June 27, 2026 — Elaine O.

Well, this was originally intended as a quick impression, but along the way I got interested in the different leaves and petals. So it's moving forward slowly but I'm okay with the change in direction.

14" x 10"

First Presbyterian - Evanston

pencil sketch 

light wash

added value

Ss Be Happy 062626

The book is about mindfulness which apo Ana read to grandma Sun. This group photo is about after the reading performance. The paint is from a set of paints received by Sun on her May birthday. Sorry to realize the quality is watery, loose quite a mystery. Happy Painting inspite of your life struggles!

Saint Ita Catholic Church - Chicago

Alan Summer 2026-2

 Trying for something different with this version of the clock tower. I probably needed a gessoed canvas board to move the paint around like I wanted. But I kind of liked the direction  

This is a sketch in my hot press sketchbook of the Chicago River down by Blick. Got the background in. 

The Ugly

 Well at Saturday's showtime I displayed the good, the bad, and the ugly.   The good was the that storm tossed sailing ship or was it a dead cockroach, anyway I thought it had the perfect mix of order and chaos, both stepping to the fore, nodding to each other and stepping back respectfully.  

The bad was, oh that tree whose first touch of paint and paper towel had struck a sharp looking image, but it was just a stroke of luck, I didn't deserve it, and I went on to paint a pretty solid trunk, but most people didn't like it so I called it the bad.  I was going to do a massive overworking of it to please the masses, but I never got around to it.  

So I just slapped a lot of paint around on a new sheet of yupo, especially perylene green, which behaved very badly, and that's why I called it the ugly.  I was ready to chalk it up to you can't win them all.  But amid the crowd of viewers I heard a slight murmur of  maybe it can be saved.  So the next day I took a lot of paper towel to it, and it came along surprising well, despite the grottiness, and then when I saw that red cat there on the bottom, I declared it yet another masterpiece.

Transition 62226 by SS

June 20, 2026 — Elaine O.

Another week spent primarily in my sketchbooks. I thought the construction/repair part of my sketchbook was over, but sadly, NO!! For my penultimate sketchbook page, I had to document a leak in the outside hose faucet that needed a plumber to replace it...

...before finishing with my now traditional selfie. A chance to try new techniques and see what I was like at the end of the sketchbook. Here, I planned to try the ink outline, but felt it stood on its own without more, so I left it at this and filed away another chunk of my life.

From there, I finished a couple more flower sketches. Both of these have ink outlines, but the first one was sketched first in a water-soluble green ink, then color added; the second started with splashes of color with ink outlines later.

Time To Fly

 Gonna try to fly out of this hot press book…I kinda got trapped in its limitations. This little guy is more turquoise than what happened here and he’s too solid making me think he can’t really fly.  I do like his head colors  

The Four and one more

 

This is the one more.  It was supposed to go last but you know how nutso blogspot is about where it puts your paintings and how stubborn it is about letting you arrange them.  The last four are shown in their final form.  

Then I wanted to start a new one.  The rule of Ken's latest abstracts is that if something begins to look like an actual thing has to be destroyed at birth.  And in the first one I just started out with some blues and a bit of maroon and without my being aware of it until too late, a sailing ship hove into view.  I could still destroy it, but I kind of liked the water and I think I will sail on with this and see where I end up.