Home from the north woods

Back from the north woods of Wisconsin and happy to be up to my elbows in paint again. Finished drawing Periodical Blues yesterday; blue drapery and background, with The New Yorker and Art in America magazines beside a globe that's next to a huge Webster's dictionary, a Magic 8-ball and a crystal ball. Subscription cards are falling, similar to the falling tarot cards in Publishing's Bleak House.
Also did a life-size drawing of a magnolia on a 10x10" canvas. I mixed petal colors (about 20 variations on 'white', plus green for the leaves) all morning. I'm got the neutrals of the vague drapery background blocked in.

Tarot

Good painting day today. Blocked in four of the tarot cards. The first layer of paint is a kind of couch to lay color onto in the next round. They are more cartoon-y than I realized - the images are mostly outlined - there will be a lot of going back and mimicking the drawing effect.
I do love have little paintings in my paintings. Don't know why, just love to do them and to see them. These Tarot cards add a pop of color and of complexity, and they are flat in a 3-D setting. The top card is the Wheel of Fortune, upside down. The Fool is in the center - it wasn't in the original photo, but I added it in. It's so appropriate for publishing - the well-dressed fellow on a precipice, unawares. The Star is on the bottom center and The World is to the left. The falling card is The Sun. I was thinking of the Baltimore Sun at the time.
Here's the end of the day pic.

Publishing's Bleak House

That's the working title of this new painting.
Week before last, I started by blocking in the background (wallpaper in my den) then the drape. I love the drapery, but I have to be patient. Alizarin crimson is transparent and it will be many layers before the darks begin to properly deepen. The background pattern will get hazier and closer in value.


It went in the drying room while I concentrated on Didus and Omen so they'd be done in time for the "Points of View" show at Huff Harrington Fine Art this Friday.

Today I blocked in the books, key, hourglass and the beginning of the oriental rug pattern. Those blank rectangles are falling cards. Working on the tarot cards that make up the house will be like painting little portraits. No doubt it will be painstaking work, and one of my favorite things.
This is the companion - in size and theme - of Prediction: Endangered. I hope to have them both done by June so I can enter them in a juried show.