All it can be

My teacher, mentor and friend, Elmer Ruff, says a frame cannot make a painting better, but the right framing can make it all that it can be. Kind of like a jewel in a setting, I guess. Anyway, my primary work today was getting this painting ready for my client to pick up at Final Friday at the Pendleton this week. If you want to see this multi-media home portrait without the frame, check the previous post.

My client looked at this a few weeks ago and liked it, so I just had to finish it off today.

I did do quite a bit of painting this morning: preliminary acrylic sketches of two more home portraits. I'm working on two Hyde Park houses right now. I'll post these sketches later this week.

Got the cold press board for one of those paintings and need to gesso it real good before getting started on the first layer. Laid down a good background for another 16 x 20 inch painting today and dropped my oil painting of the pansies off at the studio so it will be ready to varnish once it's dry.

"Finding your keys after thinking you'd lost them for good" is the often-overlooked joy I focused on today from Neil Pasricha's "Book of Awesome." Yes, that is a great feeling! As was my relief when I dropped my camera on the pavement Friday afternoon and found it's still working fine. Hooray. Not so, my Epson color printer. It's been a workhorse and a great asset to my business, so I gave it a decent burial and a fond farewell as I await the replacement. Boy, I didn't realize how much I rely on my digital camera, computer, and color printer to produce my paintings. These are certainly 3 things that are in my "Book of Awesome" and for which I am most grateful!

When you hear someone's smile over the phone

That is one of the many "overlooked joys in life" cited in Neil Pasricha's THE BOOK OF AWESOME. I like thinking about little daily blessings like this that we so often take for granted, so I thought I'd add one each time I post a painting to this journal for our mutual enjoyment!

No wonder I haven't posted anything here since Thanksgiving: everything I was painting was for a Christmas gift and therefore was a surprise that I didn't want to spoil.

My client for this painting liked the frame I found for it (I did too), so I'm getting it framed and ready for Final Friday at the Pendleton on January 28, 2011.

Saw that movie "The Social Network" last night and found it quite fascinating. Although I don't spend that much time on Facebook, I would really miss it if I didn't have it anymore.

Thankful for the sunshine today and I think I'll go out and get a little walking in while it's still daylight; that usually gives me some inspiration for the painting I have planned. Got some new source material today so I'm armed and dangerous to paint; more later.