I found it - portrait of Eric - takes a minute to load

Here it is , the portrait of Eric (oil on canvas 8" x 10") I am working on and the photo I am working from. It is not quite finished, and not as finished as I thought it was now that I see them posted side by side here. There is something about posting my paintings that removes my subjectivity and gives me a fresh look at them - and makes it easier to see what needs to be corrected or changed. Again - not too bad a start, but a ways to go I see.

Daily Painting....and, oh yeah - Happy Thanksgiving

Well - Ok - Not so daily. But I am NOT giving up on it. I am still trying. Why is it so hard for me to set a schedule and STICK to it? I seem to have no self-discipline at all. I used to have at least a little. I will not quit. I will not quit. I will not quit...So enough of that. I DID manage to paint during Thanksgiving in spite of the fact that we had family from Toledo and Rica came home from LA and it was a very busy time, and I am not feeling so great. I did this while the rest of the girls in the family were "bonding" on a shopping trip. I hate shopping - but I probably should have gone with them just to be with them, which would have been nice - but I didn't think of that until it was too late. I am a dummy sometimes, well - actually often. But I am feeling great about getting some painting done. I did a portrait of Eric - Nathalie's guy who is in Iraq - I can't find where I saved it on my computer, so I will have to post it later. I did finish this somewhat whimsical painting of a view of Cuernavaca, MX (Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 30" )for Rica's house. That was a fun painting and it went well. Cuernavaca is Rica's favorite place on Earth I think - she went to school there and loves it, and talks about it a lot. I thought it would make her happy - and it did I think. It will look great in her place and she seems happy. My assessment of this painting is that it is too middle of the road. The colors are good - especially for Rica and her house, they are perfect for that. However it started out a bit more whimsical, but I found myself "straightening" lines and "fixing" things until it sort of lost it's whimsy. It is neither "whimsical" nor "realistic" - it needs to be more one or the other. Other than that I am very happy with it and not complaining. It serves it's purpose well. Now I have to get to work on the BIG one (4' X 6')for Ricks office. I started it but I really am sort of stumped on it. Guess I'll just start fooling around with it and see what happens. I am also starting on the annual Christmas ornaments - which is fun. I often think I enjoy making things more than painting - I am a thing-maker more than a painter. Now to find that portrait of Eric...

A Few More Journal Pages

Here are some more pages from the journal that I mailed out today. I think they are very boring and dull and mundane. Redundant you say? Yes. The only one I really like here is the self portrait with the mouths and eyes. That was really fun and a surprise for me too. I wish all of my work would develop like that one did. I may write more about this tomorrow.

Sampling of Journal Pages

I signed up for a Journal Collaboration and a Journal Swap...so I have been working on journal pages. I've done most of them in front of the TV in near darkness at night. This is a bit of a new adventure for me. I have been toying with the journal thing on and off for the past year and Tuesday night I dove in. I may even get involved with mail art and ATC's, they just seem like a fun thing - more on those later. So here is how it works: The SWAP is more like a round-robin or circle journal. There is a group of about 15 artist/journalists. Each one buys a journal, works in it for 2 weeks then sends it to the next person. Eventually, everyone should get their original journal back filled with other artist's thoughts and work. Fun huh? The COLLABORATION is similar, except the owner sends out her journals to people to work in, then they go back to her. This will be her 50th one I believe, and she is hoping to put a book together of them I think. The thing I like about this is that it is random, doesn't take a lot of time or energy, it can be anything, no pressure to be good, just to have fun and share. So here are a couple of scans from what I've been playing with. I blurred out some personal information on a couple of them - that's the mess in the corners, but this is just to give you an idea anyway - not great works of art, that's for sure. Just fun!


Oh yeah, the two doodle layouts with the messy corners and my name and info on them are the insides on the front and back of the cover. I purposely made it so my book has no real front or back or right side up, - I wanted complete freedom for the artist/journalists to work in it any which way - that is why I put my name in so many corners - if I had just put it in one corner or on one page it would have acted as an indicator of how the book "should" go. Didn't want that.

