The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

I painted the knees today. I was pretty tired after the race and didn’t feel like doing much. Overall I have been pretty happy with this painting and where it’s going. This PPE series has been a real challenge so far, but I’ve been surprising myself and am have not yet had a painting I felt was a flop. The second half of October is pretty busy for me so I’m just going to focus on completing Inktober after this painting is done. I did not do Inktober today so I’ll make up for it and do two drawings tomorrow morning. My dental surgery is at 10:40am.

I have three paintings hanging in the October “Tarot” themed show at Splendorporium and two paintings hanging in their November and December group show “Pretty Things”. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to go to the October opening because it was on game night. This time I priced my work a bit higher because I really was selling it for next to nothing. In November and December I plan to paint another two PPE paintings for the January show, “Reflections”. I also want to bind a book as a gift to my husband. Then it’s time to start applying for work in January after the holidays.

I ran The Portland Marathon today and did the half. It was mostly an easy run but there was a short hill at mile 10 that was a bit difficult so close to the end of the race. I had to use the porta-potty several times and they didn’t have any hand sanitizer or washing areas, so that was kind of gross. I hope I didn’t pick up any bugs because I had to take a drink of water after using the bathroom. It made me very aware of what I was touching and what was going near my mouth.

There were many bands and singers along the race route and lots of people ringing bells and cheering. It made it very hard for me to listen to my book so I ended up turning it off about halfway through. Overall my pace was 10’25” and I finished in two hours and 16 minutes. Not bad. That’s about where I want to be for races.

Tonight we are going out for dinner with my Uncle and his parter. This is my last meal before my dental surgery and the following liquid diet. I’ll be on that for two weeks. Well, liquids for the first week, and very soft foods the second week. Fortunately I was able to book my surgery long enough before the Chicago trip that I will be back to eating normal foods by the time we travel.

I’m setting my intentions for next week today because I will be incapacitated tomorrow after dental surgery and IV sedation and I don’t think I’ll be updating this blog. There will be time in the morning before the appointment to do my Inktober drawings though, so I’ll post those.

Intentions for October 6 – 13:

(I’ll put an X next to the intention for every day I do it)

1. Meditate – 5 days

2. Take the dog on a walk – 8 days X

3. Do art – 8 days X

4. Cook dinner – 7 days

5. Instagram – 6 days X

6. Run two 5k’s and a 10k

7. Run 10 miles on Saturday October 12

8. Run a half marathon on Sunday October 6 X

9. Play video games, read/relax for an hour – 6 days

10. Finish cleaning the house Tuesday

Painting Schedule:

Outline photo, grid, print out gridded drawing, grid watercolor paper Wednesday Sep 25 Draw figure onto gridded watercolor paper Friday Sept 27 Outline drawing and paint in background. Saturday Sept 28 Paint eyes – Sunday Sept 29 Paint skin – Monday Sept 30 Paint shirt – Tuesday Oct 1 Paint hairnet – Wednesday Oct 2 Paint mask – Thursday Oct 3 Paint knees — Sunday Oct 6 Paint sleeve – Wednesday Oct 9 Paint glove – Thursday Oct 10