Dirt By Amy Stewart

Chicken Paintings!

8 x 10 oil on gessoed art board.  Click here to bid on either painting.  Note that paintings will ship on May 20.

Several weeks ago, a woman got in touch with me and asked for a chicken painting.  I did two paintings and have a couple more in the works, but my latest emails to her have bounced back.  So I'm putting them up on eBay.  If you've been in touch with me about chicken paintings, here's your chance to bid on two!

This is also a good time for a chicken update.  The Rhode Island Red on the left, Eleanor, developed a very nasty female condition known as a prolapsed vent. I'll spare you the anatomical details, but you can follow that link to find out more.  Basically, some of her insides popped out, probably as she was laying an egg, and they would not go back inside.  A great deal of mess and distress followed.

Unfortunately, I was out of town, and Scott had to handle this by itself.  He felt, rightly so, that a delicate situation like this really could use a woman's touch. In addition to having to clean her up and try to get her anatomy put back where it belongs, a procedure involving more ointment and latex gloves than most of us would want to be involved with, he also had to separate her from the other chickens so that they would not peck at this newly exposed flesh. This involved a construction project that he really didn't have time for, and one that was hampered by wind and rain.

Finally, in desperation, he took her to the emergency vet over the weekend.  We both thought that she would have to be euthanized, and since we are  not farmers, there was no way we were going to wring her neck ourselves.

As it turned out, the emergency vet on duty used to keep chickens.  He gave Eleanor a cortisone shot, and within a few days she was as good as new.  I got back in town to do the final bit of nursing duty, and to see her anatomy put itself back in order. 

So Eleanor (on the left) is healthy and happy again, and I'm sure that Abigail (on the right) is glad to have her back in the coop.

That's the poultry report from here.  Everyone's laying, and we've got more eggs than we can eat right now.  Want some?

"Two Apples"

8 x 10, oil on gessoed art board.  Click here to bid. Go here to see other eBay auctions.

I'm getting ready to head to New Mexico for a week-long painting workshop with Carol Marine.  Don't ask me how I found the time--I didn't.  I just decided several months ago that if I waited until I had a lot of free time on my hands, it would never happen.  So I booked the trip anyway, and off I go.

And as I was ordering art supplies online to have shipped to the workshop, I realized that those of you who have bought paintings off this blog are funding a good portion of this workshop!  So thank you. I hope to have some good stuff to show when I get back.

This is a funny painting.  I wasn't happy with the background, so I kept wiping it off and starting over. Then I got down to this messy  blue-and-white surface and thought, "Huh. That's kind of cool."  It's not the kind of thing I could pull off on purpose, but it's an interesting accident.

'Apple Trio'

8 x 10 oil on gessoed art board. Click here to bid.  Go here to see all eBay auctions.

I don't know what it is about apples.  They are fun to paint, and I can get totally absorbed in trying to get those splotches of gold and red just right.

I think I might do a whole series of these apples, but they won't be up for a while.  I'm off to the East Coast soon for some book tour events, and I'm sure that when I'll get back I'll have lots of Manhattan scenes I'll want to paint.

'Mr. & Mrs. Salt and Pepper Go to Fort Lauderdale'

8 x 10 inch oil on gessoed art board. Click here to bid. Go here to see all eBay auctions.

This is kind of a strange, silly little painting, but I'm putting it up here anyway.  I was in Fort Lauderdale by myself earlier this year, and I sat at a sidewalk cafe, looking at the beach, with only this salt and pepper shaker and a rum punch to keep me company. After a while, perhaps under the influence of the rum punch, it started to seem as if the salt and pepper shaker were on vacation at the beach and I was kind of a third wheel.

So I told them to get up next to each other and smile, and I took their picture, and then I went home.

'Refrigerator Dishes'--SOLD

SOLD.  8 x 10 inch oil on gessoed art board. Click here to bid.  Go here to see all eBay auctions.

I love these old Pyrex dishes.  They're the only thing we use in our fridge.  No Rubbermaid for us.  I thought it would be really fun and easy to paint these three primary colors, but it was surprisingly tricky to get them just right.

'Oranges and Lemons'--SOLD

8 x 10 inch oil on gessoed art board. Click here to bid.  Click here to see all eBay auctions.

Oranges and Lemons:  also the name of an XTC album I listened to constantly in college.

This fruit bowl was sitting on a friend's counter, just perfectly composed.  Took a rather poor photo with my phone, but it was enough for this painting.  I guess that's the trick: seeing paintings wherever you go, and getting just enough information down to let you reproduce it in the studio. 

'Bookshelf'--SOLD

SOLD.  8 x 10 inch oil on gessoed art board.  Click here to bid.

I thought this would be my last painting of books for a while, but just today I started photographing a stack of books on the table in my office, so I may be back at it.

I've been fussing over several paintings the last few weeks--I've finally decided to stop fussing and put them online.  Paintings are like books--they're never really finished.  You just reach a point when you decide to stop messing with them.  This one's very loose, but in a way that appeals to me.

'Decapitated Eggplant'--SOLD

8 x 10 oil on board. Click here to bid. Go here to see all auctions on eBay.

Another eggplant from the same series.  I'm thinking about doing more fruits and vegetables with their heads cut off.  Keeps it interesting.

These are the last paintings that will be up for a while--I'm on the road doing book tour stuff for a couple weeks.

'Death of an Eggplant'

8 x 10 inch oil on board.  Click here to bid. Go here to see all eBay auctions.

My editor asked for an eggplant painting.  You'd think it would be easy to make eggplants interesting, but I was having a hard time coming up with something compelling, so I cut its head off.

Much better.

I ended up doing a whole series of these, so here's one that didn't go to my editor.

"Stack"--SOLD

8 x 10 oil on gessoed art board.  Click here to bid. Go here to see all eBay auctions.

The weather's been pretty gloomy lately, so it's hard to get the warm, clear light that I think old books deserve.  But every time the sun comes out I start yanking books off the shelf to photograph them.  I've got some interesting ones in progress--stay tuned...