Red Sneakers Completed

Quite a few months ago I started this 6x8" colored pencil drawing on Ampersand Cradled Gessobord coated with liquid Colourfix primer. My first blog entry on the drawing is here. This piece was intended to be a small study for a much larger piece that I started working on simultaneously and ended up finishing first. The blog entry for the finished larger piece is here. I am happy to have finally completed this small piece. It is worked in colored pencil and solvent. The solvent melts the pencil and fills in the grooves of the sanded surface. I am pleased with my results, the brightly colored sneakers and rich dark background.

Thank you for reading my blog. Unfortunately, this has been a somewhat unproductive year. It has been a year of change and challenges. I have been managing my dad's care for the past several years and during this past year he was hospitalized four times, in a nursing home for two months and then home again with round-the-clock care. Most recently it had been a struggle to get him to eat or take his medication and one month ago he died. Since that time, I have been reflecting on his life and my life, thinking about life growing up with both of my parents (my mother passed away 17 years ago) and now cleaning out the house and finding so many memories. Thinking of how I can incorporate those memories into my artwork. It is bittersweet.