COVID19: In Memory of Wink Tramel

"Father & Son" painted in memory of Wink Tramel 1937 - 2021

COVID19: Cousin Marcie

Jack's cousin Marcie is a hospital social worker in Ft. Myers, Florida and among the handful of people that Jack and I talk to semi-regularly on the telephone. She's also among the handful of people who have spent the night here.

She's a kind and thoughtful person, and COVID19 has made her job a whole lot harder in an area which, like Tennessee, is seeing a surge in cases with no real end in sight. 

Marcie grew up in McMinnville and has the mountains in her spirit, but she's at her best in the ocean breeze. 

To let her know how much we love her, I painted this picture for her. It's big - 12 inches square - and based on a photograph her husband, Chad, took one day when they'd paddled to a stretch of isolated beach somewhere off the Gulf of Mexico. The canoe was hand-built by one of her grandfathers and is one of her most treasured, cherished possessions. It's also a hell of a canoe. 

Dragonflies

 

Late season dragonflies. They're one of my favorite things to paint.

Lucia Turns Nine

Lucia turned nine on Sunday the 10th.

Yes, nine - like Jack said, "halfway to college" - and no, it doesn't seem real that the years have passed so quickly and transformed LuV, a sweet wad of carrot-topped baby, into the smart, spindly third grader with complex opinions and incredible vocabulary skills we know and love today.

We celebrated the big day in Franklin at the Baby House with tasty take-out from the Franklin Chop House and a delicious Coca-Cola cake made by Sis. Over the last week and a half, I've thought about that cake a few times and wish I had just another bite or two of it...

Lucia got a nice haul of birthday presents, including a watercolor I painted of "her" as goalie of her soccer team. That's her favorite position, and Chris says she does really well at it. I didn't have an actual reference photo of Lucia on the soccer field, but I found an awesome shot of Hope Solo and went from there. Lu quickly recognized herself and was tickled to pieces with both the painting and the folding money we stuck in her card.

And because everybody needs a little folding money and to feel special on her sister's birthday, Beatrice got some goodies, too.

And I love that they are so very different from one another - Lucia's kind of an extrovert. Beatrice is neat and orderly. Lucia is (as her mother once described her) "fearlessly creative." Beatrice is cautious and analytical. Lucia is the child who at age three proclaimed a stick-skinny, twentysomething Japanese waiter at a sushi restaurant looked "just like Jack," because he had a ponytail and glasses. Beatrice could get a job with the government identifying the differences identical twins.

As a side note example of how the girls think differently, last year for Lu's birthday, I painted her a card with her lovey on it - she immediately knew it was "KiTTen" and the longer she looked at it, the more similarities she saw. When I did the same thing in April for Beatrice's birthday, she studied the card, and said, "This cat doesn't look anything like Bananas. This cat is brown and has a shorter tail than Bananas. I like it, but it really doesn't look like my cat, Pammy."

I crack up every time I think about it, and objectively speaking as the "artist" who created both pieces, the Bananas card looked a lot more like its subject than the KiTTen one, because I was five months better at painting.

Eggnog and Art Therapy

Once a week, I get together with three good friends to do art and have real conversation with real people. 

Some people have a therapist. I have Ann, Betty, Deb, and a big sack of art supplies. 

This past week, we had a makeshift Christmas party with homemade eggnog and Pirouline cookies - Jack and I laughed about how his mother would've fit right in. 

Note: That bottle was less than half full when I showed up with it - one good serving (with fresh nutmeg) apiece. 

I spent my art time painting a card to send in thanks to our friends, Jeff and Betsy, who treated us to a delicious holiday lunch at our favorite seafood joint last weekend and gave us a lovely set of flameless candles. 

They have a whole pack of little Schnauzers, so I painted one.

So far, the cards I have painted for folks have been well-received, and I think theirs will be, too. 

Aunting and Arting

A few weeks ago, Sis called and said Beatrice needed my help with her Halloween costume. She'd decided to go as "Sparkle Queen" and needed a fancy dress and cape to make it happen.

Luckily for me, "Sparkle Queen" is a product of her own imagination. There was no pressure to replicate a cartoon costume or copyrighted design, because those rarely look the way they are intended, and I used all the luck I had coming to me a few years ago when Lucia wanted to go as Princess Leia, and I nailed that sucker. To. The. Wall. 

This year both girls broke free of established characters and the typical witch-cat-zombie-Disneything, coming up with unique ideas for a couple of sincerely cool Halloween costumes.

Lucia hatched her idea for "Peacock Princess" back in the summer. I don't know the whole story, but apparently Sis ordered a peacock print tunic online and didn't like it, but before she could return it, Lucia fell in love and decided that with the addition of some peacock feathers and a headpiece, it would be a perfect Halloween costume.

Beatrice was more fluid and abstract in her idea for "Sparkle Queen." 

She and I had several phone conversations about her expectations for the costume I would create, and they boiled down to:

Sparkly.

Rainbow-colors.

Twirly.

There needs to be a cape.

Since Hancock Fabrics went out of business back in the summer - I'm still crying about that - I've been in somewhat of a sewing slump and was hard-pressed to find what I envisioned for her costume. The internet came through, though, and an etsy seller set me up with some most awesome fabric - better than anything I could've found at Hancock's.

No, it wasn't cheap, but when your client is only three feet tall, $15/yard goes a long way when the fabric is 56 inches wide.

The "sparkle" is more of a shimmer, but it's bright, colorful, and flashy, and when I started sewing this stuff, I fell in love.

Unlike some knits, the fabric held its shape between the cutting and the sewing. There was no weird, unexpected stretching, and while I stay-stitched the seam-lines of every piece to make sure they came together the way they should, I now realize I could have skipped that step. 

With our without, Beatrice had a beautiful costume to wear for Halloween, and "Sparkle Queen" is a real thing now.

In other "aunting" news, nephew Jack became a teenager on October 27th, and husband Jack suggested I paint him a birthday card instead of purchasing one, since I've been all into doing art lately. 

I played around with a pencil sketch first, then translated it into a watercolor for his card. I actually like the pencil sketch better than the painting, but he loved the card almost as much as the cash stashed inside it and has already asked his parents to have it framed for him, which warms my heart in all kinds of ways and gives me a reason to not hate all teenagers for being unappreciative jerks.