Rutabaga Renewal

Begin the new year with a promise to eat more tubers.

Acrylic paint and ink on a 10 x 8 inch board.

Welcome

to my onion patch.

Acrylic paint on a 9 x 12 inch board

Impossibility

Ah beets... Pretty to look at but I would find it close to impossible to actually eat some of these. They were fun to paint though.

Acrylic paint on a 10 by 8 inch board.

Subtract

This is the second in my root and tuber series.
4 carrots + 2 apples - 2 apples = 4 carrots.

Acrylic paint on a 12 x 16 board.

Breezy

Acrylic on a 9x12 inch board

Climbing

Warthog step aerobics.

Acrylic paint on an 8 by 6 inch board.

Amphipod at Cinque Terre

I haven't finished a painting or participated in Illustration Friday in more than a year. My father died January 6, 2008, then my mother-in-law in February. The loss of my father has resulted in the blunting of my creative impulses. I have six unfinished paintings; I couldn't summon the desire or skills needed to complete them.
Then recently I found an old drawing of an amphipod that I made years ago when I was working in a lab identifying invertebrates. I made up my mind to combine the amphipod with images from a photo I took in Italy in 2006.
I'm not crazy about this, it seems to need more work, but it's a start since painting and drawing are what will make me happy again.
(Oh, and I think eggs might be contained in her abdomen.)

acrylic and ink on 9x12 inch panel

Little Things

Acrylic and ink on a 9x12 inch board.

Superstition

This started out as the IF 'hat' theme. I didn't finish it in time. So when 'scale' was the theme for the following week, I painted the a smaller version on a coffee cup. Well, that didn't work out either, I couldn't get it done in time. Now this week is 'superstition'. More adaptation was needed.
An ancient superstition = if a woman sits down at a bar with a glass of wine and notices a cup which is painted with her image, then she will gradually disappear.

Acrylic paint on an 8x8 inch board.

Lerici

I just finished this today and was going to post it to IF
if the topic fit in any way, but it doesn't so I didn't.
I tried something different here, alizarine crimson gesso
(which I bought years ago and had never used) instead of white.
The photo of a girl walking her dog that I based this upon was taken last May in Lerici, Italy.

Acrylic paint on a ten by 8 inch board.

Ghost

Two ghosts.

Acrylic paint and ink on an 8 by 8 inch board.

Smitten

This fellow seems fairly smitten with birds, or maybe they find him irresistable.
I have this little (2x3 inch) cutout from a magazine that I've saved since I was in high school. It shows a painting of this guy, in black and white. I have long since lost the information about who painted it and who the subject was. Another artist maybe? A naturalist painter? I can't remember. But here is my interpretation of the mysterious painting (or drawing) that I have saved so long. Maybe someone will recognize it.

Acrylic paint on a 10 x 8 inch board.

Quiet

I like giraffes and thought one would be a good subject for this topic because I had heard that they don't make noise. So I worked away on this and when it was almost finished I did a google search and learned that they aren't so quiet after all.

"Although normally silent, giraffes are not mute. This is a myth. Baby giraffe calves have been reported bleating and making a mewing sound, while adults have been heard to bellow when seeking a lost calf, snort when in alarm and bull giraffes emit a raucous cough during courting. A variety of other assorted giraffe sounds including mooing, moaning, hissing, grunting, whistling, growling and, apparently, flutelike sounds have also been reported."


Acrylic paint on a 10 by 8 inch board.

Phobia

No doubt someone who suffers from snake phobia (ophidiophobia) would be startled and terrified to find poisonous coral snakes in the bathroom. Even if they do happen to be imaginary.
I have always loves snakes, since I was a wee tyke. My parents tell me, that when I was about 7 or 8 and we lived in Maryland, I brought home a baby copperhead in my lunchbox. I don't really recall this very clearly but evidently I attempted to assure them that I knew how to handle poisonous snakes. Here I am as an enraptured schoolgirl gazing at my favorite reptile.

