Whilst walking the doggies yesterday evening my friend Charlie and I saw this written on the sidewalk in chalk: “RECORDS FOR SALE” This is a popular local way to advertise in the neighborhood when one is having a stoop sale. (Yard sales or garage sales to most, but we in Park Slope usually have neither a garage nor a yard. We do, however, have stoops.) Charlie immediately looked at me and said he imagined someone selling personal records of people in the neighborhood.
Charlie: “Hey, they are selling my 1986 Con Ed Bills. Look, the logo has changed.”
Carol: Laughed and laughed And then my mind immediately imagined someone selling my old report cards, files on my work history and all my pay stubs that are banded together in a drawer since the ’70’s. (I have GOT to clean out that back room!) I remember when my college friend and I got our first jobs. I was making $12,000 a year which I thought was pretty good. Then SHE got a job making $16,000 which I thought was a FORTUNE. I was so jealous. She was RICH!
I’ve been experimenting with some watercolors lately. I thought I’d play with a few different techniques. The yellow flowers above are OK, but I really had a great time with a wet on wet technique on the vase. I also did a beach scene while thinking that I would like to be back in Curacao than work on contracts for the City. (Yes, I know you find this hard to believe, but it’s true!)
After I painted it, I wanted to try something a little more interesting so I cut it up and changed some of the image locations and then reglued them on another sheet of paper. I also reworked the clouds by lifting up some of the top layer of paper with tape. I am happy with the end result, but may reglue the strips slightly closer together. Watch out, I’m going crazy! Next thing you know, I may be having a stoop sale selling my 1981 pay stubs for $2.00 a calendar year. Ok, I’ll take a dollar. And I’ll throw in my College Diploma for an extra 50 cents.
Carol King: drawing, painting, complaining 
6 comments
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June 30, 2009 at 1:40 am
jimmyboi2
RECORDS FOR SALE LOL !!!! Do you still want me to come clean out your back room? Remember my company ULTRA ORGANIZERS? Without order there can be no happiness !
LOVE the split-scene watercolor. It would never occur to me to lift away color with tape. Amazing! And very clever; it looks great.
xoxoxoxo
June 30, 2009 at 3:21 am
Kung
I also like the seascape. The cutting up was a stroke of genious.
June 30, 2009 at 6:47 pm
swatch
I really like the colours in the vase. It looks like you were painting with abandon. I also like how the vase resonates with yellow and blue.
And the slices of painting make a great design.
You really are quite uninhibited.
July 5, 2009 at 3:06 am
wrjones
That was a funny comment by Charlie.
The flowers have a Van Gogh quality to them and I like what you did with the 4 parts of the painting. These pieces will move real well in your stoop sale. Have you been saving the foil from your chewing gum wrappers since 1970? Should be another big seller.
July 6, 2009 at 8:56 am
InkSplodge!
I really, REALLY like these two paintings – for all the reasons already stated above – the flowers look fresh and I particularly like the wet-on-wet vase.
Cutting up the beach-scape works so well – I’d never have thought to do that. If they were individually painted on huge canvases they’d look very nice on my wall. Very creative and daring.
July 18, 2009 at 5:14 am
Nava
Nice! Very nice! I love the Curacao painting. Nice idea to make the viewer work a bit for the money and complete the image in their mind’s eye. Makes it much more intriguing.