ArtPact #20

(Originally published on May 18, 2007).

Side by side with the creativity spree that I got into - I am gradually starting to get more in the pre-trip-frenzy mood.

I spent hours in toy stores this past week, trying to find the most perfect gifts for my great-nephews. (I have 5 great-nephews. Yes, great-nephews, as in offsprings of my two nephews and one niece. And no, I am not 80 years old. Five great-nephews. 4 boys and one girl. That means 5 gifts!). This quest for the holy gift is exhausting - especially when I know that the toys are likely to be ignored, and the boxes and gift receipts will be played with for generations...

I am down to one last gift to get, for the oldest of them (a 4.5 year-old), who is crazy about Spiderman and the Ninjas, but I Refuse to get into this hype (OK, one T-shirt), so I am trying find a fun game for him.

All this, plus creating a flyer for the upcoming show of our critique group, plus the need to frame two paintings, one for that show, and the other for another show, plus the fact I have not yet even started to pack - do not quite contribute to my peace of mind and serenity these days, and I feel that I really need to shorten my To-Do list by actually doing some of the tasks on it, before I can leisurely sit in my studio and enjoy the creation of another collage (which is what I am dying to do!!).

And tomorrow I have another portrait workshop with WackieM!!!

Anyway - - - last week I decided it's time to choose a painting for an upcoming show, themed "Summer Days". I picked one of my "Christina" series (the 20- paintings I created the second time I took the Watercolor Beyond The Obvious class). I was sooooooooooooooo proud of it a year ago, but now it looked wimpy, unfinished, hesitant and very very wrong.

I knew it needed more work.

And so, about a year after I created it, I put the painting back on the easel, worked on it here and there. . .

. . . four days later, it turned out as this:

"Global Warming", Watercolor on W/N CP Paper, 29" x 21"

Which I like. A lot!

It's really cool to look at the before version with nostlagic reminiscing of where I was then, and then, from the after, get a sense of where I am today, and the journey I have traveled in between.

And speaking of traveling, time to run (yet again) to yet another toy store, and then mat and frame this painting, which - as y'all know - I dread.