New Painting and new Doll

 This is the first painting I have done outside for a long time.  I sat in the driveway and painted the front of the house with the garden in front.  I keep thinking I can do watercolor again if I just find the right combination of factors.  I decided that being out in the environment might help.  Certainly my best watercolors were done on location.  I am pleased with this one, not because it's a good painting, because it isn't, but because it is at least acceptable watercolor technique.  It gives me hope that I am on the right track.  Going outside has rarely been possible because of the weather...........cold and rainy most days.  We have had some beautiful days, too, though, and all that snow is just a remote memory now.  June in Eastport is the best of all possible worlds.  I have spoken of it every year, I know, but I can't help but be surprised again at the overwhelming scent of Lilacs, the purple Lupine, the intense green of the world.  Memories and pictures don't do it justice.

A faint desire to make another doll crept into my consciousness about a week ago.  Yesterday it had grown to the point that I couldn't ignore it.  I found a pink T-shirt that was expendable and went to work.  It was a short-lived obsession and I finished this doll in record time..........all in all no more than four or five hours over two days.  I don't think I will need to make another one now, but I can't be sure.  This one is cute.........yes, cute.  I guess there is room in my psyche for producing cute.  It may be a genetic variation inherited from my mother, who made many beautiful dolls.  They were very different from mine..........small, perfect ladies with clay heads, arms and legs she made herself.  The bodies were made of cloth, and she dressed them in authentic period clothing made on her treadle sewing machine.  She created their hair using embroidery thread which she would around toothpicks to make specific hairstyles.  They usually carried baskets filled with flowers of fruit and vegetables made out of clay and painted.  An apple would be only slightly larger than the head of a pin.  Once there was a spot on TV about her and the dolls..........I remember her showing off their underwear, complete with lace trim and ties, saying "Ladies always need beautiful underwear."

My dolls are another species altogether.  At times a fleeting idea crosses my mind to make a doll like hers, but I don't have the temperament for it.   And I have the good sense to know I don't have the temperament for it.  My work is sloppy and makeshift, with thoughts like "that's close enough" and "that won't show anyway" guiding my technique.  This doll's shirt is the top of a dirty sock I got out of the hamper.  Her pants are made from my own old pants that I was getting ready to through away. Her skin is, as I said, a T-shirt with "First Light Farm" printed across the chest.  I never would have sacrificed it, except that I have 8 or 10 more in many different colors.

So, aside from planting a vegetable garden and building a new door for the chicken house, that is the extent of my activity since my last post...........although I think I failed to post a picture of the car I bought with the money I made from my art show.  It was cheap, and is now spending a lot of time at the garage waiting for parts.  I'm happy though.  I'll put its picture in a new post.