Day 12: progress on my painting, Valentina D’Amaro, dropping off work at the gallery, a 4 mile run, oatmeal, seeing friends, and things I saw on my walk today.

It took me longer than I planned to transfer the figure onto the watercolor paper. Even using a grid, penciling the sketch took two hours. So I didn’t get to any painting today but tomorrow I will outline the lines I drew and paint in the background. I’m going to use titian green (one of my favorite colors) like I have with my previous three PPE works. This time I don’t think I’ll put any lines in around the figure because she is already so close to the edge of the paper that the composition might be a bit wonky if I added lines.

Today I looked at Valentina D’Amaro’s work. I think it looks like she is painting golf courses, although I know that’s not the case. It’s what it makes me think of though. Here is an example of her painting:

Valentina D’Amaro, “Untitled”, 2013, oil on canvas, cm 40 x 50

Valentina D’Amaro, “Untitled”, 2012, oil on canvas, cm 80 x 100 each

I dropped off my three PPE paintings at Splendorporium today. They will be hanging in the October show which is Tarot themed. I priced them a bit higher than I did my work in the last show because I really think I’m charging way to little for my paintings. These ones especially took a lot of time to do, so I put the largest one at 300 and the two smaller ones at 250.

I ran 4 miles today instead of 5 but I’ll still meet my goal of 21 miles after my 10 mile jog tomorrow. My friend is going to do 7 of the 10 miles with me and so I’ll only have to do the last 5k on my own. I probably won’t listen to anything while I run tomorrow but on today’s jog I got through another Hercule Poirot short story.

I have resorted to instant oatmeal for lunch because regular oats are too chewy and get caught between my bad tooth and the gum. The instant packets have added sugar, but I’m still managing to keep the total I eat below 25g a day. No desserts since Wednesday’s cookie incident (although I have had some pretty strong sweet cravings since then).

I got a little depressed yesterday because it had been a long time since I visited with anyone and I was pretty lonely so I made a few phone calls which made me feel a bit better. Also, I planned get togethers for a few different days so I got time to see people in person. Tomorrow I run with a friend in the morning, Sunday I visit with another friend and go to dinner with my uncle, and Monday I am seeing someone in the afternoon. Then on Wednesday I visit with someone else. So I’ll get my socializing fix in. I get to see my husband every day of course, but he works and I’m home all day and I get a bit lonely.

I’ve started taking pictures when I’m out on my walk with Margot to share on here. Today I saw a big mushroom, a little fairy house, trees with the leaves starting to change, a whole garden of sunflowers, and a witch someone had attached to a utility pole.