My Lame Excuse

What's my excuse for not posting or painting for a month?
It's a lame excuse, actually.
No, I mean really. It's a lame excuse.

I have been out of commission with frozen shoulder. Right shoulder. Painting arm.  #!&%*!#*!

It started with a minor injury while zip lining in Costa Rica last March. Then it all went downhill from there.

Just so ya know... shoulder injury + no doctor visit + 3 months go by + still no doctor visit = frozen shoulder.

And if you DO zip line, don't go inverted, like this. Unless you're like 26 years old. Which I am not.

Yup. That's yours truly.

So because I can't raise my arm to the easel without making yelping sounds, I've been down in the dumps. Yesterday however, my little pastel group met up at Katherine's wonderful studio in Wimberley and I picked up a pastel for the first time in a month. But with my left hand, not with my gimpy right arm. Still, it was interesting and fun to see what came from painting with the non-dominate hand. Nothing masterful by any means, but really loosey-goosey, kind of abstract-y and fun.

AND, our pastelist friend Vicki, whom we met at the IAPS convention in Albuquerque last month, was able to join us yesterday. And she's lame too! Exciting! (No.) Vicki had a very bad frozen shoulder condition and had surgery as soon as the convention was over. The recovery for this surgery is especially long, difficult and painful and Vicki is now in the throes of it. Here we are showing you our bum wings.

Here's a little photo journal of our pastel day.

Jane and Vicki creating masterpieces .....

This is an underpainting that Katherine started yesterday. The final painting will be magnificent, I promise you.

Nancy's doing research .........

Jane's lovely work in progress. And I wish I could tell you that Katherine is demonstrating some interesting pastel technique but she's really just describing how long her (other) dachshund's toe nails are getting. That's Fox, the doxie in the photo. Her nails aren't too bad, but her brother's ... daggers! 

I swear Nancy really didn't just flip through books all day .... she's already finished a gorgeous painting; it's there on the table. 

Vicki works on her art board at a slant as her shoulder recovers from surgery. But still, OW!

My lefty painting in progress. Meh. But it sure felt good to get messy with pastels again! (hint: it's a landscape.)

Sooooo, notes to self:

At this point in your life (i.e. old) stop doing things that you could effortlessly do when you were younger but you only hurt yourself when you attempt them now! Like .....

No more skateboarding (remember the cracked elbow?)

No more cartwheels (another inversion that causes serious back pain the next day) 

No more pack trips on horses (remember the 3 broken ribs after being thrown? Search & Rescue had to come take you out ... remember?) 

And no more zip-lining. Especially inverted!

But painting is always okay.