While my brother was here I didn’t have the space to work on anything larger than would fit on the corner of the kitchen table. So, when he asked me to paint him a fish on marble as a gift for a friend, I got out some broken marble pieces I had, my watercolour pencils and watercolours and made this for him. Since he’s flying, he needed the marble to be thin and light so I used a broken marble tile piece I found.

Turns out I’m really good at doing fish… must be in the blood. My grandfather on mom’s side was a fisherman, my family on dad’s side and my brother are all in the fish/seafood business… That must be it.

You already know I’m a magpie, constantly picking up crap stuff I find anywhere and everywhere. So, I had this spare bit of marble that I decided to paint while I had my stuff out and the table was already occupied with it all. This time I decided to do something different. I rarely paint birds, but I saw this photo and loved the way they all seem to be gossiping.

You know what I love about painting watercolours on marble? Its the way the marble doesn’t soak up the paint – it allows it to sit there till it dries. It takes longer to finish a painting as I have to wait between stages, but sometimes the pooling of watery paint gives me the effects I want and allows me to bleed colours together in a way I can’t get on paper.

Anyway, here is a quick look at the bedroom made into a studio before mom and Peter arrived. That whole wall was my working space, with great light coming in through the window which faces east. The opposite wall is bookcases and storage.

Later on I added a shelf (I found tossed out on a scap pile) and an easy access way to store paint tubes using clip hangers I already had and didn’t really use. After mom and Peter arrived I had to shuffle things around as I needed to put up the blow up mattress to sleep on.

This is Peter bonding with Vincent.

And here is Vincent, looking gorgeous as ever at a beach bar.

Well, there you have it. Two posts in two days. Who knew!

z