Christmas Preparations and Etc.

While Dave went to the dentist, I spent a couple of quiet hours at the studio today, mostly painting this new piece and several other pieces that came out of the last bisque kiln.

I decided to go for marigold-ish flowers instead of a hat.

The dress is red (a mix of Amaco's matte velvet underglazes in red, bright red, rose, and radiant red), the flowers yellow (intense yellow, bright orange, and flame orange) the gloves are yellow (with a bit of chartreuse at the elbows). Her eyes are leaf green, I think. Maybe they're chartreuse. I still have to paint the hollows of her eyes and nose.

It will take a couple of weeks for her to dry, then she'll go into a bisque (or cone 3) kiln and get a rubdown with some velour black underglazes.

I don't think it's a bad first attempt at a classic Catrina sculpture with a bit of La Muerte (from The Book of Life) thrown in.  The next one will have a hat (which I made and abandoned for this piece). I'll also correct all the twisted bits on the next one and add more detail to the dress bodice.

Judi came out and chatted for awhile. They have a houseguest at the moment, a man they met at a concert who works as a producer for, I think, CNN. (They always have strange houseguests. Once the guy who played Charlie in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory stayed with them. And they often have various agents from various federal agencies lurking about.) Crunch came out to say hello and napped by the front door before Judi had to leave for a hair appointment.

After the dentist, Dave brought lunch from Whole Foods (which is next door to the dentist's office), bean burritos and small chocolate bars. We still had errands to run, so I wrapped up my work and we left and tried to go to Trader Joe's. There was no parking there because of the pre-Christmas crazy rush going on right now and rather than circling the parking lot waiting for a space to open up, we decided to try back later. We stopped at Walgreen's on the way home to buy some wrapping things, and, while checking out in the cosmetics department (to bypass the crazy line up front), the cashier told us about the car accident she was in before coming to work. (People are nuts on the road right now and traffic has been insane for the last couple of days.)

We came home and wrapped the few gifts we're giving this year and then headed back out to Target (for cat food and a few other necessary odds and ends) and then we went to Trader Joe's on the other side of town. (TJ's is the one place that we know of that sells meringues, which I am loathe to make but which we need for our Christmas Day dinner.) It was not busy there--we got front row parking--so we picked up our meringues, some chocolate, tomatoes, croutons, and something else--oh, right--a loaf of bread.

We had our dinner (omelets with cheddar cheese, vegetarian sausages, Swiss chard, toast, and for dessert, baked acorn squash and meringues).

Christmas plans are very low key this year. We're going to my mother's for dinner on Christmas eve. Dave will visit his mother on Christmas day. Our Christmas day dinner is going to be fondue and Eton mess (hence the need for meringues).