For Fun -- What Stone Are You?

Try this little quiz just for the fun of it. Turns out I am Lapis Lazuli, otherwise know as a big mouth :)

What Stone Are You?

Lapis Lazuli Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Sophia Resting 12" x 16" Oil on canvas

I did this portrait of Sophia a couple of weeks ago. I feel like I am making some good progress in handling the oils. At some point I want to merge the fun, stream of consciousness, experimental acrylic and collage with the more classical and disciplined oil painting. I don't know what that looks like just yet but it's coming. I love working both ways. I will just keep painting and creating and see what evolves I guess. Working in two such diverse ways makes me appear and feel a little bit like I have a multi-personality disorder, but I assure you I don't. It does make me unappealing to galleries right now - at least until I get a consistency developed. If ever...

Star 8" x10" Acrylic/Collage

This is not a part of the card series, but more a part of the mask series I did earlier this year. I shot this image of a friend wearing a mask, for some reason I like it and have used it a couple of times.

Hearts of Three 8" x 10" Acrylic/Collage

Not much to say about this that hasn't already been said. I love these blue and red colors. See? I have been busy!

3 Hearts 6" x 8" Acrylic/Collage

Here is another in the cards series. Mostly about color and texture, but the 3 hearts reference relationships.

Club of Two 8" x 10" Acrylic/Collage

As a group the Experimental Water Media Class decided to do some projects based on playing cards, and then mounting a group show in a few months at a gallery in Fallbrook. We each chose 4 random cards from two over sized decks. One of the cards I pulled was the 2 of clubs. As I began to play around with the cards, figures and relationships began to form in my mind. This one is about being "left out" or a being a "third wheel." One of the things I really enjoy about working this way is that it is a stream of consciousness thing. When I was finished it was just so obvious..."two's a club and three's a crowd." Duh. Again on my monitor this looks a little washed out - it tends to be a darker image.
OK -I am laughing out loud as is Rick. He just informed me it is "Two's a couple, three's a crowd" NOT "two's a club." Double DUH : )

No Gain Without Pain 8" x 10" Mixed Media

I named this "No Gain Without Pains" because the Benjamin Franklin quote ended up being collaged into the piece. This piece went through a ton of stages and changes. So many I can't remember how it started out - but I know it wasn't anything like this at all. Again this ended up being a darker piece, with lots of collage and texture, including matches. It is very difficult to get the color right on my monitor, it looks a bit washed out to me right now. Here are three details from it.

Watcher 6" x 8" Acrylic/Collage

It's time to play catch up. I have a number of almost finished pieces. Some have been done in conjunction with my Experimental Water Media class. I am trying to get these done and up on the blog and eventually over to eBay. I really like this little piece. It is one of those rare times that it just came together as if it knew what it was supposed to be and required very little effort on my part. In fact - this is one of my favorites. It is pretty dark piece. Maybe I will not sell this piece - I really like it and so does Rick. We will see...

"It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood..

..a beautiful day in the beauty-wood, would you be mine? could you be mine? Won't you be my neighbor?" Mr. Rogers
Compare this beautiful morning to the previous days. That's some smoke off in the distance to the north of us - but it's a clear sunrise and blue sky for us. beautiful.

Smokin'

Yesterday morning Nathalie went down to the beach and shot these pictures of the smoke spreading over the ocean. By now you probably have seen all of the satellite photos of the smoke too.

Fires 10:30 AM

Well - there goes the last of the blue sky. The wind was shifting around like crazy. The hazy sun was taken from the front porch, then I walked out to the street and shot the last of the blue sky disappearing over our house. They had evacuated San Elijo Hill which I think we were thought to be a part of - except we aren't part of San Elijo Hills. Not that the fire is going to pay attention to a technicality like that - but we just didn't really feel very threatened. We were ready to go at any minute - but it just seemed like the wind had shifted and was blowing it all a bit south of us. As it turned out - we were, and are, just fine. Very smokey and stinky, but as of now no visible orange glow any where near us. I wonder if we will sleep tonight.

