Painting

Well, as soon as I mentioned it, it decided to be July. It's hot here and the mosquitoes are out. I now have mosquito bites mixed with the spider bites and am covered with tea tree oil. Mosquitoes did not used to like me, but they do now. I got up and did my hair this morning and plucked my eyebrows so Dad could take my picture, but am feeling grateful for Kathleen and my low maintenance haircut. My hair looks great even when I first wake up in the morning and without a blow dry and is a perfect county girl haircut, although I draw the line with eyebrows, even country girls should have two, and no fuzzy legs.

So much for my schedule, the only things on schedule so far are meal times, wake up and go to sleep and nap time, and the cats' supervised strolls. Cats are scheduled to go to the vet for shots Monday, which I should have taken care of before I left LA, since it is now a 20 minute cat car ride each way and I am not looking forward to it.

We have not seen another snake, but I have taken to carrying a stick with me on my cat strolls. I also checked for spiders I should know and learned about the Brown Recluse, which I was happy to see does not live in Idaho or much of California, but you just can't get away from the Black Widow, they are everywhere.







Finished the above 3 studies when I returned from my road trip and the last 2 here. I thought I would try landscapes, something small and fast, and broaden my market. I do not care for the orchids much, funny I've carried around this reference to paint for years and now I don't like it. I'm hoping that I am not going to be happy with 1 out of every 2 paintings, but studies are supposed to be to work things out before starting a larger painting, and also for finding out if it is worth a larger painting, so I should not be preoccupied with the study as an end product. I like the landscapes, but the most recent one is the best one. I'm not sure if that is environment or practice.

Today's topic from Wisdom of the Ages is Triumph, with "The Six Mistakes of Man" by Cicero. Sounds pretty much like accepting the things you cannot change, including your neighbor, and not that interesting. Cicero's enlightenment earned him the chance to be executed and his head and hands displayed at the Forum, so I'm skipping Cicero.