An Artist Walks In To A Bar

   I've been busy lately and seemingly accomplishing nothing. I've made the transition from my last job to my new job. It involved a streak of ten days without a day off. That's nothing more than a lot of people do, nowhere near my own personal record, but more than I've done in a long time. I sacrificed a lot of painting time, but I put in a lot more drawing time than I have in several years. I take a sketchbook with me to work and draw for about twenty minutes before I go in. Nothing in particular, just steady drawing. It probably shouldn't surprise you to learn that it's mostly faces. I patched our roof, hopefully for the last time. I rebuilt the floor under our toilet and reattached it. I don't mind being a handy man, but I hate plumbing projects. Or, they hate me. Never go as smoothly as I think they ought to. We've also been down to one car during my current three day 'artist week'. Oh, I also started revamping my studio. It's gonna be much better, but it's in a mid-stage clutter phase. I've been using every bit of my studio time putting paint on canvas. I finished a commission, which is always good news. It was an odd commission, at least for me. It was a black and white, abstract, featuring shapes. Wow! It seemed pretty far from what I've been doing, but I had taken the job. I started by sketching some rough shapes in black, then some white to bring it to a focus. ( I wanted to say 'to shape it up', but that seemed like too bad a pun, even for me). Paint dries, I go in with black, wait a while, go in with white, let it dry. All of a sudden I look at it and think 'cool, this is really coming together'. I showed it to the lady who asked me to paint it and she loves it. It has garnered some very positive responses from everyone who's seen it. This may take me down a whole new side street. Hopefull it won't be a dead end.

So new it doesn't even have a name yet.