Sweet Friend

This is my Shadow. What a wonderful fuzzy friend. We were gal pals; gave the "boys" heck when they misbehaved and had a lot of great road trips together. She was my shadow in more ways than one. I always had to be careful when I was working in the kitchen if I stepped back to quickly and wound up stepping on her !

Shadow was diagnosed with liver cancer almost a year ago. The vet, who happens to be my brother-in-law guessed she had only a month or two at most. She hung out for almost a year. Yes, she got slower and slept more. There were horrible growths visible on her side and ear, but they didn't seem to be painful. She was always happy to be petted and cuddled and loved as much as anyone wanted to. We had a tradition. After I finished dinner and cleaning the litchen, my husband would take our male Gordon Setter downstairs to check emails, etc. Shadow and I would wander into the den. I would sit down on the floor and she would throw herself down almost on top of me and we would just sit and love each other. What a great way to end the day.

As she became weaker, she wanted to sleep next to my side of the bed, with a fan on her. She loved cooler temperatures. HOwever, she was restless and had a hard time getting comfortable, so she would move around on her bed, off her bed, in front of the fan, whereever ! I often get up at night and had trouble avoiding stepping on her in the dark, so I began to keep a flashlight by the bed and checked on her everytime I got up.

Last week-end I went to New Jersey to visit my Dad, who is also fighting multiple cancers through out his body. I wanted to visit him while he knew I was there. It was the right thing to do, but on the day I traveled back home, my Shadow left us in her sleep. Quiet and good as she always was.

In reading over this, I don't want you to get the idea she was a marshmallow lap dog. she was a trained hunter and even had a short career as a show dog. She had her show prance down pat. It was adorable, but she was comparatively small for a show dog. She was raised on a hunting preserve and was a great little hunter. I hunted pheasant over her many times and she was patient with my poor shooting skills, but retreived the bird when I did hit it, prancing back, as excited as I was over our success.

So I had a dream last night. She was patiently staring at her lead, meaning she wanted to go for a trot. I would sometimes be a very slow human about her desires on this so she would make a point of getting me out to the garage by pretending she needed to go out. then she would stop in front of the rack that held the leads and stare at the lead, teh stare at me and go back and forth until it sunk in that a potty stop was not what she wanted. In the dream, I put the lead on her and off we went. somehow we wound up in this beautiful golden field. I had no doubt there was plenty of birds out there so I stopped and took off her lead telling her we sure didn't need it anymore. She ran off through the field, galloping along looking more like a dolphin leaping through waves than a gordon setter bouncing through a golden field. Then there was someone else in the field. I couldn't see the person, but I knew it was OK. It was more than OK. this person was going to be better for my Shadow than I could ever be. She stopped and saw this person and stared for a long time. then she looked back at me..for a long time. I told her she had to go. it was allright, and I would be along soon. Off she went and that very Good Shepherd turned and they both walked away.

It was actually a very good dream.

Teatime

I have been drooling over Somerset Studios new Art Blogging publication. A steep $15 and worht every penny. I so appreciate hearing about how other art bloggers struggled with banners, postings, etc. At least I know I am not alone. I was especially impressed by the fact that some bloggers had some very specific purposes for their blogs...providing lessons, sharing designs etc. It's real food for thought as I was lamost ready to completely revamp this blog in favor of another concept. I think what I may do is start a separate blog and see how that works.

All that for another day.

An observation: this morning I awake five minutes prior to the alarm going off. I love my current alarm clock in that it starts with a soft beeping that gets louder as it progresses. Most of the time I can shut it off before it wakes my DH. This morning I was pleased that I had slept the entire night through and was moving a litle better than the previous morning. After a quick breakfast I wandered upstairs to the studio, put on my apron, took off my shoes...I work so much better in bare feet...and just hit it. I opened a visual journal I am working on with some very specific prompts. An image had been cooking for days and today was the day for it to jump onto the page. I worked non-stop for an entire hour. WHEW ! The image was extremely cathartic and no, I cannot share it. What I do want to share is that there was a definite afterburn.

