. . . painted and purged

The studio/basement clean-up continued yesterday. To the left of my painting table is a set of bookshelves where I put all the books I've read. I straightened that area up a bit, packed a box of books to take to the Salvation Army, put my comfortable chair, ottoman and lamp there. I stashed all my old paintings on wood that I did a few years ago. I did all this between painting the above. It's based on one of my photographs from the July 4 outing. It's more or less 40 x 40. . . I took the picture above just a few minutes ago, and the color is pretty close to the original, but it's a dark and cloudy day with no good light anywhere that won't cast a shadow. I have another 48 x 48 prepped and ready to be painted, and plenty more mess to clean up today while it rains.

Do you have any idea what Citra-Solv will do to styrofoam? I had some of that stuff in the studio because I had read that you could do image transfers with it. I hadn't tried it, but I decided to use it to clean stuff down there. I thought it did a good job, and it sure smelled good. I left the rag that I had used to clean on my painting surface, which is a 4' x 8' piece of pink insulation foam on two sawhorses. Yesterday I tried to move the rag and it was stuck to the foam. I tugged on it and it came up with pieces of the pink foam. The Citra-Solv had eaten away a chunk of the foam in the shape of the rag. And where I had put the bottle, the stuff that had dripped down created a perfect oval outlining the shape of the bottle. Just something to file away for a later time. . . I'm sure there are art possibilities in knowing this. But wow, that Citra-Solv is sure potent. The only place I have ever been able to buy it around here is at Whole Foods, and it is touted as green, organic, natural, and it is expensive. I will make sure to dilute it even more than I did when I use it again.