I tried to make this a black and white painting thinking I needed to try something other than the overly bright colors I normally use. But I couldn't finish it as b&w (it gave me a headache, like when you need caffeine), so gave in to my instincts and painted color over the black and white piece.



acrylic on a 6 by 8 inch board

Change

These are some items I brought home from Italy. A little pear juice bottle, a small glass dish and some Euro coins.

I hadn't finished any paintings since July. The room that I paint in is small, with very little storage space. And since I have problems with throwing stuff out, my room had gradually become so cluttered and crowded that I would drag my paints out to the dining room so that I wouldn't have to work in here. Then I decided to get the room cleaned up and not do any artwork until it was finished. If you have the stomach for the squalor I was working in you can see it here (as well as the after pictures).



Acrylic paint on an 8 by 8 inch board.

Opposites

This is a drawing that my father made in 1945 after he came back from WWII. He was about 19 when he drew it (he joined the navy when he was 17).
I have always been amazed that he remembered the scene in such detail and was able to draw it from memory almost two years later.
When I decided to make it into a painting, I asked him what he remembered about the circumstances of the scene he had drawn. He wrote three pages of his memories of that time.

He was stationed in French Morocco, North Africa, and was in charge of disarming unexploded shells, as well as maintaining the aircraft machine guns, torpedoes and depth charges. He liked to spend some free time in a cafe where he could get real scrambled eggs, bacon and good coffee. There he made the acquaintence of a young Frenchman who had deserted from the army in Algiers soon after the Vichy government was established. He was a proud Frenchman who was deeply hurt by the loss of his country and the establishment of the German controlled Vichy.
My father is at the table on the left and young French deserter on the right. The two French soldiers are from the security detachment at the French side of the U.S. airbase. Most soldiers like them were without real guidance or orders from the Vichy regime so they were fortunate to find a group that could use them (and house and feed them).
The hotel Atlas was in Agadir, on the coast. The building in the distance is a former Portugese fort that was being used as a tuberculosis hospital.
At the end of my father's written narrative he says, "The sad end to my story is that on Feb. 29, 1960 an earthquake, tidal waves and ensuing fire destroyed most of the city of Agadir and killed 12,000 people."
Some months ago my mother suggested that I create a painting from this drawing, and so I have.


acrylic paint on a 9 by 12 inch board (click image to enlarge)

Sacrifice

I started this for the skyline topic, but could not get it finished in time. I decided to adapt it for this week's topic by including a zebra who has sacrificed her wild life on the beautiful plains of Africa to come to the city and seek work. So that she can 'put food on her family'.
(Food quote courtesy of our eloquent preznit.)

Acrylic paint on a 10 by 10 inch board.

Rain

I started this 2 weeks ago for the jungle topic but couldn't finish it that weekend, then last weekend was too beautiful and sunny to stay inside and paint.
Now we have a rainy weekend so I was able to finish this, adapted to this week's Rain theme.
The parrot was caught in a rainstorm while wearing her favorite shirt, and she waits patiently as it dries.

acrylic paint and ink on an 8 by 8 inch board

Portrait

These two figures appeared in a previous post, back when I was just making collages and hadn't started painting again.
So since they were crammed into my collage book, unseen and neglected, I decided to revive them into an acrylic painting.


Acrylic paint and ink on an 8x10 inch board.

Cake

The blue girl is knitting leftist bumper stickers while listening to one of her favorite bands, Cake.

Right before the November 2004 election, I noticed what appeared to be a funeral pyre for the Bush administration set up on a main road in my little town.
The effect was somewhat ambiguous, so I emailed the picture to the Freeway Blogger, asking his opinion as to whether he agreed that it was most likely a statement against Bush. Perhaps the people who made it intended to set it on fire after the results of the elections were announced.
Here was his reply:

"Very Interesting. I'm inclined to agree with you if only because only an artist would think to do such a thing, and although we don't have the military industrial complex on our side, we do have the artists..."

It's true that most of the great songwriters, artists, actors, writers have been and continue to be progressives who care about the human race and abhor war and all its horrid consequences.

Acrylic and ink on an 8 x 8 inch board.