Illustration of a Summer Cold

Getting sick in the summertime has never seemed fair.  But it  recently happened to me.  I decided to try to tackle how it felt by doing another mixed media collage.  The (for now) final version is at the top of the page, an earlier version below it.  So what's the backstory on the elements used in this new creation?  The photo of me in the collage goes back to a Christmas in 1971 when my sister  Susan came to visit me while I was living in Madrid, Spain.  As I was often sick during the two years I lived there, I'm pretty sure I was sick that Christmas.  I was also pretty poor.  I always liked the moody photo Susan shot of me in front of the wall calendar.  To illustrate my sore throat, I used another little piece of my new red Japanese washi paper.  I didn't have any picture of viruses to throw at the image so sampled a few I discovered Tal Danino had created and posted on his twitter account (link here)  I could have used my own bacterial design which I created for a Spoonflower (link here - although they aren't showing all of my designs anymore) fabric design contest - a Paenibacillus done in 2015 because it looked cool, but I didn't because that wasn't what was infecting me.  Finally, I spent too much time trying to create a brain image using various photos (from the ocean in Pt. Reyes to the Botanical Gardens in Berkeley.)  I'm not too happy with the resulting brain but think it is time to move on from this project.

My Military Experience

On the streets of Madrid, May, 1970, during the military parade for the anniversary of the victory of Franco.  One of the only benefits of living under a dictatorship was that, with so many Guardia Civil around, it was pretty safe to walk the streets without a guardian.

Something Old and Something New

No, I'm not getting married (again).  I'm repainting old landscapes by changing background elements and/or adding birds.
"Crow in Marin," originally painted in 2009, got a partially new background (oil on canvas 20x24)
"Roman Arch, Pink Tree," originally painted in 2011, had a title change to "Roman Arch, Spanish Storks" when I added the birds in 2012.  (oil on linen 22x28)
"Yellow Road," originally painted in 2011, had a title change to "Wild Turkey," when I added the Guatamala ocellated turkey in 2012 (oil on linen 22x28)

Roman Arch Pink Tree

Here is a recent 28" x 22" oil on stretched linen painting.  I first went to Spain in 1969, for my junior year abroad at UCSD.  When I wasn't studying at the University of Madrid,  we took field trips and/or I hitchhiked all over the country.  I took this picture somewhere in Spain on one of my trips - although I remember nothing about it.  By googling "roman arch," I found another more recent photo of this same scene indicating it is in the village of Medinacelli in central Spain.   Looking for new material to paint last month, I rediscovered my old slide, added a scan of a beautiful pink tree watercolor painted by Samuel Palmer in 1829 called "In a Shoreham Garden," and did a few other manipulations in Photoshop CS5 as a guide.  My perspective is a bit off but the new painting is quite soothing in a fantastical kind of way - and it brings back nice memories.

Rainbow Studies - Final Ibiza Painting

The painting "Life Map Rainbow" (top, pen & ink & watercolor painted in Ibiza July, 2011 ) is juxtaposed with the "Fractured Rainbow" painting done in Greece in 2010.  I was happier in Ibiza than in Greece when the paintings were done.  More important is remembering that even when things are bleak there are always rainbows!