delighted / happy

L- Nikon / T - Nikon

I was out of town, walking amongst formal rose gardens, natural wildflower gardens and through a museum with great pieces of American art - Grant Wood and Georgia O'Keefe, just to name a few – captivated by the beauty around me and I received a photo text from Taylor. It was a painting that she had started working on. I had no idea she was even painting again - and just for fun. Do you know how happy that made me? I was looking at the work of famous artists but the work of this artist is what gave me delight. On the subject of art - I'm wondering who is one of your favorite artist? One of mine is Pierre Bonnard / i had an idea in my head so i got out my paintbrushes. i'm really please with the way it's turning out and i'm enjoying doing it. and guess what else - Lilly got adopted today. so happy.

beauty / loveliness

solo post - L, Nikon

My camellia bush has 12 buds on it this year - seems last year there were only a few. It's one of my favorite blossoms of spring. Seems each year it inspires me. Or maybe it's springtime in general that instills a new creative energy in me. So I snipped a branch from the bush and brought it in to paint. I'm very excited about the simplicity of this arrangement - a single blossom, and a bud, in a common glass bottle - it speaks of loveliness.

bounty / illumine

solo post - L

I had 3 apples... I was going to paint them – then I saw the recipe for Apple Crostata... no more apples to paint. SO I went to the market and bought some more fruit and those wonderful sunflowers I shared yesterday. This morning I arranged the items I bought and now I have an abundance of photographs and good starts for at least 3 paintings. One of the compositions really excites me. But first I just had to get outside.
The temperature was perfect so I decided before painting that I should get some exercise. So off I went to Big Trees Forest for a nice hike in the woods. Well I can't go for a walk in the woods without my camera but for the sake of exercise I should have left it at home. I kept seeing things I just couldn't pass by. I was stopping every few yards to take a photo. So my hike turned into a leisurely stroll. You know when you slow down enough to "see" – there is all kinds of beauty around us. (To make me feel like I was actually getting some exercise I decided to walk the trail 2 times instead of just once). The walk did me good even if I didn't get my heart rate up.

Nature is man's teacher. She unfolds her treasures to his search, unseals his eye, illumes his mind, and purifies his heart; an influence breathes from all the sights and sounds of her existence. ~Alfred Billings Street

Once home, I set to work trying to decide which "set up" to start painting. My mom always said, "Begun is half done." Well I'm glad to say, I am more than half done now. Yeah. It's been a good weekend.

I talked to T – she hasn't totally abandoned the blog. She and some friends went to a corn maze this weekend and she said she took some photos. I can't wait to see them. First she said she had to do marine environment homework and start on her next design project. I'll wait - patiently. : )

uptight / excite

solo post - L (unfinished painting)

"Have as much fun as you can and don't feel that the edge of your canvas confines you – let your vision go right on." - Charles Hawthorne

I started a painting this weekend - brushing one color next to another to make form. But I got too tight – uptight really. Maybe it's because of the small canvas size, the long time I've been away from the brush... whatever it is needs to change. I want to paint with freedom – without a care. I want to feel the same excitement in looking at my painting that I feel when looking at the way light plays on my wall - now that excites me. My cousin and I were talking a few weekends ago and I told him I wanted to take a canvas and paint it the way that's natural for me, then paint maybe 3 more of the exact subject, each time with a bigger brush and bolder strokes and see what happens. Maybe then I'll loosen up. And it's ok if I come back to my original style of painting, but at least I'll have broken free for a time.

"Paint with freedom. It gives you more mastery of the nature of paint." -Charles Hawthorne

By the way you should check out my cousins work if you get a chance. He paints with pure passion.

fresh / wilted

solo post - L

The empty canvas stands here, meant to inspire me. I get ideas in my head of what I want to paint but before I pick up the brush I'm tossing the ideas out with the wilted flowers. So many ideas – I just need to put the brush to the paint and paint to the canvas. I can always paint over it if I don't like it, just as easily as I can put fresh flowers in that vase.

final strokes

solo post - L

Ok today, after I finish breakfast, I'll make the final strokes on my painting. But then I'll just have to turn away and stop critiquing it so harshly. I look at other peoples artwork and I like so many styles - sometimes it makes me wish I had a different style of my own. I've always been told that I have a unique style and really that's a good thing I suppose. I think it's important that an artist establishes their own personal technique and approach - that a piece by them is recognizable as theirs at first glance. I talk about all this art stuff more on my other blog site.

focus

solo post by L - NikonD40x 200mm SOC

“We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right.” - Marianne Williamson