Fires 8:24 AM

This was 8:24 Am today. This is taken standing on our front porch. I did not sleep at all last night because of the smoke and the wind. The wind was unbelieveable. The at about 4:30 AM we were startled by the doorbell ringing. It was the neighbor informing us that we needed to turn the news on and evacuate. One neighbor said the fire was about 1 mile away, Rick said 2 or 3. either way it seemed close enough! So we hurried around and packed the car with the dog stuff and art supplies, and waited.

Got My Mail Art

I recieved my mail art! It is just fun to do this. I won't say who it is from just yet...

Mail Art Project

To the left is the front and back of the card, and below is the front and back of the envelope. I was aiming for cheerful, fun and sort of light hearted.

I attend a very fun class on Thursdays called Experimental Water Media. Each session we do a little mail art project, we each draw a name and make a piece of mail art, send to the recipient - without signing it. At one of the last classes, every one brings in the mail art they got and we all try to guess who made it. It is a fun thing to do - I enjoy mail art anyway but never take the time to do any - this sort of forces me to. Isn't that goofy? You shouldn't have to be forced to do what you enjoy doing anyway! So this is my little project. I did it on a postcard and envelope from JAL airlines, but I also did it in the garage in the almost-dark and at night. So not being able to really see what I was doing I inadvertently collaged over the Japanese writing and the interesting stuff that I wanted to save - and the colors on the front and back don't quite match! Hahahah - I still like it and it was fun. The woman I sent it to doesn't know me at all, so she won't know who it is from - but the rest of the class will guess it's from me right away!

Cedar Wax WIng

Hey - look at this, 2 posts in 1 day! I finished the Cedar Wax Wing (4" x 6" - oil on canvas) and I am only moderately happy. The canvas was too rough for the kind of detail I wanted, I am only moderately satisfied with it. Another on headed for eBay...one of these days.

Well golly - another week gone by...

Here it is Wednesday again. My daily commitment isn't going so well yet - but it will. I'm already doing better than the past where I went how many months with out blogging? and here it is once a week. Oh what an improvement - and heading toward once a day too.

I have been busy and not just slacking! I went up to visit Rica - on the train. That was great, but I was disappointed in the Expo. It was very small and sold out of a ton of stuff - and I got there early afternoon on the first day. I did notice as we were about to leave that many of the vendors were getting fresh stock for their booths. All of the vendors were commenting about how jammed and busy they were in the morning and most of them looked beat and exhausted. They said they were stunned at the number of people when they opened. I am glad I wasn't there bright and early. The prices were good, mostly 40-60% off, but really I usually do that well on the Internet. It was fun, I am glad I went. I won't do it again unless there is a workshop that I want to attend also - not worth it just for the shopping. But I WILL take the train again - that was great.

Here is what else I have accomplished in spite of 4 days of migraine headache: Watched Casey Baugh "Quick Studies" DVD two and a half times. Rick and I finished putting the laminate floor down in my studio, Rica's old bedroom with a north facing window. Made and installed ledges for paintings to sit on to dry. Finished "Bird on a Stick." Set up and painted "Wine and Egg." Got them both photographed - although not well - for the web. Have been moving my downstairs and scattered-thru-the-house art supplies and projects around. The studio upstairs will be for oils. The library will revert to a library/reading room, the family room and kitchen will revert to their original purposes and the garage will remain studio space for Acrylics, really large and experimental artwork. I still have Nathalie's old bedroom too - I have some ideas for that space too = maybe eventually get out of the garage/studio, it is so much nice and more comfortable upstairs. So enough for now - I want to go paint!

Wine and Egg 1: This is my first attempt at glass and glass reflections. I am fairly happy with it - I really enjoyed the challenge and I am going to paint it again while I still have it set up.

Bird on a Stick: I am happier with this now. The shadows are much better now I think -