Tag Archives: acrylics

Le Chat d’une amie- A friend’s Cat

painted for her birthday – peint pour son anniversaire.

Here’s the original photo of pasha

Here’s my rendering, with the chocolates turned into a book, The Art of Purring by David Michie, one of the 5 Dalaï lama’s cat books.

TWO NEW PET PORTRAITS

The dog (11” by 14”) was painted for my brother and is a portrait of his dog. Acrylics, on canvas. The cat portrait, done for another member of Brattleboro Time Trade is twice the size of the dog painting and is also on canvas but was done in Sennelier and Holbein oil pastels. Sorry about the watermarks, but it’s necessary.


New Art: Doctor Threatens Restraints and Shot of Haldol

Doctor Threatens Restraints and Shot of Haldol - Painting in acrylics c. 18 by 27 inches
Doctor Threatens Restraints and Shot of Haldol – Painting in acrylics c. 18 by 27 inches

This is a larger size painting than I am used to doing. I usually draw and I am scared of painting. When I have painted I have usually restricted myself to tiny sizes or just portraits. This is my first attempt at a real crowd scene or any scene at all. (I am tempted to redo the foreground doctor, to make him less cartoonish and more realistic, but for now, I will keep him as originally done. However, I don’t like the illustration quality of this painting, and want to learn how to be more painterly, so to speak!)

Trying to Hold it Together: Doing Art To Save My Life

What the voices tell me to do, set myself on fire...In art therapy I was supposed to just play with the paint, do a blob and a line to get started. I got carried away with the child's paints and this is what resulted...
What the voices tell me to do, set myself on fire…In art therapy I was supposed to just play with the paint, do a blob and a line to get started. I got carried away with the child’s paints and this is what resulted…

 

I also finished a good drawing of a house in Tuscany, Italy and a painting of a child I started a long time ago, which I will post here. (The house drawing is at the framers, where it is being matted because it is too large for a precut mat. I am sorry that I have posted the painting with little faked watermarks on it, but I do not like the fact that people can simply print out my pictures otherwise and not have to pay me for the prints or the paintings…)

Acrylic portrait of African American Child in red watch cap and lavender sweatshirt...
Acrylic portrait of African American Child in red watch cap and lavender sweatshirt…

As for the rest, I am coping, that is all I can say. I try to “fake it till I will be able to make it” — meaning that I do not tell people how difficult it is, most of the time, because that only makes it harder. If I can try to ignore as much as possible what is going on that is all for the best. And when I cannot, I stay by myself and try to deal with it. Or i see someone, my therapist or a person I have hired to stay with me. Or I simply tough it out as best I can. Things could be worse. After all, I am not in the hospital and I have to keep telling myself that! 8)

 

In the meantime, I don’t have a lot to say. Doing art takes all my time and energy, and the rest is spent simply dealing with things and coping. Forgive me. I will be back. I just wanted to post this to allay anyone’s fear that I was back in the bin.

New Art (2)

Small acrylic portrait of an African-american man in glasses and a winter scarf, 3" by 5"
Small acrylic portrait of an African-american man in glasses and a winter scarf, 3″ by 5″

 

Small acrylic portrait of a white man in front of streetlamp at night. 3" by 5"
Small acrylic portrait of a white man in front of streetlamp at night. 3″ by 5″

Am working on continuation of the blog post from a couple of days ago. Sorry to take so long, but things are very stressful at the moment. The east coast heat wave broke yesterday at least, but I survived it largely without air condtioning, and that wasn’t easy. Thank heavens the downstairs community room has A/C so when I could stand other people staring at me or giving me the evil eye, I could go there to cool off.

 

I tried sleeping in the parlor downstairs as well one night, but someone found me (ah, an easy target!) and kept me up till 2:30am talking at me, until I finally went back to the 12th floor where I live, under the heat-absorbing black roof, to try to sleep in my 94°F-98°F (not including heat index) stifling apartment. Yes, I have 2 fans, but they only blow the heat around at such temperatures. In any event, sleep that night was not very successful. Even after the end of the heat wave, i have been waking every single morning with a pounding headache, dunno why and I cannot figure out the trigger…

 

Oh pore Pammy, woe is she! (Shut up, Pam, with your litany of woes! Others have it so much worse!!!!!) Sorry folks. I did get carried away a bit there and I am not generally a complainer about such circumstances…The sky is clear and cooler today and this bodes well. Every day is a new day and I am 60 and well and I thank gosh for each day that is granted me.

 

Anyhow, a new air conditioner is arriving today, along with a week of cooler weather! PBTG. But the truth is, the stone facts are, even when the temps are in the 80s, we bake, up here on the 12th floor with all the heat rising from the other floors. I asked the building manager when they were redoing the roof why they could not coat it with a white coating, but I think he just laughed at me. To do something so “different” seemed to him unthinkable. I dunno why, it would save everyone energy costs, one, and two, it is a very effective and efficient way to reflect sun rays and avoid heating the building in the summer.

 

Not to be listened to or heard is something I am very familiar with. It is why I want to write about the Dr Mary B. O’Malley’s deliberate misdiagnosis of BPD in 2003 and the damage it  has done and continues to do to me for more than a decade. In fact it can be traced directly to the torture I experienced at the Institute of Living last winter.

 

I will be writing more on that in the days to come. But due to PTSD issues, this causes extreme stress. Even as I write this my fingers are trembling and I can feel my heart race. So I need to do it in small doses and carefully. Thanks for understanding.