mid-lothian

Revisited an old composition this afternoon and started the underpainting in oils. The materials have that lovely 'library smell' and are nice because they dry slowly (the drawback also being that they dry slowly).

I listen to fluff books while painting and picked the audio of Alexander McCall Smith's 'The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds' because it's a mystery that doesn't involve a murder and was surprised by coincidences with my recent activities. In the book are musings on Georgian architecture, which I was recently reading up on, the art expert in McCall Smith's story is a controversial figure in a non-fiction book I'm currently reading (about a set of possible forgeries), the family in the story lives in a country house in the exact area of Scotland that I've been concentrating on in my dad's genealogy, and their ancestors were also Jacobites (I only recently found this out about my family).

façade

Here's what's on the easel right now, a façade from Lille, France. After a while of working on those teensy door and window frames though my eyes feel dazzled and it's time to work on some drawings.

Most of my pieces are small but this one is even smaller than most at about 3"x5". It may get bigger, I haven't decided how to finish it yet.


Occasionally I pick up pieces of old lace when I go with my mom to vide greniers in her area but I haven't been using them lately so they were scattered, bits tucked away here and there along with other flotsam and jetsam. The other day I thought maybe I'd use some precious sunlight house to re-organise the studio but after working away for a couple hours it didn't look terribly different so I abandoned the effort and went back to painting.

blue wip

WIP. A smaller variation on a previous piece. Mixed media, 8"x8" on wooden panel.
In the studio are a few pieces I'm having trouble finishing, the biggest one because I'm not sure which way to go with part of the composition, and a few smaller ones like this that just need some final tweaking.