Untitled 223

Pastel on Sennelier LaCarte, approx. 2" x 7".

From the Strata series.

Art purchase inquiries: please email me: jala [at] jalapfaff [dot com].

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 Cleo is usually a well-behaved girl in the studio. But the other day I discovered this on the floor:

Miss Lemon loves the springtime...

...she was sitting right in front of these tiny blue flowers and seemed to be admiring them.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 218

Pastel on UArt, approx. 4" x 5".

Art purchase inquiries: please email me: jala [at] jalapfaff [dot com].

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From earlier this winter. Those are Cleo tracks.

It's a baby Gadjo under a Lemon!

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In India.


More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 34 (oil)

Oil on linen, 30" x 40".

Sold.

It's been way too long since I did any oil painting, or a painting in this style (with painting knife only, no brushes). I did it yesterday, about 4 -5 hours. It was fun, if quite tiring. I'm very pleased with it. 

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My beautiful Cleo Bean, having a rare indoor nap.

I just don't understand how Fennec can be comfortable in all these weird sleep positions. But he certainly is.

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In India.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 210

Pastel on UArt, approx. 5" x 5.5".

Art purchase inquiries: please email me: jala [at] jalapfaff [dot com].

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The other day I was panicking because realtors had been in the house and I thought they had let Rumi out, because I couldn't find him. 

With his eyes closed, he had been completely camouflaged:

We got a record February snowfall, at least a foot and a half. 
And some scary cat-claw icicles:

I'm so glad I got this little heated cat shelter for Cleo (photo below). I heard about it from someone else who has a mostly-outdoor cat, and I ordered it from Amazon. I think it was smart of the designer to make sure there are two exits, in case of a predator approaching. You plug it in and the floor heats just a bit, apparently the equivalent of a 40-watt lightbulb. I put my hand on it and it feels warm, but not hot.


I never have to worry about her now if I can't find her at night to bring her in, or if the temperature or weather turns very bad and I'm not around to go look for her (I do try to make her come in at night if it's below, say, 30F). She's happy as a toasty little clam in there. It also helps cut down on the amount of friction between her and Gadjo in the house (she used to bully him when he was little, now he bullies her every time she comes in and drives her crazy), since she is now spending even less time indoors than she used to.


Some afternoons I see both Cleo and Miss Lemon squeezed in there (they pretty much just fit perfectly, the two of them together), looking quite content.

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 In India.


More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 191

Pastel on UArt, approx. 5" x 6".

There's an ineffable quality, a mood, about this little painting...that I was unable to capture in the photograph.

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A great deal still remains to be sorted out in terms of the divorce...but if nothing changes, then I will probably be giving Miss Lemon and Lynx to The Husband, and trying to find a new home for beautiful Cleo (who is rarely featured in the blog, because she's rarely around and because she's hard to photograph since she's all black). I would keep cats Gadjo, Rumi, Fennec, and dog Mojito.

The beautiful black Cleo Bean.

If anyone knows anyone who could consider giving Cleo a loving new home, it would be wonderful. Cleo is beautiful, super smart, young (4? I can find out exactly if I dig up her original Humane Society records), perfectly healthy, and up to date on all vaccinations. She is not feral at all--she's friendly to people, and forms an amazing bond with her special person. [I feel horribly guilty about even considering giving her up. I know how much she loves and trusts me. :(] 

But our girl Cleo is a mostly-outdoors cat. She needs her freedom and independence, and a relatively traffic-free territory to patrol. She comes inside only to eat, to sleep on the coldest nights, and just to hang out, nap, or say hi every now and then. She loves to hang out in my studio while I paint, and is the only one of our cats who is allowed to do so, since she usually just curls up somewhere and doesn't mess with the painting supplies too much. One of her favorite activities is to help and supervise if you are gardening outdoors.

