Went to the art supply store yesterday, in a fit of extravagance, and laid out fifty bucks for two cradled boards–one’s the gessoboard, one the smooth clayboard. The smooth clayboard was the size I wanted to use for the bighorn pear painting, and they were out of gessoboard in that size, so, with some trepidation, I set to work.

I am in luuuuuv. It’s like yupo paper, almost, but once the acrylic sets, it’s actually set, so you can work over the top. The textures you can get are bizarre and wonderful.

This is an expensive habit to develop, but I am feeling surprisingly little remorse.

The grumpy little wren is still grumpy, the eggs are still eggy, the butterfly bush is blooming, the cicadas are shaking their staticky maracas up in the trees, and the only sound I can compare it to is one of those ratcheting sprinkler systems, that go “chka-chka-chka-chka-ssssssssssssss,” falling from a great height.

And life is pretty darn good.