Progress

It felt like Christmas in April! My box of paints arrived Friday. It was heavy and chockfull of squeeze bottles of paint, each one wrapped separately in cellophane. They were like individual presents. The box held enough paint to remove any concern of using too much. I could squeeze as much as I wanted onto my palette with this supply...when the time was right.

I waited until late yesterday - Saturday - to paint. I wanted it to be dark and very quiet. Around 8 pm I lit candles everywhere in the house and lined the staircase with battery operated candles - great effect with no threat of fire. But for the candlelight and the light above my easel, the house was dark. It was perfect.

I painted for more than 2 hours. I focused first on the orange tree because it is a critical feature. It will appear again on the other side of the canvas. While I waited for the paint to dry so I could add the oranges, I worked on the other tree. At first I thought this would be the pecan tree in front of my house in Israel, but it’s central location on the canvas meant that in terms of the timeline, Chipper had already left Israel and was an Evanstonian. So the tree now represents one of the many gorgeous trees that were in the park 2 blocks from my condo where the beast and I played with the kong every day. We left many a kong tangled up in trees in Evanston, much to Chipper’s dismay, which should be no surprise to anyone who has ever seen me throw a ball. I was almost tempted to paint a kong dangling from my tree, but thought better of it.

I added some oranges to the other tree, made a decision about extending the beach down past the sea, and finally called it a night. I had definitely made progress and felt good and tired. I wasn’t too thrilled with the Evanston tree - it sort of looked like a lollipop - but I had hopes of being able to pull it out the next day.


Normally I would carefully wash out all my brushes and tidy everything up in my studio. But I knew I'd be back soon, so I simply left everything. It was liberating to just leave all of my brushes soaking in water.

Today, Sunday, was rainy and gray. My canvas was sunny. After making a healthy breakfast, I decided to tackle the Evanston tree. I pushed and pulled color back and forth, cut into the tree with the background color to break up the clumps of leaves and, I think, I saved it from being a lollipop. I have not figured out what to do with it, however. The tree is just sort of stuck there, not relating to anything. I am toying with adding snow somewhere and maybe some quaint Evanston shops, but I am not committed yet. As I mull this one over, the tree will have to wait patiently in the middle of a yellow ground. We’re having a standoff.

After working for a couple of hours, I set everything aside until after dinner. This session focused on the John Hancock building. Since the moment I had begun to conceptualize this painting, I had envisioned the regal skyscraper bending over toward the section of the painting reserved for the return to Israel. It felt good to finally realize what I had been envisioning.

I worked on the building for awhile. I changed the background color from peach to dusty lavender, reworked both trees, and then added to the green vegetation to the left of the John Hancock. At first I wasn’t sure if I was going to keep this feature, but I decided it looked like our garden at the condo. Chipper used to make a nest in the midst of our garden, and this little crop on my canvas looks just like the sort of the place she’d twirl circles in to mat it all down before heaving her beast body onto the ground. I can still hear her flump and grunt as she hit the ground.

What’s funny is that after 6 hours of painting over the last 24 hours, I feel like I have enough paint to last a lifetime. There are definitely problem areas to resolve, but at this point two thirds of the composition are laid out as I keep plowing across canvas, right to left.