You Deserve It( - and my process), 6x6 Inch Acrylic Painting by Kelley MacDonald

Dead of winter... halfway through.  I have friends who are at the beach, soaking up the sunshine, playing and dining outdoors, in warm places.  No.  I don't resent you - YOU DESERVE IT.  And honestly, this winter, despite a couple of weeks of rough patch, has been sort of kind.  I hope you exult in your warm days, your tan you tried not to get (right...). Kick off your flip flops and walk the beach, let your mind wander and R-E-L-A-X.  Because... yeah... you deserve it.

And here's a sneak peek at a Work In Progress (or maybe it's done, I never know).  See, our Girls Just Wanna Paint topic this month is "Palette".  You know, like our artist's palette.  So... first I made many sketches in my sketchbook of one of those hand held wooden palettes.  My personal palette is one of two: a clear glass piece on a kitchen cart, or a disposable palette, with about 20 sheets of waxy paper.  

I. Was. Bored.

So, I thought, what if I made a wild garden (the only kind I can grow) and made a flower for each color on my palette?  I use a limited palette (to start with, anyway) of

Titanium White

Cadmium Lemon

Cadmium Yellow Medium

Cadmium Orange

Cadmium Red Light

Quinacridone Rose

Ultramarine Blue

Path Blue and

Burnt Umber

So I took a canvas and over about 4 days laid down the 'darks' of the leaves, stems and loam, and the 'light' of the sky.  At least 2 layers for the sky - at least 6 for the darks. Then.... I COULD NOT BEAR to put the flowers in!  FEAR OF FAILURE.  A friend whose opinion I respect came by and I asked her and she said,  no, no flowers.  I agreed.  Mostly.  Decided to start from scratch with a completely different idea. 

BUT THEN... I was cleaning my other house's studio out and found a big piece of mylar (clear sheeting).  I taped it over (you can see a piece of tape on the upper left corner) the painting and proceed to paint as I had imagined it.  And I am very glad I tried this.  I don't know now, if I will paint this design on the actual painting or simply adhere the mylar with the paint on it on TOP of the canvas.  But it came out exactly as I imagined it.  

Lesson:  Trust yourself.

Sparkle in the Summer, 6x6 Oil

I think I mentioned that I was doing this Challenge... well this month's 'object' was sandals!  I thought this subject was going to be the death of me, but actually, I survived.  These are 'going out' sandals for me, and we're just going to say that's a French Pedicure.  I was focusing on color for this, and trying a 'triad' - with the gold from the sandals being the significant color, and the other 2 parts of the triad were the blue-y green (grayed down a bit) and the violet.  Interesting, to me, as I've never really tried this before.

And I don't know if I've ever shared my palette with you, but here we are - I have a rolling kitchen cart that I put waxed paper on about once a month, held in place with duct tape (or duck tape, whichever you prefer).  It takes 2 sheets, one for the top and one for the bottom, and I just tuck the edges in and tape more.  It's easy to clean up.  My colors are (and this is a little enhanced, I usually only have about 7 or 8 colors on it) from left to right: Burnt Umber, Pthalo Blue, Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Permanent Rose, Alizarin Crimson, Cad Red Light, Cad Orange, Cad Yellow light, Cad lemon and 3 squiggles of Titanium White.  And those are one of my pairs of Atlas Gloves - super to work with - 'so flexible you can pick up a dime'... really, and with mesh in the back, they are breathable, and don't make your hands sweat.

And this... well, a gift to all of you, tonight's sunset sky.