The studio cat strikes...

and nearly dies.

I've been remiss in blogging, no doubt due to trauma created by Opal, the studio cat.  In September, I mixed a large glob (very technical term) of a dark colour with a luscious phathalo green and cadmium red, preparatory to creating a grey for a background.

 I painted a 3' x 4' wooden panel with the resulting grey, affixed plastic wrap, and waited for it to dry.  Alice Saltiel-Marshall was visiting at the time and took this photo of the process, thanks!

During the night, Opal the studio cat happily pounced on a wet painting of Alice's, a lovely piece which was predominantly peach/tangerine, and then into a wet start of mine, a very bright phathlo blue, and then meandered over my wood panel...

 and the floor, and up the stairs on to the laminate, and, and, and.

You have to know that Opal was grounded for a week as a result of this, which is just as simple to accomplish as the proverbial herding of cats.  

© Garden Patterns II  mixed media by Win Dinn  3' x 4' on wood panel

Some judicious sanding, three more layers of plastic wrap technique, some under-the-breath cursing, and I finally finished a piece this week that was as traumatic as any I'd ever done.  And there were no thanks going to Opal the studio cat for her help with this one.

And while I'm at it, I just want to let you the know the major news in town here over the past month.  Two of my favourite people here in town are Susan and Gary Snow,  owners of Tabletree.  Tabletree produces exceptional black cherry juice, and has recently won the FoodNews World Juice 12 award in Barcelona, Spain for Best Pure Juice Product, an award that is VERY well-deserved.  If you're somewhere near an available distributor, you're very lucky.  If not, make sure you lobby to have it brought into your area.  Your taste buds will do a happy dance in delight if you do!