July 13, 2017 Hot and Hotter

July 13, 2017 Hot with a chance of hotter and no rain ever

Yes, it is hot. At least there is breeze even if it does feel like the door to a blast furnace has been opened. I worked on two oil paintings yesterday. I am going to run out of white paint maybe even before we go to Sweden. That’s ok. Then I will just use up the pastel paper I have been hoarding. 

In the morning I returned to an old favorite spot from one of our first years here. It wasn’t till I saw my start completed that I realized I had done this exact same scene in pastels years ago. For the oils I seem to just work out of a puddle of paint. All the colors are so similar that I use my yuck pile and just add a little of this or that. I love my plastic palette because I can keep it in the freezer, but I do not like the feel of the slick, plastic, surface. 

On the way up

It is a long way up to my painting spot, but even worse is that it is a long way down. 

Going down.

In the afternoon I also returned to an old spot, but found a new view looking down the stairs. 

Afternoon and Morning

Sunset behind the Sirentes

Now I am busy on the mural in the Bar Al Kaffe. I drew it in pencil first, took a photo, opened it in photoshop and was able to show my friend three versions with different color combos. It was pretty great and more fun that coloring. Photoshop makes it so easy and fast. 

Me, drawing last night

Jim outlining my drawing in paint. 

It is not my usual subject matter. I worked on getting the drawing on the wall from about 9pm till 11pm last night. I have to finish drawing it today, we will go buy paint on Friday and maybe we can finish painting it before we go to Sweden on Monday. That would be good. I think other residents of CVS are bewildered by it, but all that matters is that our friends, the bar owners, like it. We have been living on free drinks since the project started, but last night we finally got to pay. 

Although it has been a struggle, I have gotten all our tickets printed to go to Sweden. You would be shocked how long each print takes and how many times I had to go back to the tech shop to get the prints. I am also printing new photos I have taken for portraits. I already have enough done to exhibit this year, if we do something like that, but I have a few more I would like to do.