My relationship to insects

 

This butterfly has been following me around :)
I found one here at home before my vacation, and then the same kind in two different places on the trip.
What do you think that means?


And I found another butterfly on vacation - I don't know what kind it is...


And a dragonfly. I love dragonflies.



I've had a few crickets in the house over the last few days. I hate the way they look, but they are lucky aren't they? They are definitely noisy. I can't kill one when it gets in the house. It's too big. But I can just let it chirp, it doesn't bother me. It usually bothers one of the men in the family first, and they THEY can catch it and let it out.

But the bane of my existence are mosquitos. They love me. They love to feast on me. And one little nibble and it balloons up into a huge welt that itches like crazy. I hate that. And then the marks last forever. My legs are red spotted all over. Yuck.

Anyway, I don't have much else to say... was that exciting?

No I guess not. But, well, nothing much is new here, so that's what I'm left with. And I wanted to post a photo, so I did, right?

I'm officially unemployed. It's SO official, I've even received my first unemployment check. I'm working on getting a position... hopefully I'll have a job in October. And I've something in mind, something really POSSIBLE, not just a pipe dream. So I'm working on that but I'm not going to write it down yet. In the meantime, I'm working on my art career. So you could say, that for the summer, our government - generous to a fault - is paying me to have the career I've always wanted; I'm officially a paid artist! Well, I'm paid, and I'm putting in like 40 hours a week on art, so YES! I'm a paid artist!

My first show will be in October, and I'm trying to get ready by producing a TON of work (all of which probably won't sell, but I WILL SHOW it. And that's what a show IS, right?)

I've never painted people in my paintings, mainly because I've always been afraid to. I was never good at it. I was always afraid of what someone would say when they saw a painting of themselves that I did, and they hated it. And just painting myself over and over seemed boring. But with all of the time I have to improve, I'm working on including people. I want to get better as an artist, and I don't want to be held back because I can't paint people. So I've decided to paint people, and I'm sorry if I paint you and you don't like it.

I painted my dad, and he didn't hate it. Of course, he didn't really think it looked like HIM.
So yeah, I'm getting better at painting people, but I'm not getting good at making them accurate. You can tell it's a person, but I wouldn't necessarily say you'll know WHO it is.

Whereas, if I paint... say... a butterfly, you'll know it's a butterfly. And you'll probably even know it's an Easter Tiger Swallowtail or whatever. But maybe the butterfly wouldn't recognize himself. But I guess that's OK.

Another fun thing about painting is this: I've been having a lot of company painting with me.
My husband, and Nick and his friends, have been joining me periodically and painting too. It's cool... I love the company. It's been quite enjoyable!

Well. That's about it for now, but it reminds me -- I want to run out to the art store.
Bye!