yippee zippy yabba dabba doo .....

quick!!!!

having friends over for dinner .... in thirty minutes ..... gotta shower ... and start dinner things ... but first want to post a pic here for you of my i-finally-finished-it-four-foot-by-six-foot canvas ... the second canvas of that size  .... because i finally snapped a pic of it ..... i named it "the big fish" ....  ah, such a creative name ...... 

hope you are having a fab weekend ..... 

do something fun ..... 

big picture day ...

last post, no pics ....

this post, plenty o' pics .....

these first three pics are details of my second four foot by six foot canvas ..... i couldn't pick it up and take a good and true photo of it, because the glue isn't dry .... 
but you get the idea ... until tomorrow ..... 

allison was over to paint today ..... and cheered me on as i finished my giganto canvas ..... when that was done and drying, i pulled out fifteen six inch square canvases .... and covered them in maps ...... 

then i glazed them with a couple different yellows, dry brushed with some heavy body turquoisee .... and stenciled them with a light yellow ... in a (loud) moment of inspiration, i shouted out to al that OH i'm going to do a branch series .... so these fifteen paintings will have branches .... and things that go with and on branches .....the backgrounds probably need another layer or two or three of something or other ...... and then i'll start with the foreground .....

i'm not sure how much paint time i'll make this weekend .... but at the very least, i'll snap a final pic of the big fish ...... hope you have a grand and happy weekend ... and make time to do something fun and creative ..... 

another day of painting .... tra la la ....

i might be getting back in my groove ... the kids are back in school and i'm not feeling all at odds about them being away ..... 

today....

8.30 to 9.30 walk the kids to school... and then the dog ... in the rain ..... you can't play tennis in the rain ... but you can walk a couple damp miles .... 

9.30 to 10.30 .... computer time, house chores ..... 

10.30 to 2.30 .... PAINTED .... rah! with allison ...... 

2.30 to 3.15 .... painted alone ..... 

3.15 on ... all about the kids .... 

that's a good routine for me ..... i had lunch at 3.30, which was dumb... but besides that it was a good routine day ..... i'm going to try to have more just like it ..... 

that said .... i did NOT finish my next large canvas .... but that is all i worked on and worked on and worked on ..... fish .... that's what it is ... fish ..... so my fish are coming along ... but not finished .... maybe tomorrow... probably friday ..... 

and .... if you go to this post on creative construction ... you'll see that i won a prize ... how groovy-toovy is that ..... 

so what are you working on this week? 

93rd canvas of the year ... and it is a whopper ....

four feet by six feet ... that's really really really big ... el grande ... mong0-humongo .... 

and it is my 93rd canvas of this calendar year .....

it is another installment in my heartstring series .... which made it feel "safe" to do ... or ... as safe as you can feel painting a canvas that doesn't fit on a table and ends up propped all over the studio .... trying to continually move it out of the way during the drying moments ..... you can read more about this painting on my flickr site here ..... i had a lot to say!! 

my next humongotoid painting is not "safe" ...it is more experimental .... and it is giving me some angst .... but it can't tie me up in knots for too long ...since it is due this weekend .... and being hung in a show at the beginning of next week!! eep! 

done anything lately that felt "big" ..... 

did you know i really dig mondays?

i really enjoy mondays .... i'm certain that is because i don't get up and go to a traditional job after a weekend of down time ...it is probably because my mondays are a bit of calm after the weekend ... and 99 percent of mondays are art days! ...... my monday mornings are usually a bit of running around the house picking up the detritus of the family's weekend .... and then to the art room ... today i planned a tennis date ... but that pesky storm, fay, rained on my parade .... so ... more time in the studio ..... which is good, considering the deadlines i have zooming in .... 

here's a sneak peek ... sneek peek ... sneak peak (why are those words not spelled the same?) ... a snippet of one large canvas .... the dark stenciled one .... this is the top half .... i have red papers painted and ready to finish this up ... it will definitely get finished tomorrow .... 

