Things that made my soul sing last week

Something a little different this week. Not because I didn't do any art, but actually because I did so much art very little of it is done or shareable at the moment. Here's a few things that made me happy and refueled my creative tank between glaring at business tax obligations and slowly chipping away at a 12 x 16 inch realistic cat portrait commission.

Oils. Good lord, oils put some life back in me. I pulled them out to start a large mix media portrait and while I had them out, did a "quick" little painting of my hand on a spare background. I think this is my first oil "from life" and I loved doing it. Note to self. More oils. More oil hands. More oil anything.

Speaking of hands. We went for a long walk downtown and really spent some time looking at a couple of the murals. This one in particular, which of course I didn't take a full picture of, we stood in the empty lot and talked about the technique and what we liked about it and I explained to the kid, approximately, how it would have been done.

We got up close and personal and really admired the little splotches that gave away the fact it was spray painted. And I was in love with the cracks from the paint underneath.

Note to self: buy spray paint. Do a mural.

On this epic of a walk, we passed a tea shop and I mentioned that we could have a tea party for a hell of a lot cheaper at home where it would actually be dairy-free and quiet. So the kid says "Can we have a tea party?" Yes, yes we can.

We got all dressed up and after our tea we were discussing themes for future tea parties. A "retro futurism" themed tea party came up and he called his grandma to ask what she thought now would be like in the 50's. She went off on a tangent about the cold war and how gay used to mean happy and I snapped this very very Norman Rockwell -esque picture. Which I cannot wait for a spare moment to paint in oil.

Finally, it snowed. Which got me all geared up for winter as a concept and, well, was a novelty anyhow. My husband forbade me of posting photos of my snowman on the internet because he's censoring my art, but it was a good time.

Now back to the soup, and the laundry, and that behemoth of a cat painting.