Painting books again

Well here I am again with the painting of the books. I tried to keep this loose and underworked but it still took a long time. The cat and the mouse did not take much time at all but they also aren't as loose as the books.

Not sure if it's done but I have an open studio coming up on April 23 and 24 and will have to break down the arrangement. That's the disadvantage of having shows in one's art studio, but perhaps it's more interesting for the visitors.

Looks a little dark here. I borrowed my friend Kathleen's cat for this one. The books are mainly design books and magazines.

I also have 4 new paintings of flowers.

Most of my recent creative effort over the past two years has gone into writing and drawing another book based on the life of a typical rabbit. I am almost done!! I have two drawings to do, the cover, and of course pre-press, but the book is out with a few friends for reading and suggestions. This book is long...something like 88 pages of color drawings. So I'll be really excited when it's out!!

I have also made a Kindle version of "Dumbunny" recently which took at least a week.

Dismantling the studio

Building 101 of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard artists studios is getting new windows. All the artists in the building have to clear everything away from all the walls with windows. They declared the building 'historical' and they are giving us new windows and not tearing down the building. We are all really happy that perhaps we'll be able to stay after all, in this fantastic building, in this fantastic artist community. The new windows are redwood which seems like a crime, historical or not.

Luckily they scheduled the work between two of our open studios. The picture here is from our spring open studio which was quite crowded Friday night, Saturday and somewhat on Sunday. It was fun as usual and I met some nice new people.

I have already taken down the two large walls that I built a few years ago, and the flimsy closet that is barely attached to the wall. And this weekend have to start removing the rack that I built in the corner when I moved into this studio. It took me weeks to build it with several incidents of drill or hammer falling on my head and many many stripped screw heads. I was inspired by the giant rack that Ferlinghetti has in his studio--he will be moving his as well.

I am hoping I can just take it out in one corner and put it right back into another corner. Not sure if it will be that easy. It was never measured...just sort of eyeball construction. Can I reuse all the holes that were already drilled into the wood? Will they be sturdy?

I'll be moving all the paintings at least twice...a bit nerve-wracking, but hopefully nothing will get damaged and I will find some that I can destroy or paint over or give to auctions. Hopefully they won't have my studio wide open to the rain or wind very long.

Then I guess cover everything with plastic and wait for the dust to settle.

Will be painting outdoors in the meantime or working on a book project.

wrecked?

Gosh, I just looked at some digital images of new paintings and realized that I wrecked one painting by repainting it. In other words, the old slides looked better than the new one. That is sad. There is no command z in painting.


This one I do like. It's mostly ink with a bit of paint. I have two other new india ink-based paintings. I love them. I love ink so much. The tree could use some work but I really love the landscape on the bottom. The suggestion, in ink, is really better than anything finely detailed in color.

This weekend is another open studio...our last before I have to completely rip apart the studio. They are replacing our wall of windows which means I have to rip out my storage rack and reconfigure the whole place. I am frightened that paintings may get damaged....will they have the whole place open to the elements for days? Even moving paintings can damage them sometimes...

I will be most eager to make deals on any of the large paintings to get them into a safe home instead of this soon-to-be-construction zone.

Am having a party on Friday night -- totally unplanned as of now...but what the heck -- come by!