A Beautiful Day

It was a warm and sunny day and as I was working on a painting, the birds were practicing their spring love songs right outside my studio window. What a beautiful day!

Flowers in the neighbors yard

Luther Burbank Gardens

Ancient Roots

It is never too late to be what you might have been. – George Eliot a.k.a. Mary Ann (Marian) Evans

C’est La Vie

This morning my art table was covered with paint, paper, gel medium and gesso, so I cleaned it up a bit before concentrating on the new piece I wanted to work on today.

I continued working this afternoon in the studio until around dinner time. Having finished some areas that needed more work, I decided it was time to quit for the day, and began cleaning up my work area.

There is something so wonderful about getting your fingers all sticky with acrylic paint and gel medium, except when you notice you have managed to get some of it on the sleeve of your favorite sweater.

Oh well, C’est la vie. The most important thing is I did what needed to be done and had fun doing it.

Sunny Afternoon

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. -Unknown

A Perfect Rainy Day

It was a perfect rainy day for painting, drinking chai tea and dreaming up new projects.

I got a lot of work done today and afterwards my painting area was a mess. Below is a photo of the aftermath.

The weatherman says we have a whopper of a storm headed our way this weekend bringing several inches of rain and possibly hurricane force winds, so we are battening down the hatches in preparation for this storm.

They are also expecting power outages so if I don’t post this weekend you will know what happened.

“The wind began to moan in hollow murmurs, as the sun went down carrying glad day elsewhere; and a train of dull clouds coming up against it, menaced thunder and lightning. Large drops of rain soon began to fall, and, as the storm clouds came sailing onward, others supplied the void they left behind and spread over all the sky. Then was heard the low rumbling of distant thunder, then the lightning quivered, and then the darkness of an hour seemed to have gathered in an instant”.

-Charles Dickens The Old Curiosity Shop

Lunar Eclipse

Lots of people turned out to view the lunar eclipse tonight, the last total lunar eclipse until December 21, 2010. I wanted to try and take some photos, but I couldn’t get a good shot.

I started this piece today, but was feeling a little under the weather so I put it aside for another time. Afterwards I made some tea and then took it easy for the rest of the afternoon.

Dreamer

Later I took our dog Rupert for a walk and I just happened to notice our calla lilies were blooming. I am a huge fan of calla lilies, and I love to photograph them every chance I get, so here is one of the photos I took today.

Calla Lily

Mr. Rupert

Here is a photo of our little dog Mr. Rupert. He is such a sweetie pie !

One Of Those Days

Today was cold and rainy and full of last minute changes. I’m not saying that Change is bad, but I do prefer it in small doses not all at once.

After a rather interesting morning of delays, computer glitches, a server down and other oddities, I finally returned to my painting.

I placed a newly prepared canvas on my easel, selected my paints and brushes and hit the proverbial blank wall. Zip, nada, nothing, my muse had left the building and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it..

Feeling frustrated I decided to play around with some tissue paper, rice paper, illustration board and fluid acrylic paints.

The painting below is what I ended up with, and I did feel much better for having done it as opposed to just totally giving up and not painting at all.

Rainy Day In February

RAIN POEM

“The rain was like a little mouse, quiet, small, and gray, it pattered all around the house and then it went away. It did not come I understand, in doors at all, until it found an open window and left tracks across the sill”. – Elizabeth Coatsworth

Images For Collage

I love making my own collage images with my digital camera and photoshop, because it’s easy and fun to create a one of a kind image. I also love using commercial rubber stamps but sometimes I need something unusual or a little different.

The first place I look are thrift shops and antique stores, usually it is there that I find a treasure trove of objects to take home and photograph.

As soon as I return home, I grab my camera and take a photo of whatever it is I want to make a stamp of, then I take it into photoshop to retouch and clean it up.

Here is an example of an antique watch I just made for a collage I am currently working on.

Antique Watch Photo Retouch #1

Antique Watch Process #2

It is at this point I decide on just how much more I want to add or take away from the image. If I like what I see I go on to the next step.

Antique Watch Stamp

Once everything is finished you can either print the image and add it to your collage or make a rubber stamp.

Lost And Found Files

As mentioned in prior posts, I have been organizing, clearing out and making backup copies of my files. Yesterday, I found all kinds of painting files in folders I had managed to hide from myself.

Paintings, sketches, photographs, and collages I found lacking in some way or another, yet after a couple of years have passed, I find myself looking at them with fresh eyes.

They were lost and now found, below are a couple in various stages of development.

Calla Lily With A Rose (C) 2003

Crow Messenger (C) 2005
Digital Collage