Resolution Square

Not Available
Quilters know this design as Resolution Square. Viewers should note that I need to resolve to learn how to create a series of precise squares. This piece, as well as several others in my collection of misshapen blocks, will be combined to create a make-believe quilt. I can guarantee that my clumsy scissor work will not square up the series of painted blocks. The finished collage will be unlike any other quilt sample in existance.

Memory Chain

Not Available
Jennifer Chiaverini included this quilt block in the novel New Year's Quilt. The authentic block would be more regular than my mishapen piece shown here. But my memory is not as stable as many others may be. Like my memories this whole thing is cattywhompous.

Pinwheel

Not Available
The series of quilt blocks were inspired by Jennifer Chiaverini's Elm Creek Quilts novels. I know I do not have the patience to do the piece work required for a quilt. I also didn't have the skills to replicate a perfect quilt square. This block is titled "Pinwheel".

Thunder

12 X 9 Acrylic No Longer Available
Listen, hear the thunder? The sky is raging and the air is ringing with loud booms.

Windy

12 x 9 No Longer Available
Whoa, the wind is pushing everything about. The swirling mass began as a blanket of facial tissue (Puffs, not Kleenex) laid on the canvas (actually cardboard*). As the wet paint touched the tissue, the wrinkles were created. The first coat of paint was white. When that dried, I was fascinated by the way the color moved onto the wrinkles. This is another example for me of how textures play a role in the creation of interesting designs.
*About that cardboard, I've discovered I am more Scotch than anyone knew. I use whatever is handy for the support. Wait, I'm being Green..... reuse and recycle.

Hell Fire

12 x 9
I don't know how to describe this. It isn't really a painting, although I did use the same tube of red paint. I dyed squares of gauze in a tray of red paint and then squished and smushed the gauze into place. The deeper the red, the thicker the layer of gauze. Next I used an eye dropper and dripped dabs of white and yellow onto the red. All I see is a raging mass of red. Do you spot any images here?

Seaside

No Longer Available
By the sea by the beautiful sea. Well, it may not be beautiful, but it is a sea. My goal was to present clearer distinctions between the land and sea and the sea and sky. Can you tell I also attempted to create the reflection in the water? Let's call that blob on the lower left a hill. Works for me.

Feathers

9 x 12 Acrylic No Longer Available

This attempt to create feathers was a bit more successful. The idea of feathers popped into my head when I was in the hospital. A beautiful professional painting with a feathery feel was all I could see when I gazed out the door into the hallway. I thought I could do something like that. I couldn't. I must have feathers for a brain.

Strings Attached

12 X 9 Acrylic
Like so many things in life, this comes with strings attached. Curling ribbon was used to create the texture. I painted the whiteribbon as I created the design. The scan does not show the white strings, but at times the strings in life are invisible.

Phooey

12 x 9
I scanned this with the wrong rotation. I tried to create and bouquet of feathers, but they are lost now. Also lost here is the detail of the texture. I used gauze squares as an undercoat. Much of the shading has been added by the wrinkles in the gauze.

Left Turn

12 x 9 Acrylic
I hate making left turns. But turning left is sometimes better than going off onto the wild right side. The intersection into my subdivision resembles this turn. Go left to get out; go right to get in. My political views may be represented here. Even though I don't like going left, many times going left is much preferred to the uncertainty of going right. Usually, I eventually go off onto the unbeaten path and take the one less traveled by as I strive to stay in the middle. (My husband hated maps like this one that places south at the top. He asserted that all maps should have North at top. He was definitely more right than I am.)

Invasion

No Longer Available
So many of my thoughts are interrupted by invasions. Do you see the bell, the caterpiller, or the tree? This is the first born of a set of twin paintings. I used it to make a print. That print was posted earlier. Of course because of the way the blog is organized, some of you will see it later (if you look for Disorder.)

Daisy, Daisy

9 x 12 Acrylic No Longer Available

What is its color true? This was supposed to be a yellow flower, but it turned orange. Are real daisies ever orange? The shadow added by the scan improved this painting. I'd love to be able to do the shading shown here. Oh well. Good thing I have never sought perfection.

Butterflies

12 x 9 Acrylic No Longer Available
Watching the butterflies helps find a sense of peace. (Those purple blobs are supposed to be butterflies. I still can not create very realistic images... but I do have some fun trying.) I faked those flowers too.

Bombs Bursting

12 x 9 Acrylic
Sometimes bursting bombs cloud the air. Nothing can be seen very clearly when things fly off everywhere. As a control freak, days like this really upset me.

Bluesly

No longer available

The bugs made me feel the blues when I did this one shortly after a rather long hospital stay in February 2008. Sometimes things I try to hide just pop up out of the blue. Go away all you purple bugs. (The pun in the title is a Freudian slip, but I decided to keep it. Sly)

Rose War

9 x 12 acrylic

Roses are red and violets are blue. But this rose is blood splattered and the violets show their purple passion in this battle. Well, what do you see?

Summer Flowers

Not Available

I lost control in the upper left corner. I suppose that could be a flower like an Iris, but that would be out of season. When it came time to frame this, my neice, Sara, created a nicer set of three balanced 5 x 7 pieces. The messy blob is gone now. Sara didn't know how much I hated that left corner.

Gone Fishing

Not Available

The real painting is not as dark as this scan. My intention was to create a body of water. Some how the fish popped in. The fishermen in my family would love to have them pop out for a fresh fish supper. They will have to go catch their own. They won't mind that at all.

Summertime

12 X 9
"Summertime and the living is easy" was not the song I was listening to as I painted this to music, but the image reminds me of summer time. Here I use washes and maintain more white space than usual. Like many summer days a few dark spots show up. I cannot remember what song I was painting to. Perhaps a dark spot on my mind?

Cloudy Skies

No Longer Available

The song says "Sunny days are here again" but here the sun has gone missing and the clouds rolled in. Actually I was using a set of washes and trying to leave more white space. Many of my paintings are dark with very little white space. Is it a paradox that this cloudy day includes more white space and a sense of openness?

Ugly flower

Not Available
What a mess. I was playing with circles and trying make a geometric shape. I think I clearly demonstrate that geometry is not one of my strengths. I've trimmed of the edges to remove many of the smears. I plan to use the remaining flower as part of a future collage.

Floating

12 X 9 Acrylic
Retirement finds me floating through life. Nothing too exciting occurs very often, but surprises and shocks continue to show up to disrupt a worry-free float. I probably shouldn't say this, but I see sperm racing in this piece. Have multiples been created? What do you think?

Disorder

9 x 12 acrylic

How do you define disorder? Is a disease that has invaded the body? Is it the mess created when the house becomes littered? Is it being placed out of sequence? For me: it's the diseases taking over my body; the house after Hurricane Hutch (our new Boxer puppy) has discovered a new supply of paper; the painting being published separately from its twin. This piece is the print (stamped) copy of Invasion, a painting that hasn't been scanned or published yet. The twins are NOT identical. But this copy turned out to meet my expectations. Of course, I may have a disordered mind---or a mind out of order?

Desert Mountains

No Longer Available

An imginary landscape. Straight lines were not intended. I had planned to keep the colors unblended. That obviously did not happen. Luckily, I can accept the blurring between the lines. Isn't that blurring what happens when trying to draw lines in life?

Blue Candles

Not Available

I see these candles as people who are living in the garden of life. People who are tall and thin as well as those who are short and squat burn their enegy just like those who are average. What I was attempting was the way to paint dimension. I need more practice and patience. Again those candles show me necessary life qualities.