Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 10

I seem to have settled on a regular schedule of visiting RSM on Sun/Mon & Wed/Thurs, leaving me with Fri/Sat/Tues to myself. So once again, today and tomorrow are painting days. (And yard work days, too, now that the weather is more agreeable.)

So here's where I'm at, not sure that I'm headed in the right direction today. Added the bird's nest in the tree and started working on the fireworks. I'm thinking that I liked the really free color orbs before today's change better. I'm also not sure about the bird's nest. It sounded like a fine idea, but...



Here's a version with the nest removed. I think I do like it better this way, but I wonder if I've just gotten used to looking at it this way?

MiT, 1st senior, day 6

It seems like I've gone from day 4 with senior #1 (my Mercury) to day 6, but actually, the last entry was mislabeled; it should've been day 5. Day 4 was attached to 2nd senior day 4.

It was a beautiful sunny day here in Portland and when I arrived at RSM, I found my Mercury sitting outside enjoying the sun. We ended up staying out for a little bit as she chatted with other residents and got a late start on the watercolor session.

She's so very keen on impressionistic sunsets and wanted to another today (her first was also a sunset scene). Except today, she got 1/2 way and suddenly leaned back in her chair and announced "I'm tired." I guess she had a pretty social day, sitting outside and visiting with people, which was good, but it wore her out too.

As I'm getting to know her better, I'm forming more ideas for her book. At this point, I don't think I'll use the first 2 prints we did with her. I don't think her heart was in their selection and they probably don't mean much to her.

The highlight of the day was the talk at the museum on the Persian poetry that inspired so much of the Persian miniature paintings. The speaker (Richard Davis) was a great speaker, funny and knowledgeable. Only it was too short!

MiT, 2nd senior, day 6

We're starting to move along really quickly now...I'm getting better at using the copier at RSM to get a good quality copy for the gocco; and my Rock Star Senior is getting better at selecting an image to print, and also at printing them. She's getting pretty good at deciding what pressure she should be printing at, depending on the image and such. We worked on 3 prints today, 2 of them are finished (just 1 screen each, one is of a poem she wrote, and another from a watercolor she did), and the 3rd we'll complete the next time.

My original plan was to put prints in the room divider screen, but I had a brilliant idea the other day—I should use the cleaned gocco screens for the screens! I've always thought they were beautiful to look at, when they're stained from the inks but cleaned up. And with the room divider working with light, the used screens would be great. In fact, I'm thinking I should do that with all those old screens I have that I'll never use again.

See this entry for my previous day with my Rock Star Senior.

I also figured out what was bothering me (at least one of the things bothering me) about the LO piece—the window frame on the left looks too much like a trellis. I'm not sure there's anything I can do to fix that at this point. I guess I'll sleep on it.

The Random Movie tonight was Caramel, a Lebanese sweet nothing...not much happens, but full of heart. Super enjoyable, but more music please!

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 9

Had the day to myself today, so it was back to painting in my studio. I'm forging ahead with my original plans with the piece, even though there are still kinks that I haven't worked out. Added the 'fog in the valley' and the gray sky. The sky is a much grayer than it appears here, at least on my monitor.

The 'fog' is looking a lot like water splashing, so maybe I'll just call it rain.



I do see a couple of problems that I'll fix later, not sure if that will 'fix' my overall problem with the piece or not.

See this entry for a photo of the original inspiration for this piece. And see this entry for an image of the last time I worked on this piece.

Oops, almost forgot to add that cat box relocation is now complete—I removed the box from the old location yesterday morning, and there doesn't appear to be a gift of any kind left for me. In the mean time, the box in the new location continues to be used regularly. Quite the success story if you ask me, based on what I read on the net, about the difficulties and impossibilities of such endeavors!

MiT, 1st senior, day 4

Hey, this was a successful day with my senior #1! This was our watercolor session, and she really seemed to have enjoyed herself. (She kept on saying so! And based on past experience, she certainly would've made it clear to me if she was not having a good time.)

So we're meeting again for more watercolor sessions. I'll scan those in and print them out on my inkjet printer to include in the book! See this entry for my last day with senior #1.

Worked on the Portland Open Studios site some more; started to fill in the About page.

MiT, 2nd senior, day 5

My 2nd senior and I met for lunch at the RSM dining room, and we went to work after that. She finished the 2 prints that we started last time. Eventually I'll take a picture of her prints and post them. I think she's having a good time...wanted to know if she could make more than 6 prints. So I suggested 8 and she seemed happy with that.

And despite everyone complaining about the food at the dining room, I thought it was pretty good! Lunch was a somewhat comical affair with everyone either hard of hearing or a little confused, or both. Kitchen is kosher, but I guess hardly anyone actually keeps kosher, so there were complaints about that. All in all, my senior #2 was in excellent spirits and consoled one of our dining companions that she shouldn't worry about what other people say. A very sensible lady, my senior #2. I'm dubbing her my Rock Star. (See this entry on our previous meet.)