My mind was off in the creative stratosphere for the rest of the morning. I was gigling to myself as images coalesced and came into focus..more...yes...more. No time to do them now, but I took notes, then went out to have a cup of coffee on the porch...more ideas started to just flow amazingly into my head ! A character formed, introduced herself and we chatted for an hour, I ran up to grab the journal and recorded as much as I could. while trying to fix my lunch, more flow ! ARGh, how could I capture it ???? DH would have a fit if I remained in the studio, so I got out of the house as fast as I could and drove to the lake. Off came the shoes..very important. Out came the journal and it was more like taking dictation than writing. I wrote for half an hour . then scribbled out a very comprhensive list of things to do before I fly off to NJ. After all that, I was grateful I had packed my lunch as I was famished. another surprise as the meds have stolen my apetite, but I ate a luna bar and a peach and a handful of crackers.

The lake was just gorgeous..cool breezes. Oh I wanted to spend the rest of the day there happily painting. A future goal. I did get my shoes back on and take a little walk along the beach to a lovely waterfall and just hung out there wondering what had happened to me this morning. Is this the legendary Muse ? I can't say if what I painted and wrote was good or bad, but it sure did flow.

Steven Pressfield would say that my showing up in the studio every day at the same time finally paid off. Maybe that is true. the watercolor I posted at the beginning of this entry happened in a very similar fashion. I had painted several versions of the bouquet and teapot and none pleased me. they were carefully considered , heavily labored watercolors that looked stiff and ugly. this one was sketched in fifteen minutes, the composition coming from my head. The painting done in another fifteen minutes.

Trust Yourself. I think that's the lesson. Trust your creativity and it will flow.

Migraine cures

Oh, I need to be doing this......running like a wild thing through some lovely magical flowers, playing tag with a good friend ! No cares of migraines and crumbly bones. No achies and breakies. Just a wild bit if fun.

I truly believe that would be highly curative of many ills, not just my own woes. there is a happy balance of serious business and wild child running free and it is a happy place. This piece is in my small watercolor sketchbook and it was an experiment. I had been working on a floral still life using a color copy from my printer. It had run it's course and I was getting ready to throw it out when I read that one could transfer just such a copy by dousing it with Tequila. Viewing the fact that I have been transferred into many amazing places with a dousing of Tequila, I decided to try it...on the copy, not me, my Tequila days are near done. The results were pretty amazing. The colors transferred with such intensity they actually leaked right through the papaer onto the next sheet !!!. I added some watercolor details, then the little dancing things at the top.

So here's the wild child plan for today. A dear friend has informed me migraine sufferers are a certain slightly rigid perfectionist sort. To counteract that tension and folly, one must add...another folly !!!! I am running off to Old St. Charles in search of jalapeno popcorn to bring my brother on my upcoming visit. He is fond of the stuff, as am I and a shop specializing in spicies of all kinds sits in this quaint village. There is also an art museum which I may need to visit and a river perfect for lunching near.

I am leading my spiritual group this Wednesday..a desperate measure on their part. My theme may just be rivers. I'll let you know !!!

THREE GRACES

Once upon a time in the land of Enchantment, on a high plateau in the middle of the desert lived three pretty great looking Mamacitas. Evil princes had bewitched them and made them believe they were very stupid beings hardly capable of driving off the plateau. However something magical happened when they finally met each other and began walking together across the mesa speaking of their dreams, which were not stupid at all. The more they walked together, the more real their dreams became. Excited, they ran home to tell their princes, who promptly put them all on mood altering drugs or locked them up in faraway towers.

Those mamacitas were pretty sad.

They thought the magic was gone. they thought their friends were gone. So they, all three picked up their magic paintbrushes and began to paint each other and the dreams they had shared. They painted stacks of paintings. Mountains of paintings. Enough paintings that they hid their mood altering drugs, climbed down from their towers and ran as fast as they could to city of Santa Fe. They ran straight into each others arms laughing so hard they could hardly breathe. their dreams swirled around them spinning into sparkling realities. They danced and sang and ate a lot of sweet things. They vowed to never return to the haunted plateau and live happily ever after. sometimes their dreams took them away from each other, but they always danced back together again to share more dreams and spin them into sparkly realities.