Cleo has always been fine with our dogs, but she doesn't like other cats. Hence the problem (and hence the reason you don't see her in photos like the ones below). When I move, whenever that is and to wherever that may be (so far, no luck in finding future places to live with the animolecules or to paint), I am not going to be able to keep her indoors in a small place with all the other cats for a long enough time that I would feel secure that she knew she now lived in a new house and new neighborhood. Her new home, ideally with no other cats, would have to be able to keep her indoors for a few weeks, and build trust and bond with her, before starting to let her out. She does use the litter box perfectly when indoors, and uses the great outdoors as a litter box as well. She puts on an amazingly thick, plush winter coat, and in summer she sheds that and is just a little sleek thing.

She's a wonderful girl, and she deserves a wonderful situation. Please ask around amongst the people you know and trust. Thank you.

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In Bihar, India.

$115.00 - Untitled 191 (Ready to Frame)

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Fennec meets his many other animolecule family members

We're getting pretty much nothing done since Fennec arrived.

Technically, he should still be in isolation, but we couldn't stand it anymore. So he's now spent a whole day with the rest of the menagerie. Here's the breakdown on everyone's reactions after Day 1. First, the cats:

Gadjo -- who is still a kitten himself, 9 or 10 months old -- is very ambivalent. He hisses one moment, then initiates a game of tag the next. He has definitely been sulking since he intuited something going on behind the closed door all week.

Rumi -- is utterly thrilled by every new being he encounters, Fennec no exception.

Miss Lemon -- As she has done with every kitten, acts like she doesn't notice it for the first half hour, then slams it to the ground and gives it a serious bath.

Lynx -- is nervous and jumps in terror every time Fennec goes launching at him to play. But then, Lynxie is afraid of everything.

Cleo -- doesn't like any other cats. Fennec no exception. She hisses loudly whenever she passes through the house (a couple of times a day only; she mostly lives outside) to keep all the other kitties at bay. Fennec is respecting her hisses and, intelligently, slinks away.

Now, the dogs:

Jazz -- As a 14-year old Golden, I'm not sure he even notices there's a new fluffinmuffin running by.

Mojito -- Took a few sniffs, got a little kitten hiss, looked surprised, got rewarded with dog cookies by us afterwards for being gentle. He licked Fennec's face.

And Fennec himself? Oh, does he love having a big family!

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It's little Mr.Fennec, ready to attack the hand...

Lynxie and Mojito haven't said hi for a while.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 22 (oil)

Oil (no wax), 36" x 36". Finished about a month ago. One of SamArtDog (my neighbor)'s favorites.

(Sorry for the upper-left glare.)


Sold.

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Still trying to figure out why the manufacturer called them dog beds...

As you can see, the cats always exercise their feline rights to have first choice of seating arrangements. If they choose to sit on a dog bed, the dogs don't dare ask them to move. And with a sigh, the dogs go and lie on the floor.

(Below) I love this one. Jazz was occupying one dog bed already, and Mojito was pacing between the one Rumi is clearly smack in the middle of, and Jazz's. Finally he plonked himself down on Jazz's bed, hoping there'd be enough room.

And a rare moment where Miss Lemon allowed some company on "her" dog bed (she was there first).

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Life drawing...and what's that in the sink?

It's weird with drawing--sometimes I feel like it'll be a great drawing night and it isn't; other times (like tonight) I go in in a bad mood and the feeling I won't be able to do anything, and things turn out well. There seems to be no predicting the outcome based on mood or on sense of ability going in.

After the quick warm-up sketches (above), the instructor had us divide our paper into quadrants (below) and in each quadrant, we had 10 - 15 minutes and a different pose, and were supposed to do something quite different each time. The lower left one is my favorite of the night.

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I almost had a heart attack this morning when I went to brush my teeth and saw this in the sink:

...It's the fake "squirrel tail" toy that Lynx likes to play with.

(He likes to "drown" things, actually, and we've had to learn to keep the toilet seat lids closed all the time, or we'll find lots of surprises in there.)

And lastly, there's something about the new dog bed...

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Untitled 50

Is this a sky painting informed by previous abstracts, or a new abstract informed by previous sky paintings? (Chicken or the egg...?)

