sleeping through sunrise waking to hot sun shining through the windows, a hungry cat, and a delivery truck driver at the door needing me to move the car . . . ah, bliss -
the last few days have been a marathon of painting, painting before the sun is up, painting in pullouts in fierce wind, canvases flying into fields, painting dawn and dusk and the hot midday light in between.
Checking my spam filter this morning is almost soothing – mindless, and funny. “Dear Beloved,” writes one amorous correspondent. “The price of joy,” another . the beginnings of poetry, but false promises all.
The pay-off of painting so intensely is there can be no falseness in it – by the time you have worn yourself out there is only truth left to tell. My favorite painting was painted at the last hour of the last day of the competition, the sun was going down, and the wind was kicking into high gear. My oils had been baking all day in hot sun – I had to scrape the palette lid to get any white at all, and my brushes were murky to say the least. But I hung in there, and when I was done, I was really done.
Home to a cold bourbon and a hot bath, and I slept like a baby.