These mamacitas were dancing happy.

One day though, one of those happy dancers wanted to dance back up to that place. She did and the horrid princes cursed her. they beat her and called her stupid...and her heart broke into a hundred tiny pieces. Each and every single piece became a beautiful mariposa that fluttered down to the two remaining Mamacitas. They looked with tear filled faces on the beautiful mariposas, seeing how they sparkled like no other butterflies had ever sparkled. They knew their friend had moved to another place way beyond the Sangre de Cristos. They cried for so long that the Rio Grande overflowed its banks and the Pueblos on the river came to them and begged them to stop. When they did, the mariposas were all gone and the full blue moon, which had been a special love of their friend, rose high over their heads and whispered that their friend was safe and happy and no one would ever beat her or make her hurt again.

The mamacitas were quiet.

They dusted off their dreams as well as a few of their beloved friends dreams and began to sing to them as they walked the mesa. They are still walking. They are still singing their dreams and if you are very quiet on nights of the full blue moon, you will hear a bit of their song and perhaps you may even see, in the glittering blue moonlight, a very sparkly mariposa.

Love is all that I can give.....

This is actually a sketchbook page I began in California, played with in Nevada and finally finished in Missouri. Traveling art show !!!Not much traveling since November, but I will be off to New Jersey for a quick trip in a few weeks. In the mean time I am working away at my visual journal and needing to finish three 90% done pieces and get started on something new. I have some ideas and reference shots for a still life...we'll see how that goes.

This week-end my DH is going to be gone almost all day Saturday so I am thinking of how to optimize all that art time !!! I want to make a few new journals for gifts and could actually set up a line of work and just rock out. Then again I have an idea about setting up a shallow shelf of some sort to set up my still lifes on. Thirdly (is that a word??) I will have an opportunity to set things up elsewhere in the house and challenge myself to paint as quickly as possible. so many ideas, so few hours !!!! I should also go for a run, clean the house, do some laundry, vacuum, scrub the bathrooms and all that fun stuff. je refuse !!! I am tired of wearing myself out doing stuff that could really be done when DH is around and can maybe even help...OK I am on drugs with that last line.

Having free time..or husband free time as the case may be is like suddenly finding yourself with an extra, unexpected $100. You can come up with so many ways to spend it that you wind up going way over $100.

Gotta sit down and breathe.

I am going to do this: Pour myself a large glass of iced tea and go up into the studio. Clear my work table, get some clean water, put anything I can trip over away. Then I am going to pull out one of my sketch books..not a good one..One of the cheapies I sometimes get for free when I buy supplies at Dick Blick...pull out my pencils and start to draw. what to draw ????? Well, I'll either grab some fruit or already have some decandent pastry, slap it on a pretty plate and simply begin. The flip side, if no fruit or treat to eat when I am done ( after I do get in that run) is to pull something from my stack of reference photos and go for it.

A long time ago and in far away Santa Fe, I took a class in printmaking..specifically, monoprinting using plexi plates. It was wonderful. After the first year, the instructor allowed anyoone who had taken two or more classes to pay a "studio fee" vs, a more expensive class fee to come on and work. I thought that was heaven on earth. For a given amount I got to use the presses, a full palette of printing inks and mediums. I had to pay for my paper, but that was only a few dollars a sheet. I started dragging every art friend I had to this set up. I was amazed when some began to complain bitterly about how they couldn't just "turn on" inspiration to create work at a given hour and place. I was shocked. I planned every precious minute by making sure I had a sketch book full of value sketches, reference photos, hot coffee and the world's most bedraggled apron. I couldn't imagine waitng for inspiration to "strike". I went and set up every trap I knew to trap that sucker and bleed it dry in the 3-4 hours I had to work. I would finish with a stack of finished prints. Wonderful stuff that made use of my "ghost images", chine colle and anything else I could think of to furhter the process. One image would freed off the previous and they would develop like a movie. I could not understand this waiting around trick.

