"Waiting for the Weekend" watercolor & ink 9 x 6

Today's sketch is a study from an oil of mine; an interior from a house in Maine where I have stayed with artist friends along the coast of Maine... great house, updated last in about 1975.  You know the look, the formica, the tile floor, and the variety of arm chairs into which you sink about 4 inches farther than expected.  The house has a big cellar with stone foundation, and Maxwell House coffee cans filled with nuts, bolts, screws, and nails.  There are lots of coffee cups, with accompanying saucers in the cupboard, and a cornucopia of mismatched glasses and plates. I love every quirky inch of its wallboard, and oddly arranged lighting.  And, I loved the room off the kitchen with life jackets, old chipped croquet set, badmitten nets, and citronella buckets.  Takes me right back to our house on Cape Cod as a kid, with the same jumble of equipment waiting for a family to drag it all out into the sun, and salt water.

Thanks so much for looking, and reminiscing with me.

"Waiting for the Weekend" in stages oil 16" x 12"

 "Waiting for the Weekend" is my take on the mudroom, or storage room in the lovely Maine house I rent with artist friends for a week in June.  I'll be going for my third consecutive year in a matter of weeks.  It's the room I associate with all summer houses.  You can see the flag, and life jackets, and citronella candles, and lighter fluid.  Without seeing, you know there are Zebco fishing rods, and a wooden croquet set (perhaps missing one ball), and drop lines and kite string, and oars, and plastic buckets, shovels, and sand toys, and some flippers, and perhaps a deflated rubber float or two, and a kickboard, and some oarlocks.  I spent summers in a house with all of these things and more, and I have a story associated with each which this room brought to mind, though it has no physical connection to the paraphernalia of my youth.
I've been writing lately about threads, and connections.  Here they are again.

I always travel with several art books to read and study.  Each trip, the books vary.  On this trip, I brought Alfred Chadbourn's "Painting With a Fresh Eye", to which I attribute the ultramarine block-in. I "drew" the basic shapes, and washed in the shadows, moving a few things around until I was satisfied.  My intention is usually to move around the painting, bringing the level of resolution up gradually.  However, I always fight the lure of some component that is enthralling.  Looking at these iterative photos, the life jackets were the draw. 
          

"Waiting for the Weekend" - a roomful of kinetic energy listening for the crunch of gravel under the station wagon's tires, the tumbling forth of scrambling young feet, slamming screen doors and days of sun and fun ahead. Looking forward to June.