Stretching out -

"A Bivouac of Tents After A Windstorm"
digitally manipulated drawing & collage by Mick Mather

It's a holiday weekend and I'm off to a birthday celebration, pool party and backyard bar-b-que. So, forgive the post and run but, in case all of those things weren't sufficient, my 4-year old granddaughter offered a further enticement and made Poppa a vanilla cake! Oh boy!

A new favorite -

"The Bathing Cap"
digital collage by Mick Mather

As we toil away in our studios, turning out work after work, we're often confronted with a piece that stands so far above the rest that it makes every failure worthwhile. It's a choice we make, be it objective or subjective, answerable to personal aesthetic alone. This is one of those pieces for me, created towards the end of March 2008, just as Spring Fever was beginning to overtake me. At the time, the weather was still cold, too cold to post a swimsuit image, so I tucked it away for just the right time. Today seems to be it as we move well into the temperatures of our imminent summer, plans for beach vacations or a backyard bar-b-que next to the swimming pool. It hasn't escaped me that the colors here are very cool and I'm not yet convinced that this was due, as just mentioned, to the time of year that it was created. It could be the odd coincidence of getting 80-degree weather concurrent with gray and cloudy skies.

In the heat of the moment -

"House of Blue Lights I"
montage by Mick Mather

As we prepare to pass from spring into summer, the exercise in tonight's post was a contrast in cool and warm using these soft, pastel hues. Admittedly, the subject herself suggests a bit of inward heat in no particular hurry to beguile or seduce. In addition, even the title has something to say about the spice of life - being an old rhythm & blues song about a juke joint. Hot diggity! Fryers 'n broilers 'n bar-b-qued ribs!