Hard Work

A month has passed and I have been working steady on my home.

We are doing things the "hard way". We are patching plaster, we are stripping wood and sanding it with a palm sander. We are using the resource of time because we have little of the resource of money. None of this is happening very quickly, but with daily attention, it is coming along nicely.

While talking to others about our home projects, we have noticed an interesting pattern. The older crowd, like our parents and grandparents and older family members seem to encourage our efforts and give us tips on how to do things the "right way" or the "way it was meant to be". Our peers and younger tend to tell us the "easy way" to accomplish the task without as much effort. We haven't been able to narrow down when the shift went from "hard work" being a virtue to "fast and easy" being the epitome of success.

I am all for fast internet. I like fast deliveries. I enjoy fast rides. Not everything has to be fast or easy to make it better. In some cases, it is the work that makes something worth doing. By the time we are done with this room, there will not be an inch of wall or floor that hasn't had my hands working on it. There is a real sense of accomplishment when I see the grain in the wood show up under the layers upon layers of varnish that was hiding it. I have claimed this staircase. It is mine. The wood and I have become blood sisters. The same goes for the walls, the floors and the moulding. If I have my way, it will continue to every room in our house.

When I get old and die, or if we end up selling this house, the new owners will probably not find it important to know how many splinters I pulled out, or nails I pounded, scratches I sanded or holes I patched. They will probably knock down all the plaster and cover the floors I am so determined to get a nice finish on. When they are done, this will be their room, their house, their creation. I am okay with that. My work will not have been in vain because I will have truly lived in this house and experienced it, rather than just owned it. I would not wish to deny the next owner the same opportunity.

Someone recently told me that something I was trying to do would be a "lesson in futility". Their remark had merit and I did eventually decide upon another way to accomplish the task. That comment, however, still remains in my mind. Isn't life itself a lesson in futility? We do everything we can to live as long as we can and yet, in the end, we die. I don't mean that to be a negative idea. In fact, its quite positive. If we are going out, we might as well die trying.. right? In the long run, we are remembered for the things we do. When you think of the Wright brothers, do you think "They didn't knit." No, you think "they made an airplane that actually flew!" I bet that was a lot of hard work. I would even be willing to bet they were told it would be a lesson in futility.

I am not sure why hard work has become such a terrible concept in our society. In some sense it seems we have gone backwards. I find it ironic that paying for gym memberships is a popular practice, but learning to plaster walls is oudated. I realize that there can be several reasons why a person might want a gym membership that go beyond the need to be physically active to keep their bodies in shape. It just seems funny to me that people will diet and go to desperate measures to fix their bodies, while avioding the activities that will give them a healthy body and a product to show for it. It seems just as absurd to me to go to a store and get a gift card to avoid spending the time to pick out a gift. Again, I realize there are perfectly good reasons to give a gift card. It just seems that we get things upside down at times. We are willing to put in time to collect a paycheck so we can avoid putting in the time to do things personally. Unfortunately, I don't think we will ever see our children giving their children the same "Gift card that my grandmother gave my mother and then my mother gave me.. " on their first christmas in their own home. In the end, time is spent one way or another. I guess it is all a personal preferance how that time is used.

I should probably get busy on some more projects I have going. These are just some thoughts brewing in my mind as I push the sander back and forth.

Reclaiming the Dream

Wow! I haven't posted in nearly a month. I am painting, but its not on canvas.

We bought our house 8 years ago with the romantic idea that we would fix it up little by little. Time went buy and money to fix things went to college, getting children musical instruments, putting new tires on the vehicles, etc. Compounded with the fear of what we would find once we started tearing paneling off walls, pulling up carpets and the result was waking up 8 years later with very little romance and almost no fixing up. My house still has the uglies.

I woke up a few days ago and just started pulling the paneling loose from the wall to peek behind it. When the wall behind it looked good, I pulled it all the way off. One sheet at a time, I made my way down the stairs. The plaster is in great shape, considering there are hundreds of tiny little nail holes all over it and it has taken a lot of abuse with the installation of the paneling.

I am reclaiming my dream one panel at a time, one wall at a time, one room at a time. It is a lot like standing in front of a canvas and getting that first mark put on. One day, my house will reflect the personalities of the people that live in it.

Rose Buds

Rose Buds
6x6 Oil on Canvas

Another limited palette study.
Titanium White
Ultramarine Blue
Cad Red
Chrome Yellow

This time I substituted Chrome Yellow for the Cad Yellow.

I am working through a bit of a slump in my studies. There are times I just dread the setting up and tearing down. I have done a lot more looking at art than making. I have been consumed with the idea of parallel universes and quantum physics.

I know.. a little strange.

A Happy Pair

A Happy Pair
6x6 Oil on Canvas

Here is todays apple painting. I struggled with this one a little more than I thought I would. It is the same palette as before. The same kind of canvas. I put myself to the challenge of using two subjects on a square format. I only have about 18 of these canvases to go, so I bet by the time I get done painting all of them I will have learned a thing or two about composition.

The colors are a little off on this. I tried to compensate for the fresh paint glare. It is pretty close. I am going to go ahead and call this one done and put it in quarantine.

An Apple A Day..

I have taken some time off my studies to spend time with my son. He came home for a couple weeks and I really enjoyed spending some time with him. It always feels a little empty around here when he goes back to Virginia.

Now that he is gone, it is back to the sketchbook for me.





Since the canvases I received for my birthday will not paint themselves, I decided to start painting something. I bought a couple bags of apples for the kids. When all else fails, apples are a beautiful subject. I placed them on a stool near the window and began painting.




I kept my palette pretty simple. Ultramarine Blue, Cad Red, Cad Yellow Pale and of course Titanium White. I avoided using white except for the very lightest of places and was quite pleased with the results. I really like the variations of browns that can be achieved with this particular palette.

I did not fidget with my brush strokes nearly as much as I have done in the past. Rather than try to fix a brush stroke, I covered it with a better, more efficient brush stroke. I have a tendency to be very economical with paint. I am not sure why.

I really enjoyed painting today. I haven't painted in quite a while. As I was cleaning up, I realized that my overall approach was much more confident from start to finish. All the sketching I have been doing has really helped get over my fear of where to put that first mark. Making adjustments is the easy part once I get that first mark down. Giving myself permission to be wrong allows me the opportunity to be right more often.