Two more paintings finished; both with a different approach to my usual
The first is the lemon tree. One day I did the little sketch and then next week I went back and started a half sheet. I worked on the lemons with no real idea of how it would come together. Then back at our casa, I fought with the number of lemons, the size of the lemons, the shape of the trunk. There was more scrapping, scrubbing and white paint in this one than I have ever used before.
The second painting is the street behind our casa. There are steps at both ends so I decided that I was safe to sit right in the middle of the street. Since the stool that I brought had collapsed a couple of weeks ago and I had to through it away, I used a little ladder/stool that I found in our apartment. Unfortunately, the legs didn’t lock open and on the rough cobbles, I suddenly found myself down on the ground. Now this wouldn’t be a problem for most of you, but I have muscular dystrophy 2 and my legs and arms are weak. Emilia, our landlady, heard my fall and rushed around the corner. She doesn’t speak any English and so she kept trying to help me up and I kept asking her to go and get Jim. Eventually, she did and somehow, before they got back, I set up the stool again and used it to launch myself to my feet! I found the whole thing embarrassing and depressing.
So when I was working on this second painting, it was all grays and all about the shapes and shadows and it seemed depressing too. I took the challenge in hand, and added the people, the flowers, the birds. I can imagine using this image in my next children’s book, “The Adventures of Dog and Table”. I can just see Dog and Table prancing down this street and all of the people smiling and watching.
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