Bad Year for Tomatoes

© 2015, R. L. Delight, Bad Year for Tomatoes (WIP), 12"x16", oil on linen

I have a backlog of posts for the past couple of months. Instead of cramming them all into one giant post, I will be making several posts. After a long, hot (for here), dry summer, we are finally getting rain. Rain is something we are rarely short of on the Northern Oregon coast but this year was different. The Pacific Northwest has been very dry and is burning with wildfire. Hopefully the rains have decreased the fires. I have read that it will take a lot of rain to put them out. With rain, comes the opportunity to spend time inside, catching up on the blog, and other neglected tasks.

The Word and Image Show happened this weekend. It was a wonderful evening of literature and art. The link gives a bit of a description. Above is my entry and response. I was paired with a wonderful local author, Gail Balden. All artists and writers submitted 3 pieces of work and were paired randomly a month or so ago. We were given packets with our partners submissions and had to choose one to respond to and be inspired by in our work. It was a tough choice for me! I spent time reading and letting it sit, with thoughts and images flowing through my mind until one of the essays came forward to be painted. The essay I chose was called, "Bad Year for Tomatoes" by Gail Balden, and can be found here if you would like to read it. Please do! Her website can also be found here.

I am so fortunate to live a few minute's walk from a wild 7 mile stretch of beach. I get a lot of thinking done on my morning walks. It was on one of these walks that I decided that I needed some letters to include in the still life portion of my set up. I could have just gathered some papers together and pretended they were letters but I decided I wanted real ones. I turned to my FaceBook page and sent out a request for hand written letters. I asked that they be from a distance, at least 100 miles away from me, and that the letters be about the beauty in their lives. I received several responses and was blown away by the heart felt sincerity and eloquence of the letters. I felt moved and truly blessed.

Perhaps it cannot be seen in the painting, but those letters definitely had an influence in the final work. The deadline came up fast. It was barely enough time for me to get what I needed to get on canvas. I am not a fast worker. I did get it to an acceptable point. It is not quite finished. There are a few areas that need to be tweaked before I will call it done.

I will be posting more this week. I have been painting wave studies as well as working on drawing and landscape studies. This winter I should have a lot of reference material to draw from to create a few larger paintings. I am looking forward to it!

So, where is the beauty in your life?

-Renee