“Warm Copper” 9×12 oil on canvas panel
I painted this day before I left on vacation this month. I am fortunate to be a part of a small group of artists who are passionate enough to get together for weekly session to paint together. This was our first meeting and I’ve since missed one when I left for a week.

I like what I came up with although I was my usual lack of sleep condition because my husband and I were preparing our home and pets for a week of self sufficiency (we did ask my neighbor to look in on them which I think she kindly did once or twice daily). Anyway, we also wanted to clean the place because for some reason my DH decided two days before vacation that it was a good time for us to switch locations in the computer room. Since were are both major geeks and pack rats, this proved to not be a simple undertaking. But he certainly surprised me that he was able to bring the house to a presentable (to good friend Shirley), situation! I had requested that we had to make the place clean so I didn’t have to worry about sending Shirley for tetanus treatments lol

The highlight of our vacation was the trip to the Crater of Diamonds – an actual diamond mine which is the 8th largest in the world! I felt like a marooned person in a wheelchair in the middle of a moon crater! The sight of 37 acres of clay like open landscape dotted by people with their mining equipment waddling and digging under 90 degrees weather was not inviting! Luckily there were a couple of shaded areas where people “screened” their clumps of clay in water. There wasn’t anybody jumping with glee or trying to put up a poker face while they pocketed precious stones. All I could think of was the money the place was bringing since they convinced people to till their land and charge people to do it lol Well at least it’s now out of our system and we can move on and wonder about other unknowns to us 🙂

We also went to the Science Museum where they had a traveling exhibit of Our Body: The Universe Within The idea of seeing actual human bodies from the outside in was fascinating to me. In my last 2 years of college, I dedicated my studies to figurative art which meant I also studied in depth human anatomy. It was enjoyable to see landmarks I use in the flesh (pun intended), because all I ever had to work with were illustrations, photographs and some small sculptures.

It was interesting that the bodies in the exhibit were all Chinese. I wondered how much bureaucracy was saved by not using Americans lol

In the gift shop I saw some butterflies mounted inside a double glass. I thought it was really cool to see nature up close and I didn’t have to worry about them being scared of my wheelchair. No I didn’t buy any. The one I wanted was $90 which was too expensive for something I might decide was just a fleeting fascination. I have brushes I want to buy so I decided to get those instead! We were pleased to catch up on our sleep but we fell right back into our bad habits once we got home, oh well.