Fish out of Water

I went to visit a local printer today to get giclee prints made of the Beales paintings. I had tried an online printing service, but the prints came back really flat and acid green in color. No good. So I found this guy online who is a retired engineer and husband of a great watercolor artist and made an appointment with him for this afternoon. He works out of his home in a rich suburb. I sort of knew what to expect because of the address, but when I got there I found a gated community! I hadn't entered a gated community since living in Mexico City. You could say I'm uncomfortable with money. Sure, I've had wealthy friends. Eccentric son of foreign diplomat money I can deal with. Suburban office working, beige carpeted Mc Mansion type money makes me twitchy, and a gate and buzzer.. well that just doesn't register. Driving around I felt I was going to be issued a citation simply for driving a car not of this decade.. or the last for that matter. I was thankful at least that we had fixed the car window so I was able to ring the buzzer at the gate without getting out of the car. The printer was nice enough. Very polite and experienced. I like the idea of knowing who is printing my paintings and having him work from the actual painting rather than a digital file. I pick up the prints on Tuesday. Wish me luck..
After leaving the land of large lawns and suburban bavarian architecture, I headed back to my neighborhood hardware store to buy some EnviroTex Lite Resin. The cashier did a little orchestra conductor dance as he rang me up. Then I went to Starbucks to thieve some stir sticks. Yup I'm workin' class.
Why the picture? All blog posts ought to have one- and well it's a perty day.

Edies are scanned, and completely clothed

I've been using the scanner at Walgreens. I usually wait until I have 3 or 4 things to scan before I go, since it seems wasteful and silly to get a cd of just one image. Tonight I walked over with three paintings to scan and returned an hour later to get my disk. I was given three disks by a guy who said he was new. "It just started spitting out disks" he said, "I thought it was kinda wierd". errrr ok. I thought maybe he burned each image on a separate disk and took them home to investigate. Nope. I got my scans, plus 2 disks of somebody's naked pics. Artful nudes really. Tatooed ladies frolicking in the forest sort of thing. I really wanted to post one on my blog. In fact I almost regret returning them as I type. It was the right thing to do though. Should I be involved in a nude forest frolicking photos session, and my photos were to fall into the wrong hands, I would hope someone would do the same for me. Then again, it's doubtful that I would entrust them to an 18 year old boy working the Walgreens photo booth....
So no naked pics, just Big and Little Edie in all their modesty.

35 too old for colored jeans?

errrr no-- not when they're bright turquoise and 17.50 from Old Navy! I guess you'd have to be 24 to justify the $68 pair at Urban Outfitters however..
I try to stay away from Old Navy, just as I try to avoid Forever 21. Cheap clothes, made in Madagascar... but it was my birthday and there was nothing fun at the thrift store... and they're bright turquoise.
In other news:
It's a beautiful Fall day
I'm melting beeswax in the kitchen
I finished the Edies! Just have to let them dry before scanning
I started watching Bonjour Tristesse with Jean Seberg and it's taking all my strength not to run to the nearest salon and get an adorable pixie cut.

Phone for you

I finished another encaustic painting! I'm loooving playing with drawing into the wax. I've got to get some more supports built this week to keep going. I've been bracing thin birch panels with pine strips of wood to creat sort of a box that sits out from the wall. I've left the sides wood on this piece, but I may paint them white.. I could really use my table saw, since I've been using a hand saw to cut the wood and it's really slowing me down. I sort of like the less than perfect results you get with handtools however. Someday we will have enough space to store all my art supplies and tools...
Meanwhile I sold a painting on Etsy! One of my favorites "Beauty and the Bird", so it's off to the post office today and I have some $$ towards a much needed digital camera yipee!
Lots to do today.... but first off to the gym.

Sidetracked with the Beales

Yea!! I just got my new encaustic paintings posted to my Etsy store. It feels so good to finally post new things. I hadn't posted much all summer since, as usual I decided to switch gears and learn something new, when I was just geting into a rythym with oil painting. Fun for sure, but it doesn't amount to many new paintings...
But alas a pause from the encaustics to finish some long neglected Beales paintings.
I've got this small little Edie just about finished- just lacking some minor touches, but I'm really happy with it.
My intention this morning was to paint a partner canvas- same size but of big Edie. Leave it to me to get sidetracked. Instead, I started a new larger canvas of a scene with both Edies on it. I 'd really been wanting to see both Edies together and to paint larger, so I'm glad I went with it. It's drying now so I can get back to work on it tomorrow-- and also Big Edie's portrait. I swear...! Must have Edie prints done for Christmas.