... and then i lost my mojo .... the plumber came ... to fix NOT one ... but two toilets .... and then? he said i had a polysomethingorother pipe on one of them and that it was aging .... and it should really be switched out for metal .... so what did i do ... i had him do it on all FOUR toilets in this house ... ha ! ... i have NO idea if it was actually the right decision ..... but .... i have four fresh and fabulous flushers .... what does this have to do with art? .... is this the most toilet terrible blog post ever ... eep..... i lost my train of thought ... oh .... i lost my mojo .... i lost my mojo because of the plumber ... you can't get deeply involved in painting while you are dealing with toilet trouble ... so, i spent my minutes between toilet consults tidying the mess in my studio ... not a great job ... but enough that my next projects will be easier to tackle ....  this picture is my version of tidy.....
little.e.beck.artist painted another wooden toolbox for me ... just in time for my latest jerry's artarama shipment of fluid acrylics .... i have decided that fluid acrylics aren't a passing fancy so i went ahead and bought the bigger sized bottles .... and organized them by color palette ... 

and what am i doing tomorrow ... again, not playing tennis because of the rain .... and painting madly until the NEXT workman arrives ... this time a garage door repair is needed ... luckily, i only have one garage door, not four ... and luckily, the garage is very close to my studio .... 

i have grand expectations for tomorrow's painting endeavors ... what fun do you have planned? 

anatomy of some very large paintings ......

photo 1 (below): this is a four foot by six foot canvas ..... and in the far right corner, you can see where i have started putting on my collage elements ..... the canvas was as long as my table ... so, i propped one end of the canvas on the table, the close end of it is propped up on chairs .... 

photo 2: the canvas is filled with my first layer .... all papered with maps and dictionary and bingo and book pages ..... you can see the chairs that the canvas is propped up on .... 

photo 3: i did a turqoise wash on the canvas, then a layer of tissue paper for added texture, then some more opaque blues and turqoises .... all that is to add more texture, color variation and interest ..... 
photo 4: now i'm stenciling large letters .... i've chosen a bluesy turquoise that is a titch darker than the darkest paint on my canvas ..... we haven't used country crock for years, but i still have loads of those tubs that i use while painting .. i use the lids as palettes ..... i'm using a sponge brush ..... i used that stencil square 24 times ... plus a bit more for the two inches around two edges where those 24 hadn't reached to the edge .... that's a LOAD of stamping ....
photo five: here's a close up of four by six feet of turquoise canvas with darker stenciling .... from a distance it just looks turquoise ... from here you see the lettering ... up closer, you can still see the map of iowa, bingo numbers and dictionary entries ....
picure 6: there's my dark turquoise on turquoise background .... ready to go ...waiting for me to be brave enough to add the foreground ..... my sept. 1 deadline is looming ..... and what is this canvas standing behind? another canvas ... also six feet by four feet ... ready to go ......

picture 7: this second canvas used a a bradenton florida aaa map ... i love triple a maps because they are all blues and gorgeous ..... there's a south carolina map , bingo cards, pages from a music appreciation book, and my butchered dictionary .....

picture 8: here's the second canvas.... i papered it, glazed it, tissued it, heavy body acryliced it ..... 

picture nine: for this one, i used lighter turquoise for my stencil letters ..... so, though the first color is the same for the two canvases, they have very different looks .... one dark, this one much lighter because of the light lettering .....

picture 10.....whew! on the right you can see the darker stencil canvas, on the left is the second canvas with lighter stencil paint .... 

so ... that's loads of work, huh? i've not been showing you my process as i've been going along, thinking that it would be boring to have ten or so days of posts dedicated to this .....so instead, this is the compilation of many days of work ..... (i wish paint dried faster) .... and now all you have to do is come back soon and see what i might do to finish these out ... these are due to kristy at lola's gallery by the last day of this month .... so she can hang them at the roswell cultural arts center for the month of september ..... 

at one point today, i was painting, mr.e.beck.artist was sitting with me chatting, boy.beck.artist was in the basement watching a tv show, girl.beck.artist was on the computer, little.e.beck artist was flitting about between us all .... and i said, mr.e.beck.artist, this very minute is perfection.... all my people are with me ....and i'm painting ..... everyone is happy .... ahhhhhh! 

what was your happy minute today? 

creative construction

quick! this is the RARE morning post from e .... 

i'm nearly famous on THIS BLOG ...... 

