Shannon Larratt is Zentastic

She won't see it until she arrives, so I think I can safely post a picture of Rachel's birthday present without it ruining the surprise… I got it all framed and have packing stuff for her so she can actually bring this back to her place in LA (the last painting I made for her is immense and can't really be shipped).

I'm sad to see it leave here because it's one of my favorite paintings.

Along the same lines, I am 99% sure my brother (who's a far better and far more intuitive artist than me — his work is very flowing and natural, almost like cavepaintings) doesn't read this blog… So I can also mention that I'm working on a painting for him based on a drawing that he did that's kind of a pseudo-self-portrait. When they sent Nefarious's birthday present they “packed the box with monsters” (ie. drew them inside the box) and this was one of them.

I've been playing with damaged canvases and not bothering to refinish or prime them with anything other than clear polymer (so I'm basically painting on a garbage surface that's behind a thin layer of plastic). I hope it doesn't have longterm issues with peeling or anything like that!

Anyway, I probably won't have time to finish it this weekend but I will this weekend (I think we're going to the Science Centre or something)… It's a really quick, fun painting. Jon just got a place down the road, so I have a little more workspace here and am going to get a router and tablesaw so I can start building frames myself and finally get everything I have framed.