That quote is great and so true, but this weekend, for me, the issue of focus was less philosophical and more about keeping my attention in one place - focusing on the task at hand - in the present. I keep getting distracted by little things.
I'm working on a painting that I want to submit to Paws for Charity and it's due next weekend, so I really needed to be painting but I got distracted by this, and while posting, of course I got distracted by other peoples blogs. I finally did get around to painting and I'm so close to finishing - all I really lack is getting Evee painted in the background - but instead of focusing on painting Evee, I kept seeing things that I wanted to change about Kodi (by the way the painting is of Kodi sitting on a chair inside and Evee is just outside the window looking in - maybe I'll show it to you when I'm pleased with it). So I focused on Kodi, which in turn may have resulted in overworking her, instead of focusing on Evee. For some reason I hesitate, afraid I'll mess up the entire painting when I paint Evee. But like my mom always told me, "you can't make a mistake in painting, just do it, you can always paint over it if you mess up". I've got to stay focused in order to complete this painting in time.
Another issue of focus for me this weekend was physical - the way my eyes work these days. I have always had good vision - never wore glasses. But as I have aged things are less in focus than they used to be. Tonight in my metalsmithing class I thought I had forgotten my glasses. As I looked at the tiny 2mm bit of solder on my metal I found it difficult, no impossible, to see. I thought I would had to run to CVS to get a pair of glasses in order to do much of anything in class - how sad is that? But luckily I found a pair in my car. This fuzzy vision of old age really bothers me.
Did you have a focus issue this weekend?

a day of painting

solo post - L Nikon D40x 50mm / 200mm
I started painting first thing this morning. I looked out the window and noticed 2 robins all puffed up like it was freezing cold outside but it wasn't so cold. They sort of looked like babies but they couldn't possibly be could they? The photo is taken through the window with my 200m so the quality isn't so great but isn't that color wonderful? It was just the color I had on my palette. I didn't make any adjustments to these - when I saw them side by side in iphoto i knew they had to go together for my post today.
I painted all day long until I had to quit and go to my metalsmithing class. Class was great tonight. I learned how to solder and continued working on my little metal cylinder box. Plus I finally got to polish my copper bracelets in the tumbler and they so shiny and nice.

secret / mystery

I sent this package off Monday - it contained my "mystery" painting. Mystery in that each artist had to sign the back of the canvas so that the artist of each painting remains a secret until after the purchase. I packaged it up and then realized after I dropped it off that I had not taken a photo of the finished painting. I'll probably never see it again. Oh well, you can see pretty much what it looks like here. The auction is in February. I hope my painting will help raise some good money for the community. As long as I have been an artist I admit there are still times I doubt my talent a bit. I wonder if other artist feel this way every once in awhile? I joined a group today that I hope will encourage me to do more painting and share more of my work. It's a book blogging group on "12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women / i don't have a photo from today but i was looking back through some old stuff from about a year ago and came across this. remember mom?
you'd think experienced trespassers wouldn't be spooked by the average thump, especially given the fact that it wasn't even at night. but this house did a good job of making us leave. who knows what made the sound, it could have been the wind but it also could have been someone inside the house warning us not to enter. regardless, mom and i both jumped a couple feet up in the air and got outta there - me vaulting off the front porch after snapping this photo of forgotten journals, and her hopping in the driver's side to make for our getaway. haha i still want to go back - there was so much potential there.

revealed

solo post - L

I've been working on this painting for the auction I told you about, but I'm a little hesitant in showing it. I haven't painted in a long time and was feeling somewhat intimidated in picking up the brush - a feeling somewhat like Anna Weaver was talking about in this post. So I'm putting myself out there for critique by you. I'm not sure that the painting is complete - I think I have some little touches to make on it before I turn it in. I'd like a place to get feedback from people besides my family so... To you artists out there - do you have any suggestions?
I look at the painting now, in this photo, and I don't think the details are showing up. I should try to get a better photo in daylight. Anyway you get the idea of it. Thanks

end in sight / just a peek

I am finally feeling like the work is coming together nicely and an end to my madness is in sight. Now I'm just tying up loose ends - literally - putting together the final touches. I hope all goes well. The space we have at the festival is so small - 6' x 5' - and that is one of the challenges. I am anxious for the show and look forward to meeting some of the other artist - many who I have admired their work on etsy. Do any of you buy from etsy? Last year I bought almost all of my gifts handmade off of etsy. / in class when my color and composition teacher assigned us a self-portrait, he asked each one of us what we thought it meant. i said that i thought it was an outward expression of inward feelings or being able to show something on the outside that you feel you can't from the inside. it's hard to be completely objective while you're essentially recreating your face - trying not to conform to traditional beauty and finding that you love how you really look without photoshopping yourself. in the end i feel like the painting i created doesn't truly look like the photo i based it on and i'm afraid it looks amateurish, but i'm generally pleased with it and feel it "represents" me well. it was very frustrated working with the acrylic paint (i like the blending capabilities of oil much better). i think i got the basic essence of myself, but struggled with mixing my colors strictly from the primaries . i hope mine is up to par with the rest of my classmates!