Make Lemonade

My daughter gave me the idea for the painting of lemons. (24x30") She was having a really hard day on Saturday and telephoned for support. At the end of our long conversation I said, "I'm going to start a new painting when I get off the phone. What shall I make it about?" She immediately answered "Oh, in winter, lemons. Nice, yellow lemons." So I put her sad mood together with the lemons and got "Make Lemonade".

One of my pet theories involves warm and cool colors and their various effect on mood. In the winter I crave the color yellow even more than I do chocolate; when my eyes are bathed in shades of it I experience a soothing, energizing effect and all signs of depression float away. It banishes the blues, get that? Several of my artistic friends have noticed the same thing and we love love love to paint with yellow and especially in the winter.

In this week's New Yorker magazine there is an interesting article about a woman whose career is choosing color for the paint and siding industries. She describes a color based on wasabi; a cool green with a yellow undertone. I like that color. I like the word wasabi. I like the image that comes to mind; that little dab of green paste that explodes on the tongue and reminds you that you are very much alive.

This is what I put in the frame I showed you in the last post. Both the collage and the frame are coated in a nice layer of encaustic; satiny and fragrant, it has the softest feel.

I got up today meaning to start another painting but got hung up reading the blogs of people who bake things, especially this lady here, who is half my age and does more in a day than I do in a week. I saved a half dozen recipes that she made and pictured on her site (she lives in Portland too) - like my mother before me I collect recipes and dream of yummy food all the time but seldom cook. I did all that while my kids were growing up and now I seem to have just run out of enthusiasm for it. If I had hungry teenagers to feed I might be more motivated but now I'd rather paint and cut and paste.


BTW, another good novel just finished - "Digging to America" by Anne Tyler. Just a wonderful, easy read that I finished in 2 days because I couldn't put it down. It is about cultural differences among other things and I think one of Anne's best.