Hey folks, I have been in my studio all day, let me explain my all day, I got up at 4am ( I love early morning) and as I started a pot of very strong coffee I also light up the studio turn on the computer and such.

For us in the Davis home the computers run our life. Not to sound like an advertisement, but we shed our 70 dollar a month phone bill 8 months ago and tried "Magic-Jack" a phone system that runs thru your high speed internet connection and cost you only $19.95 a year.

I have heard all the horror stories, and guess for some people its a night mare. for us its great.

We also shed our $100.00 a month cable bill and got a digital antenna from "Best Buy" for locale channels (were lucky we get 12 channels in our area and they come in great.) For other entertainment we use "Hulu" and "Net Flix"

Ok the commercials are over back to my day ,the coffees done and I need to stretch a couple canvas'.

I use the standard canvas bars you get from the art supply store as long as the canvas is not over 4 ft in size, after that you get into bracing and stuff we won't get into here.

Now as for my canvas materials I am very picky,I use a 100% cotton from a small mill in N.C. I am very tough on my canvas so I want a strong well behave cloth and this just works best for me.

After I get the canvas stretched over the bars I seal it with two coats of latex acrylic flat clear

"Ploycrylic" sealer one on each side. Each side takes about 30 minutes to dry.

Then for my top coat or ground as some call it I apply two coats of "Kilz" Primer, no latex here I use the oil base. Its just stronger and will except any kind of paint I want to apply. This is part of my life long process of trying to make each of my paintings as archival as possible.

Then they are put up to dry, usually a couple hours. This gives me time to finish another pot of coffee and do other things, like today was set aside for signing and numbering the "Flag Day"

prints, printing off the letters of authenticity and putting the paint spot on them to prove they are real and let them dry.

Now its about 11 am and I have good light coming thru the studio windows for about the next 6 hours so its time to paint, the photo above is of a 28 x 28 canvas that I have spent most of the day on, I just could not make myself happy with it so it goes on the wall, where I can look at it till something comes to mind that will make it better.

There have been paintings hang on the wall for a year before it comes to me what they need, then some never make it and I re-ground and start over.