Day 46 of Sheltering-in-Place here in Panama City Beach, FL. Today’s statistics for COVID-19 for Bay County are 68 confirmed cases and 2 deaths and for Florida 32,138 cases and 1088 deaths. I truly think that many states are rushing into loosening restrictions. I guess time will tell, in the meantime, I am not changing what I am doing.
Today I actually spent time in the studio. Of course first I had to clear up my torch firing area and my sifting station for enameling. I still have a table full of things that need a home, but to tell you the truth, I am tired of putting things in their proper place and wanted to play.
Lately my enameled pieces have been influenced by petroglyphs. (I will have to take some pictures) And I have been collecting some images on Pinterest of shaman sculptures. I want to play around with combining the two. So today, I domed and cleaned three copper circles. I got out the counter enamel and oops somehow the open container fell to the ground and spilled all over the place. I was able to rescue about 2/3rds of it. And of course I was wearing my mask. Once I got the counter enameling done and cleaned the pieces up, I fired three coats of white base coat. After cleaning the edges, I slathered on the white some Armor Etch and let it sit for a little while and then cleaned them again. Tomorrow I will draw some faces on them and then paint them with enamel paint.
The magnolia tree in the back yard has a couple of branches that are getting too close to the roof of the storage shed. So after enameling I got my new chain saw out. It came with a telescoping pole. I have used the saw once, but not the pole. So today was the day to figure out how to attach the pole. I read the manual and I watched a few YouTubes and I have to admit that I am challenged by anything with moving parts. Youtube is great but sometimes the presenter just moves through the process too fast for me. Finally after watching a video a couple of times I figured it out. So I was able to get one branch down. The other was too tall. Then I remembered that the pole is telescoping, so I went back to the manual to figure that out. You are suppose to loosen the lock nut, but I couldn’t do it and decided to wait and do that another day.
I have eaten the last of my fresh vegetables, except for carrots and a little bit of home grown celery from my daughter’s garden. I had planned to not get groceries for another week. So I guess it is time to get into the frozen vegetables. For carbs I have a few potatoes, some corn tortillas in the freezer and there is rice and polenta in the pantry. The only thing I might need is some eggs. I was thinking of contacting my friend Susan, to see if she has any to sell. I wouldn’t mind driving out to her house. Definitely an essential errand.
This day flew by, maybe because I was having fun.
Stay Safe, Stay Healthy