Tomorrow, I'll meet with my senior #1 (I think I'll call her my Mercury), and see how it goes. We'll be doing watercolors; the day crept up on me and I did not prepare for it yet. I'll have to do it tomorrow. Today was one of those days where I just went from one thing to the next; and tomorrow will be more or less the same.

My #3 senior, whom I have met but haven't started working yet, told me that she's having a very important birthday coming up. I thought she was going to be 80, or maybe 90 (she walks around just with a cane, and hasn't got too many wrinkles), turns out, she's gonna be 100! I'll call her my Birthday Star.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 8

Got a couple of hours more work on this piece today before I had to head out for the China Council auction. It's better, but there's still something that's bothering me in the lower left grassy area. I need/want to remove the 'stems' connecting the flowers, at least in the flower bunches along the bottom. I realize that I really should've worked on the tree on the right much earlier on already, but my original plan was to leave that very open, looking very foggy, but now I think that's not going to work. With so much going on elsewhere, that's not standing up very well. I do think it looks better with the flowers gone to almost white and the grass on the left going darker.



But I think it's better cropped this way. I just seem have trouble working this size. Every time I've tried to work this size, it's been a struggle, and I'm still waiting for that aha moment when I try something drastic and it saves the day.



Here's where it was last I worked on it.

The China Council Auction! I bought a cake! And 2 certificates to Flying Pie Pizza. I guess it's our 'food year.' It's nice to be able to go to the auction and just enjoy the event and not have to work. I think I'll keep it that way.

Lake Oswego Chronicles piece, day 7

As promised, I spent the day in the studio (7 1/2 hours!), with a little break in the evening going to Margaret's shower. It felt like I got a lot done, and I'm liking it better, although the difference is probably not going to look like much to anyone else, so I didn't bother with a photo. But it should be ready for another photo tomorrow though. Here's the last entry.

MiT, 2nd senior, day 4; 1st senior, day 4

Another successful afternoon with my 2nd senior. Her daughter came in and visited with us while we printed, and that was great. As we were wrapping up, my 1 senior came in to visit! At first she seemed excited about what we had done, but then when I suggested that I still had time & materials to make a print with her, she wimped out—giving the same reason as always—she was tired.

But as we chatted, I started to wonder perhaps she was just not excited about making a print with something that was already around. She asked if I thought what my 2nd senior had done was 'art', although she didn't use the word; I can't remember what word she did use. She also expressed admiration for some of the watercolors on the wall and said that was what she wanted to do. So! We have an appt next week for me to work with her doing watercolors. I think maybe we can make prints from the watercolors for the project. We'll see. For my previous day with my 1st senior, see this entry. And my previous day with 2nd senior, see this.

Worked a bit more on the Open Studios web site and stubbed in a couple of the pages. When I'm tired, it's a pretty good project to do—I get to sit while I'm doing it, and once the layout is decided, it's not too difficult to pump it out.

I have 2 almost free & clear days coming up...back to painting, finally!

MiT, 2nd senior, day 3

Well, my 2nd senior rocks BIG TIME!

When I got there today, she was waiting for me by the front door, to give me a hand with all my equipment. That made me very happy, that she was looking forward to it enough that she wanted to help.

We got started right away. She had the texts she wanted to layer over what we did on day 2 all ready to go. So it was just a matter of making a b&w copy and then going to it, which she did. Then she had more images prepared for her 3rd print, so we printed the 1st layer of that, too. I'll be back tomorrow for the next step.

We sat around and chatted for quite a while after we finished printing. Part of it was just that I was too exhausted to think about carrying all that equipment back to the car right away, and also, we don't talk much while we're printing, so this was a good way for us to get to know each other. She's got such a great personality...if she were a weather condition, she'd be a sunny day with scattered clouds, temperature in the low 70's. And not humid.

She speaks wonderfully of everyone, adores her kids and grandkids, and was pretty enthusiastic when I told her about the coming visit of my sister and nieces.

On other fronts, I sold the sofa! For a lot less than I was hoping for, but it was good to get it done. And they were immigrants, so I was happy to give them a break. And they called when they said they'd call, and showed up when they said they'd show up, which is a lot more than what the first 2 callers did.

It was kind of sad to see it go though. It was the first new piece of furniture I bought. I seem to be getting rid of a lot of 'first new' items recently. The Good Prince was a little worried until I reminded him that he was gently used when I got him.

About that exhaustion, and why I skipped an entry last night (yet again) — it was my 'Super Tuesday' of volunteer duties. I started the day at Print Arts NW (in the Pearl), then went to the downtown library, and from there, back to NW 18th and Quimby. I bussed in, so that was all on foot. Lunch had to fit in while I walked from the bus stop to Print Arts (yes, despite raising a very civilized kitty who sits very prettily while she eats, I eat while I walk). Dinner was while I was waiting for the other board members to show up for the meeting.

When that was all over at 9:30pm, the Good Prince picked me up and we went for the Random Movie of the week, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I got home 13 hours after I left the house in the morning, feeling pretty tired.

The movie was maybe just a tad on the long side, but really very good. Despite the subject matter and how it ended, I think it was a pretty uplifting movie.