Thirty minutes ago it was right at freezing outside, with the wind chill making it feel like 25°, and I was walking around the front yard with a teeny lantern, looking for an even teenier bottle of Old Holland Picture Varnish. Now I’m extremely grateful to be back inside with a steaming hot cup of cocoa, and for having the feeling creeping back into my toes.
Why was I walking around the yard at 11:00 at night in the freezing cold looking for picture varnish?
Okay, back up to 4:00 this afternoon. I was expecting a small box of art supplies to be delivered today, and in checking the tracking number on the FedEx website, I read that the package had been delivered and left at the front door.
Hooray! I thought, as I headed downstairs to retrieve it. I opened the front door. No package there.
Maybe they left it next door, was my next thought, because neither of our houses which are right next to each other way out here in the country has a house number on it, and if it wasn’t our regular driver then our delivery may have gotten dropped off at our neighbors’, which is closer to the road. So I trekked over to their front porch in search of wayward art supplies.
Hmm. Not there, either.
Well, maybe they left it at the kitchen door.
So I walked back around to the back of our house and there encountered Roadie, having the best time, playing with some pieces of cardboard.
Hey, Roads!
Whatcha got there?
Uh-oh.
And no sign of the former contents in sight.
So I walked back around to the front and sure enough …
… there under the oak tree on the pasture side of the house were the scattered items of my supply order.
I gathered them up and brought them in, and it wasn’t until I was going over the packing slip tonight after I got home from choir rehearsal that I realized the picture varnish that was in the package was still missing. And that little bottle, ounce for ounce, was NOT cheap.
Man.
So I bundled up again and headed out into the blackness with my teensy weency little lantern to see if I could find it and bring it in from the soon-to-be-below-freezing weather. I had to hold the lantern real close to the ground because it wasn’t giving out a whole lot of light, and I walked back and forth and back and forth under that oak tree but to no avail.
Then I decided to start in the middle of my search area and walk around in ever widening circles.
Nothing but leaves and twigs.
Finally, when I couldn’t feel my toes anymore and my face was so cold from the stinging wind that I couldn’t move my facial muscles I thought,
well, I better go in. But because I truly believe that God cares about even my smallest concern, I prayed out loud: “Lord, You made all the stars and You call them by name. You know where that varnish is, and I think the only way I’m going to find it tonight is if You show it to me.”
As I turned around to make my way back to the house, I swung the lantern in a wide arc way out to the side, away from the place I had been looking based on where I had found all the other things in the package. Something caught and reflected the beam of light from the lantern, and that something turned out to be bubble wrap.
Which was wrapped around my little missing bottle of varnish.
Hallelujah.
So I took this one down from the fireplace mantel where it’s been sitting since Christmas eve, set it on the easel, and sat looking at it for a while, sipping my hot coffee. I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to go about depicting the texture of the cane chair back. I enlarged my reference photo on my computer to study the texture in extreme close-up. I walked across the room and studied the actual chair. I turned around and sat in the chair, sipping my coffee, closing my eyes and imagining that cane pattern. I walked back over to the easel and stared at the painting, sipping my coffee. I reminded myself that it’s impressionism, not photorealism, so I just need to suggest the pattern and the viewer will fill in the details from experience and know it’s a cane back chair without even giving it a second thought. I’m thinking that’s about when the caffeine started kicking in, because I suddenly knew just how to begin, and I jumped right in. Once I got going my painting time went so smoothly I could hardly believe it when I saw that it was time to stop. I feel like I’m getting the hang of this alla prima thing, and I’m incorporating it into the way I like to build up the color layers loosely over the deeply saturated colors of the underpainting. By the way, the blanket in the painting is a soft multicolored plaid with fringe, so tomorrow should be fun!
