Pest Control



Pest Control, size variable, iPad screenshot

Another summer, more bug spray.  My husband has armed himself, and all the bugs who wander onto our front porch get zapped--he thinks there are no good bugs.  I worry about the birds.   I'm a bug-rescuer; if I find one inside, I carefully take it outside to freedom.  Now I wonder if I'm sending them to the great beyond--I'll have to take them out the back door.

This is not a portrait of my husband; I don't know who it might be--looks a bit like a man I worked with many years ago.  I wanted to check out skin tones and figure painting on my iPad.  Now I need to learn how to move the painting from the iPad to my computer without including the little circle that's part of the screenshot from Sketchbook (and you probably thought it was a bugbite).

**Afterthought.  If I downsize the drawing on the iPad with my fingers, I can eliminate the little circle.  Aha!

Bugged



Bugged, watercolor on Arches, 13x14

Five years ago I dreamed I was at a party; a huge bug was attached to my back, and no one noticed.  I thought the dream was odd; I sketched it while half-asleep.

I found the sketch tucked in a drawer and began the painting three weeks ago in a playful mood.  I thought I'd try a bit of everything with watercolor--masking with torn painters' tape, washes, scrubbing, glazes, muddy colors.  As the painting progressed, however, I realized the subject wasn't really funny--that I was painting my life.  I'm always bugged by something but I smile or joke my way through--so how would anyone know I'm upset?

Art--cheaper than psychiatry.  Now I'm really bugged.

The woman looks a bit like Miss Kitty from Gunsmoke or Margaret Thatcher and has quite a long arm reaching for that wine.  I don't think wine will debug me--don't like the taste or the headache.  I'll just have to keep painting; it usually helps.