I was unable to get this color to reproduce well. It's a periwinkle kind of blue in person (has a bit more lavender in it), and the middle value is a more clear sea-blue-greenish color.

It's been an eventful couple of days. First of all, we're in the midst of a major deluge--it's been raining for two days almost nonstop, with more predicted. Secondly, the college where I teach had a bomb threat tonight while I was teaching. We all had to evacuate...before I could even give 'em their homework!

Cleo (our cat who gets the least screen time...you know how difficult it is to get a good picture of a black cat) is happy it's spring. (These daffodils have been plastered down by the rain since this was taken a few days ago.)

And shh...don't tell anyone, but Cleo and Bonnie's handsome orange boy Chili Pepper have taken up a romantic email correspondence.

Road cut in Munnar. Looks like a great abstract painting to me.

$115.00 - Untitled 50 (Ready to Frame)

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Sam's studio zinnias and other mysteries

Every time I go over to art/friend/neighbor Sam's house, I find something else to poach that I want to paint. This time it was three zinnia flowers in a vase. She was nervous about lending them to me, because they were sentimental, having been given to her by someone else. Of course I assured her nothing would happen to them. Brought them over to my studio, painted them late last night, finished at 2:30 am (that's pretty normal for me; I'm a total night owl).

Went back into the studio today to take a photo of this painting to post...and gasped as I saw that one of the zinnias--of course, the biggest and most vividly colored one--appeared to have a broken neck! It looked awful. Strangely, the whole stem (neck) of it seemed to be thin and collapsed...like a zinnia-hungry chupacabra had been at it in the wee hours.

I felt so bad, I gave her the painting, so she could have some more "zinnias" to look at.

That's Miss Lemon on the left, and my girly-girl, black Cleo on the right. She's developed a really strange habit this summer. She brings these big green pods into the house (see bottom photo). I don't know what tree they're from, but what weirds me out is what must go through her mind. She drags them in from somewhere outside our property (because we don't have any trees like that), all the way back to our house, then through the little cat door, then she drags them up the stairs and leaves them for me, one at a time, next to my bedroom door. It started out several weeks ago as maybe twice a week, and has increased to the point where it's about four times a day.

God, cats crack me up.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com

Cat contours

These are contour drawings, where you look at the subject but not at your paper. It feels like you're drawing blind in a way, even though you're staring at your subject. If you've never tried it, I highly recommend it (Nicolaides has a very good description of how to do it; I think it's one of his first lessons, maybe even the very first one; sorry, I don't own the book), if for nothing else than for the amazing revelation that lines drawn this way are somehow more alive. These four I've posted here were from a set of perhaps twenty that I did within half an hour or so. It was great, because the cats on my bed shifted slightly every five minutes or so. To me, there's something of the Chinese elegance of line that often happens with contour drawing, and especially with cats!

The Husband and I also got into the habit of doing quick contour drawings while waiting at restaurants, etc., for the sheer entertainment value of it (when a drawing comes out looking really funny, which is very often!). It takes a lot of willpower not to look until you decide you're done (which can be in 15 seconds or an hour or whatever), but when you see the fascinating results, you realize it's worth it. (In Nicolaides' method, you are allowed to look back at the paper when you're done drawing a given curve, etc., only in order to put the pencil back onto the page in a different spot, then it's back to looking only at the subject. It's also fun to do it without ever looking back at the paper until you're totally done; this leads to extremely weird but cool drawings. Read up on it in Nicolaides' book or another book or online for a better description.)

These are actually just very light, thin pencil sketches in a sketchbook done late one evening. For them to show up at all on the computer after I scanned them, I had to do a pretty extreme contrast adjustment. They're now nicely visible on the monitor, but you can see right through the page to sketches on the other side. It also makes it look like they were done in ink, which upon seeing them, I wish I had.  Oh well.

The photo is Cleo (all black) and Miss Lemon. They are two girls (ages 1 and 3) who are often caught in compromising positions around the house.

More art on my website: jalapfaff.com