Pumpkin Runners and Simon Armitage

Today I made these pumpkin runners with gouache.  I really like them.  It was a good, focused morning of painting.

And my tendrils are growing!  Come on, little guys! 

Here are some things floating around in my head:

I'm reading Simon Armitage's recent translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  I think I'm starting to internalize Armitage's alliteration.  Armitage: "calling on that counselor to clear his conscience (p.145)."  Me at the end of my Friday painting class: "Chloe and Claire please clean up the crayons."  Scary.

This is my first time reading Gawain, though I did recently read a compilation of lost Arthurian Legends.  How did I miss all of these when I was a kid?  They are hilarious, absurd and psychologically amazing.  The idealization of characters and places, all of the hyperbole, the moments of savagery, reveal so much about the early English male psyche. They also connect quite strongly to some recent conversations I've had with some male friends about their own internal struggles and their perceptions about masculinity.  Also, like many fairy-tales, the forest is a central part of the story.  The adventure begins when characters enter the woods.  The dreamy enchanted world in Sir Gawain reminds me of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  So I've started rereading that as well.