Using PainterX

I recently reinstalled the PainterX program and my Wacom tablet. Both these images were done, from a photograph of a delightful lady that Ira and I met while walking around Qaqutorq, Greenland.

Deck The Halls

Delft Reflection

I recently completed this painting on paper, resolving the problem I'd set for myself of painting an interesting landscape in "portrait mode".
In 2007, early Easter Sunday morning, I was in Delft, listening to the beautiful music emanating from a nearby church. As it was very early, we were the only tour group,(about a dozen people) in this delightful village. The boats were all at anchor or berthed, the shops were still shuttered, few other people were out and about, and the sun shone on this serene setting. As I perched on the harbor wall, I noticed this window with its Delft tiled "fanlight", reflecting the nearby trees, yet unleafed; the perfect metaphor for the perfect moment.

"For Mark and Steve"

This work is on heavy rag watercolor paper that has been sized with acrylic medium.

Inuit choir: NEP80

This group, NEP 80, traveled to the New Church in Qaqortoq from another smaller town. Here, they sing one of their native myth songs to many of us visiting from the Crown Princess.

Those beautiful collars the ladies are wearing are beaded. Each family has its own special patterns. The boots are sealskin as are the church kneelers seen behind the group. The embroidery is very intricate; Scandinavian patterns, I think. I would guess that these ladies do this work during the dark, very cold, long winters. The language barrier was too great to ask if the embroidery, beading, etc. is done within a group, like a quilting bee.

Bye-Bye Birdie

Grandson, Wyn Delano is the lead in Morgan-Wixson Playhouse, Pacific Palisades, "Bye-bye Birdie"......a male teen agers dream: to be surrounded by adoring females. Though, regretfully, I won't be going to CA to see him in this role, I look forward to hearing him sing some of the tunes when we see him and his family in December and celebrate the holidays together. Wyn has his own website, www. wyndelano.com, and is on YouTube.

Exciting Evening

I sure did enjoy last night's TV with the eye-popping hologram and touch screen technology analysis of CNN + the various pundits...my favorite is Carville, the insights of Brooks and Shields and the historians on PBS, the views of the NYC crowds in Times Square via ABC. I'm overjoyed with the results: that Mary Landrieu is still our Senator, that Barack Obama will be our President.
Though I at first liked John McCain, his war perspective, that the answer to tough problems is a military response, plus his pandering to the conservatives placed me in Obama's camp. I hope that Obama's idealism doesn't translate into a Jimmy Carter presidency; that he understands that he can't please everyone and that our country has majorities as well as minorities. Obama's choices of those in top jobs will tell us a lot about his future program. I hope that w. the Congressional majorities, he follows LBJ's lead in doing as much as he can for our country's infrastructure, etc and the arts. I don't care for his medical plan as I believe a single payer system would be a much better solution.

Election Day 2008

Awoke this am to find our street packed w. parked cars. During the summer, this isn't unusual as there's a swim club nearby, but today it was people voting before going to work. How great! At about 9 am, Ira and I walked to our polling place and found many cars jockeying for parking places and lines at the voting booths longer than we'd seen in many a year.
I enjoyed seeing lots of neighbors and former PTA acquaintances that I rarely otherwise meet. We had just a 25 minute wait from time of entry to time of departure, but noticed as we left that lines had gotten longer. We both had marked the newspaper sample ballots with our choices, so that shortened our stays in the voting booth. So many state and parish propositions, amendments!!
I hope there's an 80% or even more voter turnout. Its time to show the rest of the world democracy in action; that we can respectfully, without upheaval, etc., agree to disagree; that in spite of the too many layers between each citizen and governing, that the system still works and that we work to improve it.

Meet Me at Mott and Canal

"Meet Me At Mott & Canal" is the title of my newest painting. This isn't a great photo as the light is bouncing off the lighter areas, but I think it works. About a foot high, two+feet long, the work is on BFK Rives paper; I used acrylics. I really do like using the Nova Color paints...they're smooth and seem to be very colorfast. I'll use either an aluminum rod or a painted wood dowel to hang it.
Do watch your mail for the Deck the Halls at Artspace invitation. For me, it marks the beginning of the holiday season.