Art Journal stuff « Vivian Swift

I’m gumnut, thanks — How are you?

I’ll get to the part where I paint with a toothbrush in a moment, but first we have to discuss GUMNUT BABIES:

Thanks to our dear Australian readers Bev, Megan, Karen, and Marguerite, who kindly answered my question in last week’s post, we all now know what a Gumnut Baby is:

A gumnut is the [...]

A week in the life.

This is the painting-in-progress that I made to cheer myself up on a soul-killing icy snowy March day and we will get back to it later in this post.

But let’s start this week’s round-up with a picture of my Long Island backyard at the very instant that Winter became SPRING on March 20, 2013 at 7:02 [...]

Yet another reason to wish I were Australian.

Yes, we will be painting together later in this post (it’s very looooooong today, go get a cup of tea) but first OMG OMG OMG I have to tell you about my visit with Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

When Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson is not writing best selling books about astrophysics or dropping by The [...]

Some days I’m more thirsty than others.

Last Friday there was a blizzard here on the shore of the Long Island Sound. Oooo, so pretty:

On Saturday the sun came out. Sill kind of attractive, in a good old Winter kind of way:

On Sunday the forecast called for warming weather. Winter is starting to look [...]

Why My Life Will Never Be On Reality TV.

Because instead of having rich friends who talk behind my back (which is why I LOVE The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, New York, Atlanta, OC, and NJ) I have cats who have no trouble getting in my face:

Also, I do not spend my days shopping or party planning. Instead, I spend my days sitting [...]

Just another day at the office.

This is my new office:

I am now concentrating on the writing part of book-making, dear readers, and since I can’t seem to get anything down at home (the cats see me sitting at a desk and, being illiterate, have no respect for the typing part of writing and park their butts right on the keyboard, [...]

WIP, WIP-it Good.

WIP is the term that we procrastinators use when we discuss our “Work In Progress”. Today’s post is going to be a long one because the more time I spend on my blog the less time I have to sit around cursing at my blank sheet of WIP because the angels are not dictating their [...]

In the eye of the beholder.

The first thing that annoyed me about my visit to the Barnes Foundation museum in Philadelphia was the building.

The taxi dropped me off right in front of the place and, as I stood there staring at it on a cold Sunday morning in January, I could not tell where the entrance was. At first, I [...]

How COLD is it on the Long Island Sound?

It’s c-o-l-d.

It’s so cold on the Long Island Sound…

…that the low tide froze. Here I am at the William Cullen Bryant Cedarmere estate, which is two miles from my house, tramping around the cliffs trying to get a good reference photo of the Mill House so I can paint it:

This Mill House is situated below [...]

Watch me paint!

You know what they say about watching paint dry…well, this is like that, only with masking fluid:

I use a toothpick to lay down my Windsor Newton masking fluid because it’s very viscous and I can’t handle it with a paint brush. In this illustration, I am protecting my foreground subject (mailboxes — I love mailboxes) [...]

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