Land of Opportunity

Texas Roundup, 48" x 48" acrylic on canvas

I'm constantly amazed that I make a living with a paintbrush. And more and more, a camera. What a great world.

I woke to rain this morning. Lovely sound. Lately I associate it with our family farm in PA that I recently visited. It was the only place I was allowed to play in the rain as a child.

Another big project has come my way. It's a really really big hotel/resort. Not the one I've been working on all weekend, another one, this time out of state. It's a big opportunity, but I'm afraid it's price-driven and I may not fit in the budget. It's all giclees, from guestrooms to suites to corridors and elevator lobbies. Today my job is to go through the bid packet and pull out images of my own that are similar in style and color to the existing design concepts and then price it out. There are more than 30 pages, so that's my day right there. I can't NOT bid it, but it does take time away from the painting I've got going in the studio, the one above.

This is a big painting, and it's for Texas Clinic. I layered tissue paper over the surface with gesso before painting, just to give it some texture. Kind of a leather texture, really. I didn't want it flat. I went to the Western wear store and took photos for this, so all the boots are authentic. It's really fun!

Painful Lessons

Ouch! The lessons you remember the best are the ones that hurt the most - and I'm hurting today!

It's doesn't help that it's entirely my fault. This canvas is 60 x 90, stretched. It started as a painting by somebody else that I've had for many years. One day recently I painted over it, thinking it was an ugly painting, but a great textured surface. I layered several coats of gesso, then painted the background as you see above. I gridded it off, and started the painting. It's a travel theme, and the first square was Niagara Falls. I used some really strong tape to tape off the edges of the Eiffel Tower square, and when I pulled it off, not only the paint but all the texture down to the raw canvas came off. Looks like it was prepped with joint compount, which has now turned all powdery. There's no connection at all between any of the previous layers of paint (the old painting) and the canvas surface. I'm trashing it.

On top of that, I was submitting photography images for a project, and when I resized four of them to email, I accidently saved over the original files! Yikes! I do have a backup, so I'll be okay, but I sure felt like ... well, you know.

I have received the new power supply for my external hard drive. It's very intimidating. The tech guy assured me that it's very easy to install "just 12 screws". But the way the day is going, maybe I should wait til tomorrow.