April on the Front Porch

April on the Front Porch, acrylic on canvas, 30x24

Hallelujah--I think April is 98 percent finished.   I originally blogged about her on May 23 (I should have listened to that voice that was saying "larger.")  After she grew, I felt she needed a throne rather than a metal outdoor chair so I had to visit the thrift shop and look at chairs--all mine are modern.  (Here in southern VA we don't really have indoor furniture on our front porches, but I did have a toilet sitting in the front yard for a while.)  I wanted an old Coke bottle as a vase but mine's gone missing; at midnight, I substituted a piece of van Briggle pottery--that meant getting the ladder and retrieving the vase from a high shelf.  My paintings sometimes become projects and I work through the night. 

I like that April's arms are wing-like and her legs resemble the Colonel's drumsticks and thighs.

When I signed this I was listening to KD Lang and the Reclines; KD was singing "Big Boned Woman."  I imagine April dancing at the Legion Hall.

This is not my first work with a woman and rooster; there was a sculpture 20 years ago--Mystic Woman aka Chick with a Chick (photo below).  She was sold to a sculptor from West Virginia.



terra cotta and white clay, 24" h

 

Convergence Art Guild in Halifax VA





Waiting for Harry, acrylic on panel, 20x16



I hung a few paintings at CAG, 99 Main Street in Halifax VA.  Among them is an early acrylic, Waiting for Harry. 

Harry was our letter carrier in Brookeville MD in the 70s, when Brookeville was still mostly rural.  One woman liked to wait at her mailbox for Harry and, in cold weather, she sometimes wore only her fur coat (don't know how Harry knew that).  I never met her but I imagined she might look like this.   I like the impatient attitude and the knife-wielding shadow in this one.

Wrench Stole my Muse



Wrench Stole my Muse, inktense pencils on w/c paper, 18x24

Thursday is Art-at-the-Y day and I had nothing in mind.  I remembered that a heavy wrench from the thrift shop had been riding in my back seat for a couple of weeks.  I grabbed the manikin and set this up on a cardboard box--lighting at the Y is not good.

The manikin was a gift from my neighbor Carol--it had belonged to her late husband Lamar.  Lamar was a saxophonist/choreographer/dancer/artist/human resources director/sociologist/truck driver/motorcycle rider.... and the best story teller I've ever met.  He would have liked this drawing.  His manikin usually sits atop the bookcase in my living room, always in a dance pose.

This needs a bit more work.  

Cedar at Cedar Grove Plantation

What a Cedar!, w/c sticks on w/c board, 24x18

I began this yesterday, thinking that it would be simple and I'd finish at least one thing during the month of June.  It didn't happen--at midnight I realized there were too many background trees and branches so I'm calling it finished on July 1.

Cedar Grove Plantation (on the National Register of Historic Places) is nearby.  When I visited I found the trees and the cemetery more interesting than the large house, guest cottages, barns, landscaping, and antiques.  I could be called a tree hugger.   "Peace," also a scene from Cedar Grove, is from an earlier blog. 



Peace, alkyd, 12x12 (sold)

Happy Fourth of July!