2020: Corona time is painting time

12 April 2020 Easter Sunday

Every so often I find I have sat still long enough and need some exercise. I took a walk today. Route 1 looks a lot different these days. On a Sunday at this time of year, the road should be packed with cars. I know today was a holy day, but still ... no cars whatsoever?!

Route 1 looking towards Key West direction

Route 1 looking Key Largo direction

As I walked past the lighthouse at the marina and the hotel on the property, both had signs up that read "No Entry without a Mask or Face Covering" -- new rules in place! Clark walked up to the lighthouse to talk to the staff and was not allowed in as he did not have a mask with him.

Later, we did a "Google Duo" session with our family in Connecticut. As we talked over the internet about happenings here and there, the Easter Bunny walked by our boat. Clark quick grabbed the laptop and ran out to have the bunny talk to the grandkids. She even gave us caramel chocolate Easter eggs! Too bad we couldn't pass them through the internet to the grandkids!

Easter Bunny Beverly

Afterwards, Lily, the 4-year old, said, "Are you sure she's the Easter bunny? She looked a lot like a person to me!"

Having finished the airplane painting, I was on the hunt for something new to paint. Ann on "Morning Star II" decided to help me out and sent me a couple of suggestions. One of those caught my eye.

I  decided this was a good candidate for a small canvas.

Since the inside of the original picture was so dark that I could not figure out what I was seeing, I decided to just go with seats and leave it at that. This was a relatively fast one, so shortly I was back on the lookout for my next subject matter.


13 April 2020

Having enjoyed painting a picture of the dog Callie recently, I decided to paint a picture of Mel and Ann's dog, Stella. I sent Clark over with a camera to take a couple of pictures to work from. I found one I liked from the ones he took.

Stella

However, I thought that her eyes looked brighter in the picture taken when Mel came out to help us search for tools lost overboard.

So, I decided to work with both pictures and see what I could do.

I spent the better part of the day working on the picture. While I worked on that, Clark spent his time playing with our sound system on the boat. Although not directly related to the issue with the radio that woke us up multiple times a couple of nights ago, his desire to learn more about the sound wiring came out of that unfortunate incident. While he worked, Clark put several great CDs  in to generate music for his research. I got to listen while I worked on my art.

After spending hours on the sound system,  he came up with the following diagnosis ... a blown out auxiliary input. I was clueless so he translated that into, "we can't couple sound to our stateroom or the pilot house from the salon". Fortunately, this activity is not high on our priority list having never known we could do that. Regardless, Clark found and ordered a part on eBay that may address the problem. Once it gets here, he can do more digging.


14 April 2020

Before pulling out my paints again today to work on my puppy picture, I decided to go for a walk. As I walked up to Route 1, I remembered that we needed holding tank treatment from West Marine. I quickly returned to the boat for money and a mask and walked back to the store. I put my mask on before entering the store, and as I did so, I noticed a sign that said "Credit Cards" only - no cash and no checks allowed.

Since I planned to pay by card that was no problem. I quickly picked out what I needed and went to pay. Sadly, the credit card machine required me to touch it multiple times. Twice I had to use the pen and once the keyboard to confirm payment. I saw no wipes in the area and no evidence that the keypad is ever disinfected. Funny how in the past, this would not have fazed me in the least and now, when I walked out of the store, I felt filthy. Luckily, I had wipes in my pocket. Even so, I ran to the sink as soon as I got back to the boat to wash my hands.

The weather has heated up considerably here this week. In fact the Miami weatherman said that the temperatures we are having now are more typical of July in Florida than April. Given the hot weather, we broke down and turned on the air conditioners on board. We were melting.

Our boating neighbor, Ann, was so  surprised to see we had air conditioning running, she grabbed her camera for proof!

Yes, on occasion, we do run the AC!

In the evening, Clark went out for a bit of a walk and came back with a sunset picture.

15 April 2020

Yesterday, I was very discouraged with my puppy picture. I had worked on it all day and struggled with technique to get the look I wanted. I tried multiple paint brushes and nothing gave me the appearance of fur. Instead it looked more like a patchwork quilting exercise in paint.

At docktails last night, I studied Stella as she ran about, and I realized one very important thing. I had the colors all wrong. Working from a picture, I had white fur where it should be a creamy tan and dark brown where it should be a deep tan. Clearly I had a lot more work to do.

Although I lacked confidence that I could produce the desired effect, I pulled out all my acrylic stuff and set to work once more. Meanwhile, Clark decided to explore the radio wiring yet again. He momentarily called me away from my paints to help him check wire connectivity. He had an "Aha" moment when he saw that one wire was labeled " to E120".

He got excited as that meant something to him (nothing to me)! Voila! He tested it and found that the wire allows us to watch television on the boat's E120 display unit in the pilot house. Neither of us are clear on when we would want to watch television on the display unit, but it is interesting to know that we have that capability if the desire ever arises.

As he worked in the pilot house, Clark found he had nearby spectators. Several times Clark poked his head out the door to snap a picture of his audience.

I can only wonder what these two were telling each other as they watched the boat.

Caption needed for this ... what are they saying?

By the end of the day, I had a puppy picture I was pretty satisfied with; however, I still felt it was missing something.

16 April 2020

Last night as we got ready for bed, Clark said that we should take the boat out for our weekly maintenance run today. When he got up this morning and discovered the extreme heat and humidity, he quickly changed his mind. With no breeze whatsoever, our maintenance run could wait until a cooler day.

Given that the boating run activity was out of the way, I decided to work on my puppy picture again. I realized that the "what's missing" item was a toy for the puppy. I went to visit Ann to see what my options were. She found a few possibilities.

Stella's toys!

I was tempted to try the grinning pink stuffy, but opted for the ball instead.

"Stella"

I took the picture with me to docktails tonight to give to Ann. She and Mel were well pleased with the end result. Meanwhile, I am already working on my next painting project.