Posie Gets Cozy

Kinda Like These

"Dutch Still Life with Lemons and Engagement Calendar"
Paul Wonner

"Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand!"
Maira Kalman, from the book Elements of Style

"Still Life with Plums and White Pitcher"
Hank Helmantel

"Cakes"
Wayne Thiebaud

"Still Life with Three Eggs and Four Pears"
Braldt Bralds

The perspectives on these aren't all from above, but it is kinda interesting that in all of these ones that I like there is a big blank wall. I love these. Especially the kitterses.

New Art for the Rearrangement

"Spring at the White House Farm" by Billy Jacobs

I just got this print at a cute little store here in Portland (Sellwood) called American at Heart. It's going to go in this little space right above the TV inside the "entertainment center" (I always think that is such a hilarious name for this piece of furniture. I picture it like, you open a drawer — someone pops out singing showtunes! Behind the cabinet door — a clown juggling apples! That's entertainment!). Anyway, I have always really liked paintings like this, and the sheep in this one enchanted me. I actually saw this on Tuesday and couldn't get it out of my mind for the past couple of days, and went back and got it today. The sky in the painting looks EXACTLY like the sky here in P-town looks today. Someone told me they are saying snow for us here, maybe, sometime next week? Oh please oh please!

Thank you for all of the sweater-naming suggestions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There are too many good ones. I don't know what to pick. Too many good ones! Maybe we'll have a vote. I'll try to find one of those vote-taking widgets. The sweater is still sopping wet, so it'll definitely be a few more days before button-time. It seems that it didn't dry at all in the past day. The weather yesterday was stormy stormy stormy. Clover froke. The heat in the house was off because there is tile being set in the bathroom, and the tile saw is outside, so the back door is open most of the time and the wind was whistling. Cold cold cold. Clover Meadow = nervous and cold and pleading for things to go back to how they used to be. Before her sofa went from being over here to over there. Before her pillows went from being over here to over there. Before wind and rain. Before, when everything was perfect. Yesterday Miss Jenny sent me a link to the most hilarious blog post ever — Allie at Hyperbole and a Half just moved, and the dogs . . . oh man, you just have to see how funny this girl is.

Speaking of funny, did anybody see that Martha Stewart Thanksgiving special that's been on, where she shows the bloopers at the end and drops the turkey on the floor and then says, "Oooops." I rewound that about five times and laughed so hard. The way she drops it just cracks me up.

Sort of.

So, you know how when yesterday I said that I did the face and completely ruined the painting and then you said no, Alicia, you're just being hard on yourself and I bet it isn't that bad and how bad could it be, and I was like no, really, it's really really really not good you guys

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well

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people, I tried to tell you.

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It did not go well.

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Things I Didn't Realize About Painting:

1. Acrylic paints dry darker than how they appear on the palette.
2. Mixing each shade from scratch using white, red, yellow, blue, green, black, and Burnt Sienna is HARD when it comes to skin tones (because each shade you mix dries out before you can use it as the base for the next tone).
3. Starting with the darkest color and working in was a bad idea.
4. Especially if the darkest color was maroonish-gray.

After I let out a horrified scream that deafened the dog and caused every cat in the house to jump three feet straight up into the air, I took the painting and went down the street to my favorite little art supply store, Muse. After we all stopped giggling uncomfortably at how scary my painting was, the guys there were SO nice to give me a crash course in Portrait Painting 101 stuff and told me important things like there is a warm side of the face and a cool side (obviously depending on the where the light is falling).

OH.

I wound up buying a tube of paint that was called Toning Pinkish Gray or Toning Grayish Pink — basically, a very pale skin tone, and then I mixed everything using that and a little Burnt Siena for the warm a little Ultramarine for the cool. Then I turned the painting upside down, like you guys said, so that I was just looking at shapes of colors and not someone-I-love's face (which I desperately wanted to get "right," etc.).

So this was the second try:

Better. Humanish. I was extremely relieved!!! I called my friend and told her. I don't know what it is about painting that makes me want to talk on the phone. Add that to the list of things I did not know about painting!

I set it about ten feet away from me and looked at it. Even at viewing distance, there was still a little too much contrast. I felt confident, though. I felt like I could do it without freaking. I felt like I wouldn't have to start completely over, I could just tweak. So I replaced one color — I think it was the second lightest — with one that was both a little darker and a little warmer and came up with:

What do you think? Stand back from it a bit and see.

I still have to do the daisy, and the magenta, and the t-shirt. But I think this is sort of going in the right direction now, don't you?