An Afternoon Visit

When you're painting, you can't think about anything else.



I thought I'd share the progress on the iris painting; the first 2 pictures are ones I already showed in previous blogs, and the big one is the way it looks now. I'm really enjoying this one - it's not quite finished, but I'm getting close!

I didn't get much painting in yesterday; after lunch we went over to our very good friends' Ramona and Ken's for a visit. They're both teachers, and Ken was still at school but Ramona has taken the rest of the year off to recuperate from a hospital stay. They live in a wonderful old neighborhood with lots of gigantic trees and we sat on the front porch talking and drinking pineapple juice, and the afternoon was perfectly glorious, so it was a wonderful midday break for me.

At one point we walked across the street to say hello to their neighbor Edith, a 91-year-old artist. She said she didn't start painting until she was in her 50's, so she's "only" been painting for 40 years! She doesn't paint much any more because of the arthritis in her hands, but she took us on a tour of her artwork throughout the house. What a treat! I wanted to share this tidbit from Edith:

I would paint every day starting at 9:00 at night and paint until 1:00 in the morning. There was no interference; it was great! I started painting because it was great therapy. I used to sew, but when you're sewing, you can still think about all kinds of things; when you're painting, you can't think about anything else.

I hope your day is beautiful!