Working on Cars in My Driveway

Larger
Sharpie pen and watercolor in Aquabee sketchbook

Larger

Just as I finally was ready to start painting today, both my sons came over to work on their cars in my driveway (right outside the studio). It was a beautiful Indian summer day and I wanted the door open. But Cody was running a compressor and a power tool that made horrible noise as he removed the bolts holding all the wheels on the car. I made lemonade out of the lemon by drawing them (very quickly — they kept moving) and then turning up the stereo really loud.

I spent a lot of the weekend preparing for a new series of paintings  — sketching, making notes and digging up reference material and also thinking about next steps for a painting in progress. I’m trying to wait until I have a plan of action before I put brush to canvas so that I don’t spend half of my painting time dabbling and the other half wiping off the dabbles.

When I’m in that “between paintings” stage I can get very grumpy and frustrated. But for once I took advantage of the lull and cleaned up the studio; organized my cabinet full of glassware, fabrics and still life objects; and cleared off the studio kitchen counter which had been piled with random stuff waiting for a home. When I finished I was ready to start the sketch of the first of the new series and finally knew what I needed to do to the paint in progress (more about that tomorrow).