Friday, August 31, 2007

My latest adventure



I bought a property in Idaho with my mom as an investment. It has sat vacant for almost two years and when we go up and try to work on it the vandals come in and steal all we have done. My mom worked so hard on the house last year and we started over a month ago. This time we are hoping to rent it. The house was a derilick property, the farmer built it to raise his family and nothing seems to be to code. It has taken all of our imaginations to figure out how to make it livable. The farmers wife was living there alone when we bought it and I was amazed at the conditions they had spent most of their lives. It was originally a huge alfalfa farm, he has been selling off pieces of it over the years to bring in additional income and now, after his death, the wife was left with the original house and 12 acres of alfalfa. Every room had some horrid color of carpet just layed in, none of the dry wall upstairs was ever finished off, just bare dry wall and no closet doors, curtains etc. We even discovered that the downstairs bathtub never had been connected to the septic tank. It has been a huge project, thank God for my mom! She really has managed a miracle by getting this house looking so good. When she arrived this year the house was completely covered with 5 foot weeds and people had started dumping trash on the property. All this time I had been paying a property managment company to watch it and keep me informed about any problems that might arise, yet they never notified me of any of these issues. It wasn't until the neighbor called to tell me that someone had dumped a trailor full of trash that I called the police and got a clearer picture of what was going on up there. What a waste of money that was. I was up for about 4 days to help last week, we worked from 6 am to 12 midnight every day, something my mom has done for 3 weeks. I hope this little investment turns out to be a wise decision, right now its questionable. The weather was great and the sunsets were incredible. A small gift for all of us weary workers in Idaho. Thanks mom.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Paper and Framing GRIPES

I am just feeling so frustrated, and I know that all of us who frame artwork feel it everytime we go to frame something. Why cant the frames be the size of the paper or why can't the paper come in the standard size of frames. Does this irk anyone else!! I think its a ploy by the custom framers of the world to drive us crazy. Either my painting is too big, too small or misshaped to fit in the standard. The brahma bull needs to be enlarged to fit into the a standard 16x20 mat, or I have to spend tons of money customizing sizes. UuuRRRRGGGG. Luckly I have room to expand the painting but it will change the compostition too. The lemons and limes is right to the edge so I didn't have room to expand, but I did crop, but since mats don't come big enough I still had to custom cut them. I need to master my mat cutter!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Brahma Bull


I am still playing with pastels, I seem to be drawn to them right now, probably because they are new! I am easily bored so I guess I need to enjoy this dusty journey while it lasts. I choose this subject matter just because I love animals but needed to do something not as heavy as my last draped still life. I am anxious to try many different subjects in this medium, it seems so forgiving and I love the painterly look it gives the pieces. I think the thing that is hardest so far is the framing aspect of these paintings, since we arent spraying them with a fixative they have to be framed with some foam core and no frame shop will touch them, so its going to be interesting to see how well I can get them mounted.
I have been not feeling to artistic lately so I am excited to have been able to complete this piece in one evening. I hope this ends my dry spell!! This Thursday is life drawing at the museum and I always love that, a creative night out! I hope Marta is able to get off early enough we can go by Seville's Resturant and have tapas and a Sangria before the drawing session. The museum and resturant are in such a wonderful part of town, all historic old buildings, mature trees, warm nights.
Related Posts with Thumbnails