B&W Bug

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Try again, try again

Hum. I had every intention of painting a different image of that little angel fish, but I opened a file of photos of a lobster instead. The group had swimmed/swam/swum?? right on by. I took several photos of the bug, then had to go fast to catch up with the group. I saw a number of other things that everyone on that dive would have liked to see, but there they went! Zoom, too fast! The lobster is almost right in the middle here. I'm trying using a black and white for an "underpainting' I like this. Also learned several brushing techniques. I've never painted so thinly. Perhaps Maria Henley's spirit is hanging around, whispering in my ear. I miss her. She was just becoming very successful with her painting career. Thin thin washes of paint. Beach scenes, and Island scenery. Several years ago she stunned everyone with a large ominous painting of a storm off the north coast of St Croix. One huge lightning bolt from the underneath of the dark purple/black thundercloud, a bolt straight into the sea.

Maria succumbed to cancer last year, only fourty three years old. I do wonder if from breathing turpentine fumes for years. I have a fan blowing strongly over my painting, and on past the pallet, and on out the open window.

Oboy, take away the prompt, cheat? and there goes the picture, and the fledgling painting is left to flop and flounder on it's own. Pitiful little bit right now, but I have obligations taking me away from my brushes this morning, ugh. I don't in the least think I'm cheating with the projected photos. My photos, and I can't really set up my easle underwater! OK. Am looking foreward to spending more time on this one.

Here's a closeup of the lobster that you can't really see in the other images.

Blob gob gooo

This is horrible! I'd forgotten how unmanageable oils are. And the corals are just dead blobs, complain complain complain! At least I did do a painting, all of 80 minute's worth. Boy, is it bad, hahaha! Maybe I'll see what happens in Watercolor, I'm versed in that medium. Painting in your head is just not painting in hand.

Did you see the turtle?

This is a little 8X10 oil sketch I did long ago of one of my favorite places. I named the painting, "Did You See the Turtle?"

Here I'm pointing at a school of wrasses, just about to do a spawning run. They look just like this. During one show where I displayed this painting, a really grouchy fellow said, "You didn't paint their eyes and fins!" Oh, Please! I said, "Mister, that's paint, not a photograph. I was using a brush with three hairs, I couldn't do more detail!"

I started a painting this morning. Had to quit before I got very far. Maybe it's this cold I can't seem to shake, but the critical crowd yelling at me in my head about how bad my painting is even only this far got to be too much, I couldn't defend myself against all their sour thoughts. Maybe next time I'll try to just do a detailed drawing and fill in the blanks. Instead of using a painterly style.

"Looks Is Everything"

I was on the island of Bonaire, at Bongo's, a great beach bar. I was talking to a tall, lean, 19 year old blonde Dutch girl. That's what she said, "Looks is EVERTHING!!"

Without makeup or enhancement of any kind, her posture poised and lovely, she really was absolutely gorgeous. I didn't bother to say much more to her. She mostly wanted to stand around wearing only the bottom of her bikini, apart from the crowd, with a drink in her hand talking to one man or another.

I would love to see her expression as she finds the first wrinkle, that trauma happens to all of us. I wonder if she'll age gracefully?

About a year ago, I was going to some function that required me to dress up. Sometimes I actually am able to dress up, but not much, don't worry! I got over all that when I was younger. Anyway, as I leaned over the bathroom sink, trying to make the mascara go on each spindly lash smoothely, I wished I had a vanity. I had one when I was a kid, funny little curved table with a gathered skirt. I didn't really know what a vanity was for back then, I was only nine or ten years old.

I forgot about that wish. And that's how, the books say, to recieve what you wish for. Form the thought and let it go. But, they warn, make the wish a visiualization as detailed as possible of exactly what you want, down to the last detail. I hadn't done that.

I just recently moved into this partly furnished house, and there, waiting for me was a vanity. Oh, my. What I'd had in mind was more like Guenevere's vanity, where she sat while Lancelot stood behind her brushing her hair. Rosewood, carved in grapevine and lillies and inlaid with precious pearl and abalone, polished to an intoxicating gleam. With an exquisite little chair, the silk seat finely embroidered. They began their trysts that way.

I may have learned a lesson from this. I sure hope so!!! "Looks is everything!"

Saturday's Snorkel

My feet! Properly dressed.
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"Riprap" Big boulders along the side of the pier, some as big as a Volkswagen. Supposed to protect, but the last hurricane, Lenny, tossed them around like they were peanuts.
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A blurry pic of the pier looking to shore from 3/4 of the way to the end. The buildings on shore are two stories tall with high peaked roofs. Long pier! Walking on the pier, I timed it- a seven minute walk.
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A turtle! Haha, this is why I didn't post any underwater photos this time, they're all bad. The turtle is a small Hawksbill, the top blob of the two grey blobs. The other blob is a sponge. He was really feasting on the treats he could find. He was pecking away as I passed him on my way to the end of the pier, and still nibbling as I passed him on my way back to shore, a half hour later. The depth here is about twenty feet, seven meters.

More studio 'construction'

The little storage cart is delightedly holding my watercolors. So, I decided to go back to the store and get that nice little wooden portable bar. Made in Thailand.
Yikes! More of a construction challenge! Screws, oh no.

A day's struggle, fifteen minutes at a time, and TaDah!

Only to have the computer take over! Guess the oils will require another nice little bar for them selves. Wowee, demanding objects.

Honey, can you help?

Haha, I can do it, I'd just much rather fix dinner, and do the washing up.

Since there is no "Honey", I did manage to put the little beastie together, and was surprised it wasn't so difficult. The REAL surprise is the difference he made! My studio is beginning to look like a studio!! Wheeee! That's the little beastie in the middle of the photo all dressed up with my watercolors. Oboy.

St. Croix scenery...

North Star beach, a scuba entry. The black rocks are gorgeous, and of a rock named Blue Biche, or Blue Bitch, I'm not sure! The swim out to the drop-off at 25 feet, 8m, is short and easy. The sea has been rough for two days, waves and swell coming in from Hurricane Noel, far out in the Atlantic. So the water is brownish, instead of it's usual clear turquoise.


This is scenery that I drive by all the time.


I call this 'my beach' It's a scuba entry I use a lot because it's tricky and often too rough, like today. You only need to play with the surf getting in and out, but most get knocked down because they don't pay mind. 'My beach', no one else wants it!


This is a bit of land I have, on the left side of the road. Kind of just trees. Can't live there unless in a 'real' house. No camper allowed by neighborhood rules.

I could don my dive gear and easily walk to 'my beach', if I had a house there.