Whinings

Sorry for my sparse blogging recently, but I've been as busy as a one-toothed beaver trying to finish some paintings to be scattered about.  I've also had some trouble with this blogger thing in that it's been difficult to upload photos.  I also have a new computer that I've been trying to get used to, but it hasn't been easy.  And my motto is: if it's not easy, why do it?

Well, here we are in March.  Now, for some, March is the first month of spring. 

Not in Maine. 

Here, March is the last month of winter.  But for some reason, the big eastern syndicate that controls the calendar has decided that every once in a while we need to prolong February before we start March.  Let me tell you:  February is the worst month of the year.  Cold.  Dark.  Cold.  Snowy.  And cold.  Why extend it?  I for one would be happy to have an extra day in June, wouldn't you?  How about an extra fourth of July?  You know, July 4th II.  Hell, I'd even take an extra day in September.  But February?  No thanks.

I'm not a paint-slapping kind of guy when I paint.  My glazing style isn't really messy, so I stay fairly neat when I'm working.  Except when it comes to Prussian Blue.  I don't know why, but whenever I'm near that damn color, it leaps off my palette and attacks my hands and clothes.  Any stain I have on my clothes is Prussian Blue.  I guess it could be worse, it could be Viridian.  That stuff's too damn expensive to waste!

I usually work on one project at a time.  I've never been much of a multi -tasker.  Heck, I remember my ex-wife used to give me a stick of gum for birth-control.  But I digress....

Anyway, recently I've been splitting my work day between two paintings.  One is a big painting shown at the top of this page which is about 70% done.  I work on that in the morning, and in the afternoon I work on this one:

 

I admit, the amount of detail I've put in this is insane.  But to tell the truth, I find it more fun to draw than paint.

A chore I do at the end of my working day is to stock the wood pile in the house by bringing it up from the garage.  When I was a teen living at home, my folks used wood heat because they'd be damned if they were going to pay 28 cents a gallon for heating oil!  My chore then was to split the wood by hand and stack it it to dry.  It was a job that had to be done in the summer so the wood would be dry by the winter.  It was a hot, sweaty, brutal chore, and I said to myself then that I'd be damned if I was going to use wood heat in my home!  Now, years later, I enjoy a nice fire in the woodstove, and it's better than using heating oil, but it is getting a little old lugging those logs around.

And thanks to this leap year, I get to do it for an extra day...

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