happy this and happy that.....

since i was asked .... here's the painting/assemblage that is in the book life is a verb ...... it is actually a three foot square canvas ... full of happiness ..... 

and, though no one asked .... here's another happy picture .... dixie dressed up as tinkerbell this past weekend .....
every once in a while, it's fun to play dress up ......

joy, joy, joy ....

happy, happy, happy .... 

my groovy mail man knocked on my door today .... the dog and i bounded to the door to greet him .... he had a box for me that i'd been waiting, waiting, waiting for ...... you see, there's a book ... life is a verb  ...... that isn't actually due out til early september ....but it is already in some bookstores ... i know it is SOMEWHERE ...... but the last five book stores i've been in? i've asked for it .... cause other people have it in their stores ... but no ... not in durham, not in hilton head, not in atlanta (3 different book stores!!!) .... but they all offered to order it ....including the b and n i went to after lunch TODAY..... no, i don't want to order it .... i want touch it, hold it, feel it, love it ..... 

girl.beck.artist was with me at b and n ....  when i said, do you have life is a verb? .... girl.beck.artist said, isn't life a noun? ...... so, when not much later, back home, i danced into the family room touching, holding, feeling, and loving my new book, girl.beck.artist was stunned that i had made such a thing seemingly appear from thin air .... magical qualities in this book, i told her..... 

so ..... all that said ... please, please, please, do yourself a HUGE favor ... and go order this book .... it is so, so, so lovely ... this brilliant, funny, groovy chick, patti digh, wrote it .... it will make you think and feel and dream and hope and remember and live .....it is about living life intentionally .... if you are a regular on my blog, you've been directed to her blog before .... it is called 37 days .... and well worth bookmarking and visiting every day .....

but before you go there, go to amazon here ..... and order the book ..... it is the perfect gift to give yourself ..... the nicest bit for me? my book was a gift .... a gift from patti digh, the author .... she digs me, you see .... she even put one of my most favorite pieces of MY art on page 23 .... 23 is almost as nice a number as 37 ....

happy, happy, happy ..... 

oh, excuses, excuses!

i did not blog yesterday because it was my 18th wedding anniversary .... we met in 1983, we started dating in 1985, got married in 1990, had the twins in 1997, had little.e.beck.artist in 2001 ...... and i'm thinking about planning some sort of grand hooha for two years from now to celebrate our 20th ..... what should we do? i'm thinking a grand vacation .... or a party .... oh, and i'll get mr.e.beck.artist to dance ... that'll go over well ... or not so much .... 

the pic above is my family room wall, looking out over my deck and my backyard ..... the pic is to show you the ten canvases i've now hung up ..... i'm doing an art fest on november first and have decided i'm going to have fifty six by six canvases .... here are ten ... i think i have ten more done .... so ... thirty more to go .... having these up where i look at them all the time, reminds me to keep on working! 

and here is a recent permutation of my mantel... some potato heads, some six inch square canvases .... a happy bright spot .... 

i have had a grand happy day .... tennis, out of town company, happy children, big fun dinner.... and just a teeny bit of art .... not sure if i'll have much art time tomorrow .... what with company and all ... but i might just paint WITH the company ... that's always a good way to squeeze in some paint time!! 

what made you happy today? 

just to catch you all up on who i am, what i am, what i'm doing, how i'm doing, how i'm feeling .... and stuff like that ....

yes!

i had a happy, successful weekend as an artist .... i'm not much for introspection but did quite a bit of figuring and thinking today about art stuff .... the job of it .... the work of it ... the point of it .... and come to find out? i'm doing it! .... exactly two years ago, as my last baby went off to kindergarten, i decided to pursue art full tilt, and whaddaya know? it's really working out ..... i feel gloriously, artistically happy and can't wait to get back to committed days of painting after a few weeks of lollygagging through summer time ..... i did my thinking and such at folk fest, driving to and from folk fest, and talking to artsy pal, allison, both on the phone and in person at folk fest ... she's a perfect artsy sounding board .....

