Little Red House

Whoa! It's a heat wave.

I had painted this little red house painting before the current respite from the block of ice weather people call the Greenland Block hit us. I didn't know what the Greenland Block was either:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/why-so-cold-greenland-block_2010-01-11

In the meantime and trapped inside, I was hoping to conjure up some heat by painting anything red. It obviously worked.

Little Red House • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Snowy Field

I was up north this past weekend - the weather was bizarre. I was out shoveling off the deck in full summer hot sun one minute, and in a full blown zero degree blizzard the next. Must have been four or five squalls passing through for the couple of hours I was paying attention.

Listened to the inauguration on my way home. It was pretty cool. I don't know who was more impressive, the pres, our poet from Maine or the music. I've never heard a more beautiful rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Hope you got to listen to it all. If you didn't, they're on You Tube and worth the time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1-sSyZSWlc

Snowy Field • 8" x 8" watercolor framed o 12" x 12" • $200

Frolicking

Snow is not a whole lot different from water on the fun factor scale. You just need to dress up for it. I was thinking about that when I did this painting. I had every intention of writing a simple essay about frolicking in the snow, but got sidetracked.

I typed in the title "Frolicking," which went along nicely. Then I used the word "frolick" and got the spellcheck nazi - correct spelling is f-r-o-l-i-c. Why is that? If I was learning English, this is one of those things that would drive me crazy. Oh wait - I did learn English.

So I went on a search and find for an answer and got sidetracked again. I don't know how I've lived without this all of my life, but this dictionary - the Urban Dictionary - is way more entertaining than Websters:

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Frolic

After a half hour of messing around in Urban Dictionary, I got back to work and found this "Spelling Rule." It reminded me of Junior High School when I would pose what I thought was a legitimate question in class only to be scolded by my English teacher from Boston who pronounced my name "Claudier," and glowered back, "it's the rule idiot." The name is Claudiaaaaaa idiot!

Here's the rule: "If a verb ends in -ic (as in picnic), add a k after the c when adding -ed, -ing, and -er: (frolics, frolicking, frolicked)."

I did not find out "why" this rule was imposed, but then realized - whoa - if you learned to read phonetically as I did, and if you leave the "k" off the "c" it would be pronounced "frolising." But why was that pronunciation not valid?

Another search and find revealed that the frolicing spelling was used before 1805 in English literature. What happened? More research reveals this and the end of the search, finally:

"At the turn of the 19th century, there was a development of phonetics as a science.^[4] In 1806, Noah Webster published his first dictionary, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language. It included an essay on the oddities of modern orthography and his proposals for reform. Many of the spellings he used, such as color and center, would become hallmarks of American English. In 1807 Webster began compiling an expanded dictionary. It was published in 1828 as An American Dictionary of the English Language. Although it drew some protest, the reformed spellings were gradually adopted throughout the United States.^[7


Frolicking • 8" x 8" framed to 12" x 12" • $200

Island Shack

 

According to various on-line, TV and radio sources, I have the Rhinovirus. Maybe I'll do a painting of a rhinoceros to celebrate at some point.

Rhnovirus is a common cold for those of you who, like me, kind of knew that but weren't entirely sure. I really wish I had known this word when I was a kid. It would have been way cooler to say I had the Rhinovirus than it was to say I had a cold. Having a cold was like having a hangnail - a simple and common pain in the neck. Whereas having the Rhinovirus would have been monumental and elicited a great deal of sympathy because no one my age would have known what it meant but would have been too embarrassed to ask, assuming the worst. BTW - it suddenly occurs to me that the word embarrassed phonetically implies bare assed. Do you suppose there's a connection?

Anyway - I was thinking about fishing shacks and islands, maybe to re-direct my attitude about being stuck under the weather.

Island Shack • 8" x 8" watercolor framed to 12" x 12"• $200