Plein air paintings, studio art and lessons
This is not the itsy bitsy spider, but a dead baby desert tarantula in the bottom of an empty bowl (left outside by the front door). Let’s bring it inside for examination! Here, under the bright sunlight in the kitchen:
…oops! don’t panic, it’s not dead, I guess!
Let’s take it back outside:
…oops! Shit! Back up, kids!
Brushing my teeth before the window, I noticed how hazy the horizon looked. Yesterday was so clear and sunny! And today, it looks as if we are covered in a thin veil of smoke. I had to stop brushing so I could look more closely. Squinting beyong the Live oaks, a patch of smoke caught my eye, lifting up between our lot and the one next door.
I spit into the sink and wipe my face.
“Damon, is this smoke?!”
He came into the room for a peek out the window, his toothpaste-breath blowing over the top of my head.
“Well, it looks like it. Wait…”
And we both realized what it was simultaneously: clouds of juniper pollen releasing into the wind.
I guess this means it’s Spring already?
Last week, I mentioned that I manage to sketch whenever I can during the day, right alongside the boys. We do this indoors and out. I prefer outdoors.
A good workhorse for outdoor drawing is a long masonite slab. Ours holds three sheets of drawing paper in a row: One for me, one for Chas, one for Ford. Ford oftentimes abandons the art for something else: playing cars with drawing/ painting tool “x”, playing spaceships with drawing/ painting tool “x”, playing Harry Potter with drawing/ painting tool “x”. Chas imitates Ford until he sees that I am drawing, at which point he picks up drawing/ painting tool “x” and begins to assist me on the page. We work together for another two to three minutes, and then I stand back and watch.
And here we are: I’m now standing behind the glass, watching the two of them devour the carcass of a clean work station. More performance art than painting, red and black paint are beginning to slosh beyond the edges of the masonite and onto the floor. Within minutes, there will be little red footprints peppering the deck and two naked boys running around the yard like bloody red Banshees. Later, I will be rinsing curly pink hair in the bathtub and scraping petechia-red gunk out from underneath longish nails as they watch *tv.
But wait! There are more studios to see here.
* tv is handy for: trimming nails, cutting hair, brushing teeth, taking measurements, but not much else.