Warming Up

Summer is about here, and San Jose is hot. Last evening, I could hardly wait for the sun to simply go away so it would stop heating everything up. Bonus: I now understand better the meaning of 'stifling.'



I have a commission on the easel that I am approaching gingerly. By that I mean I am avoiding it by any logical means possible. After stretching a canvas of Belgian linen and preparing to start, I noticed that there were slight ripples on the long edge of what should have been a taut canvas. I knew that the only remedy was to remove all the staples and start again. But I waited 2 hours to start removing staples.



It was Saturday, and I needed to ship the painting Wednesday.

In a moment of superhuman strength I snapped off one of the gripper heads of my canvas pliers — the pair I have had since art school over 30 years ago.



The cast metal just broke.



It was 4pm on a Saturday, and I had just removed the last staple from a fairly taut canvas, was now reattaching the canvas and tightening it up for my second staple when "Snap!" — now I had no way of reattaching the canvas.



Fortunately, a local art supply store had a pair, and I was able to buy a new pliers (is/are pliers singular or plural?) for a mere $32 and rush back home to try them out.



I mourned a bit for the loss of my old friend since college. How could it have happened just like that? They served me well for so long with not even a hint of being stressed.



After successfully re-stretching the canvas, I decided I had better practice painting, first... feeling a little rusty, I suppose. I painted a practice painting, and went to bed. Today, I must actually paint my commission.