for the year, i've done 92 paintings ... with 93 and 94 under way ..... 100 should be done in no time .... leaving me MONTHS still to blow by my new year's resolution goal .... i have a show coming up on november 1....and i most certainly need to get another 30 or so paintings done so that i'll have a good amount for that show .... tra la la .... happy, happy .... 

and this is one of the paintings that sold this weekend .... three feet square .... sold to a woman who "collects bird art" and "loves scrabble" ..... perfect .... really perfect .... 

oh! i've been away too too too long .....

i was on vacation ... with my family .... at the beach .... we went with our best family friends ..... before i go on vacation i don't like to tell the blog world .... it just doesn't seem safe .... best to err on the side of caution, right? .....

anyway .... i was gone ...now i'm back .....and within SECONDS of being home, kristy ...from lola's gallery... called me ..... she has a booth at the slotin folk fest .... why was she calling? because she'd sold so much of my art she needed MORE ..... yippee for that, huh?  i was scheduled to be at the folk fest in lola's booth tomorrow morning .... so, i'll just take some art OFF MY WALLS and get it there before the fest opens for the day ...... i'm not actually sure what she even sold .... but she asked for a three foot square piece and any long ones i have ..... yippee zippy hooray, huh? 

i feel like i spend a lot of time thinking (not exactly worrying, but close) about what i'm going to do with all this art that i'm bent on creating .... but i guess so long as it keeps selling at a good clip, i won't have to think about it as much .... or, just let it take care of itself .... and eventually i'll figure out how much i need to make to have enough on hand .... but not too much .... 

....and just to get you all the way up to date on my art life .....my next looming deadline is TWO four foot by six foot paintings ..... due before september first ....and ....if you scroll down in my blog? you won't see any pics of the works in progress....why? you ask..... because progress is slow at best ..... too much time on road trips and having grand-summer-hurrahs .... and not enough time in my studio ..... but soon ..... my kids start school on thursday ..... and then, a bit sadly, i'll have plenty of art time, just me and the dog ...... i'm a summer girl ..... i was bemoaning the start of school and got a bit of a talking to by mr.e.beck.artist .... he told me i needed a better attitude about school in front of the kids! .... that i couldn't act like the end of summer was the end of the world ..... i hope to get some art time in tomorrow afternoon .... but, at least, tomorrow i'll have some pics of the folk fest ...... 

08/08/08

i adore the olympics .... 

every bit of it.... 

i live in atlanta... and LOVED when the olympics were here .... 

i went to the 76 olympics in montreal ..... my parents were groovy like that! ...... 

so .... these are the things you need to see and know to get up to speed on the olympics .... 

this is a photo of a lego construction .... of the olympic nest .... how groovy is that ... see more here .....

i read this magazine article this afternoon .... and found it online, just for you ..... 100 olympic athletes that you need to know about ..... 

and then, just to stay caught up with all the goings on .... put this one on your tool bar ..... 

what's your favorite thing about the olympics? 

just a thing

here's a new-to-me-groovy-toovy-art-and-thought-provoking corner of the world wide web .... go ahead and push refresh on it ten times .... lemme know what your best one was ..... 

monday oddity...

i just saw the weirdest thing ...maybe the weirdest thing ever ... i was driving with my brother .... and we saw a small animal .... a weird small animal .... i looked at it and looked at it and looked at it and could not figure out what it was ..... finally, because i am of above average intelligence, i said, is that a cat with a square head? ..... ok .... i'm stupid .... my brother said no, that's not a cat's tail .... he, being smarter than i am, chose to ignore the squareness of the head and focus on what was recognizeable as a tail ..... and it was not a cat tail ...or a fox tail, raccoon tail, opossum tail, dog tail .... and we sat there in the dark studying this unrecognizeable animal .... and then .... slow dawning of familiarity .... OH! i know! it has a cheetos bag on its head ... it is an animal with a cheetos bag on his head ... a snack sized bag .... wandering aimlessly around, wondering why it has a bag on its head ... and clearly clueless on how to remove the cheetos bag .... and we sat in the car and watched it and studied it .... and my brother turns to me .....and says: i'm not taking the bag off its head .... i'd have to catch it ........and of course, i say,  you can't go catching an animal when you don't even know what it is!!!! ..... and then our cheetos head animal wandered away from the road ..... hopefully one of its friends can help him ... if they even recognize him .... 

