. Yippee again!

Tuesday I had to do a different sort of painting: the trim on our new studio. Paul and I got up on the roof - I refused to get up there without a rope to hang on to, and Paul had the brilliant idea of wearing our river shoes, soft tight rubber slippers with clingy soles, which gave us much better traction on the roof - and painted the eave-fascia on the dormer, then, off the roof and onto ladders, we finished the eave-fascia on the backside of the main roof. Paul had already painted the fascia on the rest of the roof. We needed to get all the roof trim done before the roofers came, which we thought was going to be yesterday; but after all, here they are today.

Meanwhile, I decided to go ahead and paint the pillars and beams of the "porch", which involved some tricky reaching around, on account of the limitations of ladder placement. Now it looks kind of Japanese. And when I finished that, I had some paint left in my tray, so I did some door, window and corner trim. Hey - painting is painting!!

Yesterday afternoon I finally did my first PAD painting. Yaaay! I wrote about that on my PAD blog, but I haven't posted the painting yet. I hope to do another painting today, but it's getting late - I need to drive down to Yuba City today - so I might not get to it. But I particularly want to photograph the first painting, and try to post it.

Hey, hey! Moving forward.

Some dreams and some painting prep work, Part 1

Friday I had a wonderful dream: I was in my house, a wonderful, big, square, solid house with woodwork and details that were finely crafted but unobtrusive, giving a spacious, glowing, airy feeling; lots of rooms, a California craftsman expanse. Expansive. At least one big room, big enough for a ballet studio, was full of my paintings. We had a black bear cub living with us, a big floppy guy, and I sat on the steps with Melissa and her baby (maybe Zach, maybe not), and someone else.

Some people came in to stay, and we were going away; maybe a movie crew, to shoot on location, or some other renters or tenants. When we came back, the paintings were down and some were missing I think, and some other things, but I wasn't troubled. I was a bit concerned about how they'd respond if they encountered the bear cub. But I loved the dream.

Sunday morning I had a not-happy dream. I was on my way, with Melissa, to meet Paul at a very special friend's wedding, and I realized that I was missing part of what I was supposed to wear (I was wearing a vivid, kind of sparkly blue and purple outfit), and a camera or something I was supposed to bring. We were already late, or almost late; I might have been still eating, in the car; we didn't have time to go back... Not good. And then, trying to go through a labyrinthine building to get there, I got lost. Before that, Melissa and I were in her apartment, which had about six inches or a foot of water in it, and our long dresses or bathrobes were getting soaked at the bottom.

Saturday I helped Paul spread straw around the base of the new studio, so that if it rained the red clay wouldn't splash onto the green paint; and then I gessoed 25 pieces of masonite. That was good, even though I got kind of stuck in driven, punitive work mode, putting off dinner.

Sunday I organized & consolidated the recycling, and gathered packing materials I want to hold on to, in anticipation of having to ship little paintings - hopefully lots of them... Then I did some packing up in my studio, a box of books mostly. I want to list them, so I can remember what's happened to them, and what's where. Then I cleaned my palette, and was all set to start on my Painting a Day project. Whee!