April Fool's Day, April 1, 2010

No Fooling. To all of my friends and family, who probably will not be surprised, I am starting another new chapter in my life. So, here goes!

This is the day I proclaim to be the First Day of the Rest of My life as an ARTIST. Most of my interests seem to last about 10 years, so, from now until I am 75 or so, this is probably going to be IT.

Not to brag, but almost every thing I have ever attempted to accomplish has come to fruition, including but not limited to getting married (5 times) and having children (total 2, one of each gender), becoming a professional puppeteer and ventriloquist, traveling around the country in a converted school bus working for National School Assemblies doing shows in small towns for groups of kids, moving to Hawaii, living in Prescott, Arizona, living off the land in Grants, New Mexico, becoming a lowly secretary, highly paid executive assistant, legal assistant, escrow assistant, having my own secretarial service, teaching tole and decorative painting, owning my own craft store in San Gabriel, California, starting an internet business creating my own web sites plus hosting and maintaining sites for others, selling on Ebay and . . . that's all I can think of right now, but I know there's more.

Now it's time for Art. My photo is actually a self portrait I painted today. First time I ever tried to paint myself. The problem with being 65 is there are too many wrinkles and you have to keep looking at them in the mirror, but I solved a lot of that with a turtleneck sweater. The glasses were a bit tricky, and I am not sure I like the nose yet, but it is a work in process, or work in progress? so I am not going to varnish it yet, and as I make changes to it I will update my "photo" with the latest version.

This current art phase actually started about 6 months ago when a friend asked me if I could paint trees on a hand saw she had purchased at a yard sale, and she was willing to pay me $40, so I said yes. I checked my supply of old tole paints from 10 years ago, and decided they would work just fine. Most of them did not have too much "snot" in them, and there were plenty of greens for pine trees. I finished the saw, which turned out okay. Everyone loved it. Then I found out there were patterns for painting on saws, notably by Dorothy Dent. I purchased several of her books on Ebay, bought dozens of old hand saws, blades, etc. This required an investment of more paints (my favorites being Jo Sonja Acrylics) and lots of brushes and mediums and more books. I like to read. Scott, my significant other, decided the handles looked too crummy, so he stripped them all and rubbed them with 6 coats of linseed oil to make them look new again, and polished the brass screws and the Diston and Superior medallions. I have learned a lot about saws.

Phase one was SAWS.I even painted Elvis on a saw blade for Scott's sister-in-law for Christmas.

Phase two started when I joined a FREE watercolor class in Sunshine Summit, not too far from Aguanga, California, where I currently reside. I sort of gave it a go with watercolor, but I definitely prefer acrylics. Since the class had recently opened up to "all mediums," the teacher let me stay and I now paint on canvas, masonite, saws, milk cans, you name it.

Scott decided I needed to have frames for my art. He has a huge pile of used redwood fence palings which he makes into lovely mitered and rabbeted rustic wood frames, much beloved by the girls in my art class. He is now making them to sell as well as keeping me supplied. And that's a big job because I paint at least 4 or 5 projects a week. Between saw handles and frames, he is a busy boy.