Like a cat in the sunlight

Feeling lethargic most of today. Took a nap. I never nap! Perhaps something to do with crawling into bed last night at 2AM. I turn into a pumpkin if I stay up too late, and then have trouble falling asleep after that, though usually the magic hour is around 3AM.

Lounging in the front room, in the big puddle of sunlight that comes streaming through the picture window from morning until early afternoon. I feel like one of the fat stray cats that perpetually wander around the neighborhood. I bet they'd love to be in this spot, especially that particularly pushy grey fellow who is under the delusion that any time I open the front door, for whatever reason, it is an open invitation for him to step inside.

The house is a like an enormous living sundial. Through the various windows I can estimate the time of day by the angles of the shadows thrown across the counter-tops and floor . 10AM when the tentative fingers lay their first warming touch on the bedspread. Noon when the angle shifts from the left side to the right side of the house. 4PM when the front room fades into shadows. Summer when the rays start to burn in bars across my back as I sit at my desk and paint. Living and working in the same place every day, through the seasons gives you a connection with it, lets you feel its breath.

Muddled around some more with my angel figurine. Waiting for the mohair I ordered online to arrive so I can finish her hair. Might be a week or two. Impatience!!! I'll post photos when she's done. I discovered today amidst much swearing and frustration that stitching fabric together directly onto a solid object is not nearly as easy as I initially thought it would be.

After my nap, finally found the energy to do some sketching. Brainstorming session for the cover of Fantasical Visions IV, amidst some further swearing and frustration when the image just was not taking shape under my pencil immediately, the way my mind was telling it to. Sometimes an image just springs forth with little coaxing. Other times ... it can be a bit more elusive. The image that I want to see on the blank page constantly dances away once the pencil touches page, hiding from that tip that's trying to define it. Taunting little twit.

This is the hardest phase of creating a new piece - the first steps and figuring out what to do. Determining the focus of a piece, hashing out the composition, getting a (very) rough idea in my head for the color scheme. At this stage, my sketches are pretty scribbly. The feel of the piece and movement is what I'm concerned with more so than details and rendering. Actually I think I have this piece to blame for my troubles falling asleep last night. My eyes were too busy darting around in my head trying to picture the ideas I had.

After much wrangling, here it is directly from my sketchbook, with some mucking around in photoshop to cut and paste elements around the composition.