That said, I think I might have wasted some serious time waiting for the "right" moment to get back to my art work. There is never a right time, or an inspired time. There is only this moment. the one we have right now. Nike had it so right. don't think about it, don't do more than a moment's planning . Begin and the finish will follow as naturally as breathing.

There, that breath helped a whole bunch, didn't it ?

Tea wash

Tea for one ! OK I think I may have figured out how to post photos and text. Yipppeeeee !!

This photo looks a little yellowed, it does have a lot of warm colors, but just didn't post quite right. I'll do better on that next time. The teacup series is a way for me to explore color and composition. Still lifes are great for that. I really want to move into including food in the paintings, but we'll get there. The cups themselves are part of a collection belonging to my deceased Mother-in-law. I inherited them along with many other lovely things that I really appreciate. I never had an opportunity to get to know her very well, but I think she had lovely taste in things. Her condo was gorgeous, the result of paring down years of collecting beautiful objects. I consider myself lucky to have these things to play with.

I will do some more photos this week-end. I finished a darling tiny still life. I am working very small with a goal of painting more: instead of a few large paintings that are clumsy to store and not always what I was shooting for, I can experiement to my hearts content in a smaller format. I am even using scraps to dash off book mark sized sketches just for the fun of playing with an idea.

I've been looking at a lot of still lifes by masters lately. What I am seeing is fairly shallow space, a lot of backlighting or very dark grounds to set off very light objects. I actually copied a few Manet still lifes just to understand the lighting. Shadows, especially. I do like a LOT of color in shadows. It seems to prevent the dreaded dead flat pasted oneffect that can happen. Also shadows are important shapes that need to be respected. Yep..better respect those shadows or they will come back and bite you at the end of a painting.

I've been reading "The War of Art" by Stephen Pressfield. His contention is that resistance is a killer of creative efforts is so right on. I am finding more and more that simply creating the habit of going to my studio in the morning is producing more work than trying to hit it for longer periods on the week-end. If you go there, the muse will come. YES !!!

Red Flowers

I am still working on coordinating photos and text. HTML is not my language. If anyone knows of any tutorials on this please contact me !!!

I have been singing "Bloom, bloom, bloom" to all my flowers. Petunias are doing their thing. I am waiting for my lavender to do something. Ah well. My latest projects have been flowers, teapots and teacups and plenty of tempests in all of them. I hope to photo some and post the latest by Monday. Problem is that I am always second guessing myself on whether or not something is finished.

My other project is to go back to doing some visual journaling. It always seems to give me some bravery in how I use my materials and combining effects of text and image..hmm..seems to be a constant challenge there. Julianna Coles is one of my heroes on that topic and I just invested in some of the guides from her retreats that she sells on her Etsy shop. They were well worth the pennies. The prompts for creating are excellent and thought provoking. I made a "witch book" ages ago in Las Vegas. It actually opens two different and separate ways with a great leather cover. There are even little niches in the center....It has been blank for four years and I hate that, so it seemed a likely victim as it has brown, heavy paper on the larger side, strong enough for paint, pencil, inks, whatever and then thinner smaller sections for actually writing things, though those pages are already splattered with walnut ink. I may have to use a bronzie kind of ink to write things with some splashes of gold leaf.OOOHHH fun !

What Seems magical is that I am taking time in the early hours of dawn to cloister myself in my studio. I paint a little, draw a little, this morning I played in the journal and even wrote a bit. The more I incorporate this into my schedule, the easier it gets to actually create during that time. I also find myself humming along, happy and content,and that feeling carries right into the rest of the day. it is sweet really. I think I am spinning a charm over myself that lasts the entire day and gives me courage and peace to deal with all that other "stuff" I want to say it makes me a better person..a nicer person to be around.

I did "The Artists Way" when I was on vacation in California last year and it really helped me to balance all the swirling energies and personalities that were present in that beach house, tossing around as wildly as the sea outside the windows ! I will be facing a similar circumstance in a few weeks visiting my home state, essentially to say good-by to a parent succumbing to illness. There is much agitation connected to this parent and I had my concerns about the trip, but I really believe I can weave a protecting charm with my paints and pens and come out the better for it. I will let you know how that turns out.

Enjoy the blooms.