Paint Fumes

This has been an incredibly unique day.

I woke up this morning to the sound of thunder, first loud, but distant, than increasingly, rather alarmingly quick and close. Jumping from bed, I ran to the living room to see if Tavi had left yet for work (he bikes), which, to my slight horror, he had. This was only horrific, because at that point there were seemingly gallons of water falling from the sky, accompanied by gale force winds, so that all of our neighborhood trees were nearly parallel with the ground. I called Tavi, who luckily found shelter in a parking garage.

Upon leaving to deliver Tavi his rain jacket and offer him safe transport to the train, I found myself a bit stunned to see some of the damage resulting from the short burst of a storm. Power lines down, stop lights out, entire trees blocking lanes of the road. How did this all happen so quickly?

I have to hand it to nature...it was an incredible bipolar move; from sunshine in the morning (reportedly - I was not awake in time to see it), to nearly tornadic - with a decent amount of destruction, and then back again to sunny, and stunning.

Anyway, I was able to shower and head to work about a half an hour early. The plan was to get in early and maybe take off at 5:30pm for a nice bike ride. Secretly, I will admit that prior to leaving I wished for the power to be off. Imagine my surprise when I drove over the hill on the way to my office to spot a fire engine parked near the curb, and a handful of firefighters examining our smoking transformer!

Long story short, we were out of power, and were all sent home. Free day!!! Hells Yeah!

I painted, which I've been wanting to do for quite a few weeks now, but simply haven't had the free time. And since I didn't take any photos today, I figure I'll share the painting, thus far. There still may be some details and textures to add, but more or less, its a humpback whale coming up to feed - roughly based off of a photo I took outside of Juneau, Alaska, with a few creative color enhancements. Oil on wood.

While you scope it out, I'll be sitting here with my right eye twitching, because I've spent entirely too much time with oil paint and turpentine fumes today! Guess that's how it goes...sit at a computer all day and gain a few pounds; paint all day and gain a few muscle spasms. ;)
And yes, Mom, I did/do have the windows open.

I hope you like!