Summer Camp at Chez Brandon

Where I live, there's been one ominous dust storm after the other. It's best to be inside your house when they happen, or at least not driving or walking or riding your bike, which is of course not always avoidable. One of these days I'll paint a dust storm. I'll be like Turner, riding on the outside of the stagecoach in the midst of a galestorm, face fiercely bared to the elements, to feel what it's like to be in a gale. On second thought, maybe I won't be like Turner. It depends on the dust storm, I guess.

One thing for sure: even if you are inside, a dust storm is bad for oil paintings with sticky mediums, dark backgrounds and murderously particuloid on varnish days. I have a nice place to paint in, but the least bit of dust swirls around and gloms itself to my paintings. An artist friend advised me to "tent my paintings". I don't think she actually meant "go out and buy a little tent and set it up and put your paintings in it", but that is what I did after I visited a local big box store and children's tents were on clearance for fourteen dollars. I have this set up in a bathroom but you could also put one in a garage. If I had an attic or basement, I would set it up there.

Actually, you could also just set up a sheet over a table and set your paintings under there.

Before I had this tent, I put my paintings in a narrow closet and closed the sliding door, but the closets are carpeted and I'm convinced they shed microscopic particles of alien fuzz.