Something crawled into the chimney and died.

Something crawled into the chimney and died. This is my explanation for the reason that our entire basement (which happens to double as my current painting area) has stunk like a rotting corpse being turned on a spit. This also explains the unidentifiable slime that is dripping from the pipes onto the top of the stove, thus contributing to the mouth-watering aroma of a rancid flesh barbecue. What else would that goop be? Melting months-old chipmunk fat, that's what. To make matters worse, the last few days have been rainy rainy rain rain. So not only is it a decomposing little critter body which is burning, but it is a damp, decomposing little critter body. Think rotting wet-dog smell.

What a horrible way to die. What a horrible thing TO HAPPEN TO MY PAINTING AREA!!

Nevertheless, I have not let this predicament (or the fact that my painting teacher is going to be out for the next 2 weeks because he torn his Achilles tendon) come between me and my abstract painting project.

Here's a close up of my second painting. It's not finished yet, but I kind of like it as it is and am not quite ready to add another element. I think it could use some thin lines and the circles need inhabitants...when the time is right.


Here's my third. Not sure if it's done or not...It has a lot more texture than the first two, which is new to my painting. I used acrylic medium to build up transparent layers with opaque pieces, and slathered it on with the pallet knife so it was nice and thick. This thing went through a TON of non-successful stages. I'm still not quite sure how I feel about it, but the more I look at it the more I like it.

What has really been working for me on these paintings is to blast a whole bunch of crazy onto the canvas, and then carefully edit out the pieces that I don't what and add others in. That way, I haven't killed the energy of the initial strokes, which has been a problem for me in the past. I'm having fun, despite battling the headaches brought on by my little friend in the chimney. Lovely. <3

I also finished my first series of ATCs recently. If you've never heard of them and want to know what they are, learn more here. I'm so excited to find out about these and start making and trading them!!! I made them using Adobe Illustrator and turned them in for one of my Digital Imaging assignments, which was to make a set of ten cards (not necessarily ATCs, but I did mine those dimensions.)