how weird is that .... i still don't know what animal it was..... 

i was ready to have a diatribe about litter bugs ... but i'm thinking that cheetos head animal was trash can scavenging ... 

i'm gonna go google weird animals ..... 

what's the weirdest thing you've googled .... 

later, an edit:  thanks to google, i think i have identified the odd animal ..... a weasel .... though, hard to say with certainty, without ever seeing the head :Weasels are mammals in the genus Mustela of the Mustelidae family. Originally, the name "weasel" was applied to one species of the genus, the European form of the Least Weasel (Mustela nivalis)  ..... so what i saw must have been the mustela nivalis cheetoid ... though it's not in wikipedia yet ...

answers to questions you didn't ask, meant to ask, wish you asked .....

1. my family has just one pet, a five pound dog, a year and a half old, a maltese .... she's named dixie ... dixie doodle for long ..... when my children are in school, she is lovely company in my art studio .... she frequently has paint on her snout ..... 

2. my toenails have been polished blue every summer for fifteen or so years .... this year i use mod blue with bold glitter as a top coat..... it used to be groovy to be blue, now it is a happy rut .... 

3. hobbies? i am an avid reader .... i always read a book a week .... i sometimes read way more than that .... 

4.  my current favorite tv shows are project runway, design star (ends tomorrow), shear genius, next food network star (ended last week) ..... reality tv has gotten me through the summer ..... 

5. mr.e.beck.artist says it is time to renovate the kitchen .... we are the opposite of the usual couple .... i'm resisting the effort and the cost .... he's pretty gung ho ..... how bad does he want me to get on board? i said i'd like to paint the walls orange ..... and he said that'd be ok .... !!

6. my kids start school in two and a half weeks! i LOVE summer and always go into a tailspin when my kids go back to school .... sigh .... so for now, we'll just keep savoring summer! 

.... can you tell i didn't do art today? what did you do? 

just a little giggle ....

bear with me .... i'm gonna explain a big ole thing .... and then tell you my oddity ..... 

so .... i have a stat tracker on this blog .... it tells me isp numbers of who came by ... and usually cities, states and countries ...unless you are aol ... then you track through reston virginia and are quite anonymous ..... but really, your isp number means less than nothing to me .... but .... when the same isp pops up from indiana, i can figure out it is jeannie, label her, and then sometimes i'll check my stats and see, oh, jeannie stopped by ... jeannie and i email, she's a pal .... i don't think i'm being intrusive or stalkerish .... but it is a little weird, who else on what other websites, tracks us ....so i know a bunch of things about the last 24 hours .... lynn stopped by ... hey lynn ..... and again, she visits and comments enough that it was easy to figure out what visitor was her .... so she is labeled (really, that's an honor! all my favorites are labeled! are you wondering if you are?) .... and someone from turkey came to my blog today .... how cool is that ... and really, that's all it is .... cool.... it's just a funky groovy thing, that some techy person might be able to work with  ... but me .... it's nothing but fun .... 

so .... now you know about stat tracking ... here's another fun bit .... if the blog visitor clicks a link to get to me, i know what that link was ... if you click my blog line off my email, it says no link ....or if you click me off your tool bar (am i on anyone's toolbar besides maybe a relative?) it would say no link ... but, if you found me at coffeeyogurt or knitresolution   then it says that ....and i do get lots of traffic from those two websites ..... i get lots of links from generic blogger ... so if you click on my comment on some other blog .... and go to my profile, then to my blog, it tells me that ... i get lots of visitors that way too ....

and now the funny part ... if someone googles something and finds me? it tells me what google search they used ..... e.beck.artist gets to me easily .... elizabeth beck gets me and an art therapist ..... google oh! mona ... you'll find me .... and .... if you google, like someone did today, sterile sharpie ..... i am FIRST in line above all manufacturers, distributors and doctors who would use a sterile sharpie .... how weird is that ... now i'm thinking, that if you google sterile sharpie? are you going to find me twice? we'll see ..... 

so ... go google sterile sharpie .... does google self correct .... i have no idea ....then go find what weird thing you can google and find your own blog ....