New paintings, hot off the easel, and some thoughts on art and life ...

"Star of the Show" is Day 8 of my January painting challenge. I started this painting a few months ago, working from life, using dahlias from my late summer garden. But I didn't get too far with it; I put it away and forgot about it. This doesn't happen often with me - usually I finish every painting, or if it's clearly a total fail, I scrape it off or put it in the burn pile. This one was a good start, but somehow I simply got distracted until yesterday, when I was trying to decide what to paint. I came across the half-finished image and happily finished it.

For artists out there - I want to give a shout out to a couple of things I used here. One is the panel this is painted on - a Wind River linen panel. I love these! They're too pricey  for me to use routinely but they're fabulous, and this company is so nice to order from. The second thing is Catalyst painting tools. I had seen these before and thought they looked interesting, but I didn't like the price. I'm not a cheapskate, but $14 for what looked like a kitchen spatula seemed outrageous. However .... many months later I was feeling extravagant (which for me is more natural than feeling thrifty) and I thought what the heck, I'll try one. Well, it was fun! And very useful. I bought a couple more, and although they're certainly not going to replace my brushes, I like them a lot. They can give interesting textures and marks - I use them more for a second step in painting, applying paint first with brushes, then scraping off and moving paint around with Catalyst tools. I definitely recommend them.