Wed. July 15 Feels like a countdown

At the risk of sounding repetitive let me just repeat it is really hot here. Each night stays warmer and it is warm in the morning. Walking up to town for second breakfast is a sweaty event. Sitting in the shade painting is sweaty. Moving to a new spot to paint, still in the shade, is sweaty and walking home downhill in the sun is very sweaty. Drying off from a bath is sweaty and we have taken the extreme measure of putting the fan on the terrace to dry the sweat. I did work on two pastels today. One is finished and one is at the OMG I have totally lost all the ability to paint that I ever had. People are so happy to see the painting of the revealed bell tower. They give the kind of, “ahhhhh”, that is usually reserved for puppies on facebook. 

But this second painting. I would never have guessed and it is obvious I didn’t that the roof on the left hand side was too big. I thought something was wrong with the right hand side. I don’t expect to try to change it. I would just like to get the colours better. I actually don’t care what I am painting once I get started. I might think I care when I am looking around, but once I start on colour than I focus on that. 

This afternoon I have been working on my second water-colour portrait. It is terrible. Why did I ever think this is something I could do and why am I still doing it. The clouds have been incredible this afternoon. They build up in thunderheads thousands of feet high and incircle spots of sky the blue of eternity, but still no rain. It reminds me of why I didn’t learn the word for rain until last summer. I never needed it. Jim says that it reminds him of summer in California and it is super hot in the summer in Oklahoma, but the sun seems much stronger here. Inexplicable.