Carolyn Swait died this morning at 53 years old. She was the wife of Joffre Swait, mother of Joffre, Jonathan, and Jennifer, grandmother of Renata, Joffre, George, and Alex, and the most wonderful mother in law. May she rest in peace.

The doctors have told us my mother in law has a few days to live. We have started a blog about her at http://carolynswait.blogspot.com.

My mother in law has been diagnosed with breast, lung, and colon cancer. She is in her early fifties so this was quite a shock to us. She is not doing well. She is in intensive care at the hospital right now.Please pray for our family.

Tomatoes

Some of my recent harvests. The top picture is 2 days worth of tomatoes. I've already made a fresh pizza without sauce just tomatoes cut up with basil and scallions from my garden. The second picture has one of my cucumbers which I'm very excited about. They were hiding under some leaves and I was so pleasantly shocked when I found them. I had already eaten one when I took the picture.

Castle on Wheels

I saw this illustration at Tiny Showcase and really wanted to buy it, but I waited a bit too long and they sold out. Isn't it cool. Go in for a closer look it has some really fun details.

My mother-in-law is very ill and in the hospital right now. You will notice a lack of posts for a while. Please pray for our family.

The Garden

I have 5 green pepper plants and only one has peppers yet and it has 4 . I think I planted too close together so some of the plants are being nutrient hogs.

That's a pumpkin growing on a little hill I made.

Anyone know how to harvest sunflower seeds? I don't see any seeds yet.

Sunflowers Part 2

I'm much happier with last night's work on the sunflower painting. Not as much an old lady decorated the church office painting, hmm. I want to do a black and white painting next and I can't decide what to paint next.

The kiddos

George is standing for longer periods of time and walking a bit more. He still prefers crawling. He'll be 10 months on the 14th of this month. Renata is a little too into smiling for the camera, don't you think? She is asking so many thoughtful questions lately. It has been fun to teach her things in answer to her questions. And Joffre Jr. charms the ladies.
A couple of days ago Renata said to Joffre Jr.: " You're a fine lad, Joffre."
Joffre responded, "I'm robust, Nata."
Anyone who knows my husband will not be to surprised by this conversation.

Sunflowers

I really just want to keep painting the bottle. I love the color and shape. I need to work a bit more on the flowers and I'm thinking of changing the color of the table. I'll post it again when I finish. It has been two days of work. I'm hoping to only spend another day on it.

My old college roommate, Ana, sent me an old set of acrylic paint and I'm so happy. Thanks Anamari! I want to do some work ups for the mural in acrylic, and now I can. Yeah!

Titanium Evil White

So I started a painting of some sunflowers from my garden tonight. I was very happy to see a full tube of zinc white in my paint box which needs cleaning out. ( I hate throwing out old tubes. I keep thinking I might be able to squeeze out just a little bit more. ) Why was I excited, you ask? Well I'll tell you in a ranty fashion. I am out to get titanium white. It is a wicked color that is addictive. Let me tell you why.

Titanium evil white sucks the life blood of the color you mix it with. It dulls, opaques, and makes colors cooler with complete lack of restraint. It is addictive because it is so opaque it covers all changes so quickly and it makes a stark crisp white very easily . Too easily, no building up of colors, no sweated brow. Artist, including myself, have become addicted to it's quick fixing impasto (thick application of paint) ways. No more beautiful thin glazing of Vermeer and Rembrandt. When colors were beautifully rich.

What other options do I have. I haven't explored this too much but I have found two good alternatives so far. Back in the day, when I was a bit more of a marytr to the art cause I used flake white. Flake white was amazing. It made colors so luminous, but considering it is lead based and highly toxic I had to let go. Babies and the possibility of becoming insane led me to zinc white. It is a warmer white and much more transparent than titanium evil white. It takes a lot more paint especially when you have been conditioned by titanium and it is not as crisp a white as titanium. I am trying to use only zinc white for this painting and I already see a difference. Colors are less dull. I am still using max oils to finish them up before I by a new set of paint so the color isn't great but we'll see.

Thank you for listening, Good Night.

P.S. I don't really think titanium white is evil (that's so heretical) and will be using it in the future. I'm just a tad fustrated at the moment.

P.S. Since Faydra and Valerie might be reading this I just wanted to apologize for my lousy punctation and other editing errors of which I am oblivious.