Zebra Plant

Loosely painted without drawing first using Kremer Pigments watercolors; then FW Acrylic Ink applied with Sumi brush. In 9×12 Aquabee sketchbook. (To enlarge, click image and select “All Sizes”)

At last, a day without a headache! Every time the weather changes I get migraney. It’s really frustrating here in the S.F. Bay Area because we sometimes go through three seasons in a day, especially in spring and fall. But there’s nothing like the absence of pain to brighten a day and remind me to feel grateful.
I visited my local Dick Blick (did his parents really name him that?) Art Supplies today, to pick up some ink and a sumi brush to carry on with my experiments with loose painting and adding ink. They were playing some weird music in the store that made me feel like I was getting another migraine–it had some kind of repetetive pounding sound, not a drumbeat, something chinky-chunky sounding, that was driving me nuts. I mentioned it to a fellow shopper in the ink section and she, irritated, “thanked” me for bringing it to her attention so she could be annoyed too.

I’m very sensitive to my environment, which is good for being an artist but bad for being out in the world where I easily get overstimulated when it’s busy and noisy and then need quiet downtime (preferably in the studio) to recover. Also not good for driving since I’m constantly noticing everything around me but the road. I try to make myself pay attention to driving so I’m not too much of a hazard–though I did back out of my driveway right into a parked car today (barely touched it, no harm done, but a good reminder to pay more attention!).