Is it cold here today! And windy, too. I had a notion to put up a snow picture with this post because Denver is less than half a day away and they’ve been blanketed. Northwestern Kansas had snow, too.

Alas, it’s not snowing here (yet) and the sun is beginning to peek through the clouds so we’ll stick with something more autumnal.

I suppose it’s fitting that the weather be so cold, because things in the studio are a bit on the cool side.

New projects abound. This week alone I’ve talked to people about one new portrait, re-activating one old portrait and a new web project. Not too bad!

But one of the existing paintings is giving me fits. I accidentally ran a fingernail across a lighter area a few days ago and the paint came right off. I tested several spots on that panel and most of them have not passed those tests.

Consequently, I’ve spent the last two or three studio sessions scraping and repainting, using a different paint mixture on one spot, a different medium in another in an effort to determine the problem. I’m hoping I don’t have to start over, but I can see that happening. I just finished repainting the sky and starting in on the grass (for the third time). Fortunately, the darker areas seem to be all right, which means the horse is in good shape. It’s only those lighter areas….

On the plus side, the latest portrait entered the dead layer phase earlier this week and it’s coming along very nicely, so I’m pleased with that. The first section is done already and looking good.

Work on lesson paintings has come to a screeching halt again, but that’s typical. Portrait work precludes everything else in the studio so they have been set aside for the time being.

Studio work in November will be limited to paid portraits as I participate in National Novel Writing Month with about 150,000 close friends AND put together an advent devotional for my home congregation. Things could get a little busy between those two writing  items, but I’m looking forward to it…even if I don’t yet know what I’ll be writing about for NaNoWriMo.

Wash your ears out with this, though. Spring is in the air, at least around my indoor plants. When I moved potted plants inside, I clipped a few sprigs off the impatiens and put them in water. No surprise that I noticed yesterday they’re blooming.

On a whim, I also nipped six branches off the tomato plants. I wanted to see if they would root in water and, if they did, what they would do throughout the winter.

They will root. All six sprigs have some root system developing and some of them have quite filled their containers with roots.

The largest and healthiest looking of them is flowering, too. I was surprised to find two blossoms on it yesterday. Woo-hoo! Can tomatoes be far behind?

I have no idea. I don’t even like tomatoes, but I like seeing things grow so I’ll be watching these six new plants to see what happens.

©Copyright 2009 by Carrie Lewis. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit her website.