In Progress

Very fun to experiment over the last few days. I'm not sure where I'm headed with this--I don't want totally realistic--want to keep some of what makes my girls look like 'my girls' (if there even is such a thing).

Illustration Friday: Instinct

Instinct says: Always remember.

Another Flygirl

No story, yet--no words, yet--not done, yet...

Not Finished?

Wish Her Well...

My college roommate and friend for 27 years, Kelly, is about to make her final trip to Kazakhstan to bring her baby girl, Josie, home for good. I made a quilt for Josie, hand-quilted it to within an inch of its life, and mailed it off this last week. Kelly put a picture of it up on her blog, here--if you have time, go take a look at the quilt and wish Kelly the best as she embarks on that strange and wonderful journey of motherhood!

You All Inspire Me--

Up very early this morning with a sore throat and stuffed up head, and sat down to wander through Blogland--haven't done that for awhile, as it seemed I was wandering around the internet as opposed to DOING things.

Oh my! So much wonderful creativity and deep thinking and ongoing personal growth out there! You are all AMAZING. I'm truly inspired--may try to sneek out to the studio and just spend the entire day out there.

As an aside--another bit of serendipity--in the first paragraph above, I mistakenly typed "wanderful" instead of wandering--Is that a great word, or what? Wanderful.

Illustration Friday: Celebrate

A Little Bit of Serendipity

This girl has been hanging around the studio for ages, waiting because she was, well, unfinished. Yesterday I picked her up and looked long and hard at her. Here's the thought process:

"She's running--no, walking--away from something. A house? No, a tower--she's leaving a tower behind--like Rapunzel! She's leaving a tower, a stronghold, behind, and striking out on her own."

I paint the tower in and sign my name on the front of the piece (another breakthrough). Later, I am looking for words/story for another piece, browsing through a stack of enlarged poetry pages, and this WHOLE PHRASE jumps out at me from one of Wallace Stevens' poems:

I can build towers of my own.

Wow. The universe speaks.

Has this kind of thing happened to you? Leave a link below to a blog entry where you tell about it, so we can all share our tales of serendipity...

An Experiment With Something New...

I'd been reading about a German artist named "Hunderwasser" and then I watched "Horton Hears a Who" and I haven't been able to stop drawing crazy little houses and doors and windows since...

Some Basketball Pictures...

One of the moms in town has been doing some amazing photography at the boys' basketball games. Her two boys are on the Varsity, but she's also taking pix of the JV boys, including Joel. I'll post more as I find them.
Here's Joel shooting a layup. He sure does get off the ground.

Here he is getting fouled (at least I hope they called a foul!)

He looks so intense, here...

I'm Posting Stuff on Etsy

I'm going to be posting some of my paintings for sale on my etsy site over the next few days--Click HERE to check it out!

Flat Tires and Lessons Learned...

Flat tire this morning, so I'm grounded for the day, which is actually kind of nice. The girls HAD to catch the bus, etc. Only bummer is that I won't be able to go and see Katie's school basketball game this afternoon, but since it's been rainy and they play their games outside (no gyms), that may not matter as the game may be cancelled.

Spent this week getting paintings ready to take over to the gallery, which is staying open after all--I had to think long and hard about it, but decided I could be a grownup and communicate my concerns to the gallery owner, and if she were agreeable, then I'd continue to show my paintings there.

I told the owner that if purchasers didn't want to share their name and address with me, then no sale--and she gave me names and addresses of people who'd purchased my paintings. I'm working on a database/catalog of where all my paintings have gone in the last two years--what a chore--reminder to all of you out there, don't let stuff like this slide. The gallery owner paid me for the two paintings that sold last week, and acknowledged that she owed me for paintings she sold last fall. So I feel good about being resolute and asking for what I wanted without apology. (It may have also helped that she sold seven paintings in January and all of them were mine).

Was listening to Norah Jones, but she's finished and I'm just enjoying the sound of the rain thundering down on the roof--which brings me to another lesson learned--don't wear SLIPPERS down to the studio when it's supposed to rain, as it's a long wet sloggy walk back up the hill to the house...May your slippers be dry, and the rain beat a happy tune on your roof--I'm working on a new idea, off to paint.

Kazakhstan Newspapers!

Got some newspapers from Kazakhstan (via Kelly, the new mom) so got started on a Josie painting for her. Here's the background, drying...