candle conundrum ....

i am slowly and surely moving back into art mode .... as opposed to mommy mode, moving mode, unpacking mode, summer mode, tennis mode, laundry mode, daydream mode .... you get the idea .... 

my favorite flickr group is the deadline painting group ... there is a small group of us who paint on a topic each month .... the deadline is the last friday of the month .... and tomorrow? it's august ... and we have our new topic .... and it is the hardest one EVER .... really .... EVER ... say that emphatically ... EVER .... 

we are painting a poem!

Candle lover

You inhabit me

in your rejection

as a burned out candle

stays in the room

I breathe you in

unknowingly

bound together

in separation. 

by victor keegan

... i'm so out of my groove with painting, i'm not even sure how to go about it ... but ... i have a whole month to fret and think and daydream and dither over  it .... 

what are you fretting and thinking and daydreaming and dithering about?

p.s.... got that groovy candle photo at freefoto.com  .... 

pears ... blue and otherwise...

these are the pears i brought home from pottery class on monday night .... 

now they are sitting on my dining room table ... 

my love of pears may just be turning into an overindulgence ... click here to see just how much fruit i do put in my art ....how many can i paint? how many can i make from clay .... 

stay tuned ....

do you even like pears? 

some people don't you know...

pottery, pears, and perseverance ....

i had a pottery class last night that was perfect .... it is a very small class and two of my favorite girlfriends are in it .... we all started taking pottery together years ago when we got tired of seeing each other ONLY on playdates with our kids .... so now pottery class is like a permanent playdate with them .....

so .... my teacher, carol, showed me a new technique .... monoprinting ..... you use underglaze to do a reverse painting on plaster .. then use slip to cover it up .... then when it dries JUST enough but not too much, you peel the slip off of the plaster and it takes the glaze with it ... the glaze is then more embedded in the clay than the traditional paint on top of bisque ware ..... so .. that's the mumbo jumbo facts of it .... 

but here's my truth for the day .... 

i am not a good direction follower ... 

well .... 

i'm a horrible direction follower ... 

well .... 

what directions? 

i am so willynillylooseygoosey that i heard a basic , oh, paint on plaster .. and off i trotted .... 

the glaze painting is supposed to be in reverse and THIN.... like you're painting on glass ... the furthest foreground first  .... and the farthest back blue sky background last ... the opposite of what most painters are used to .....but i can handle that ... and had a notion of flowers and swirls and background .... and off is set to do that ... with GIANT globs of underglaze .... that never, ever, ever in a zillion years are going to dry ..... especially now that the slip has sealed it in ... so i left it last night with my teacher ... who might today try to peel it from the plaster .. dry or not .... or who might have already pitched it in the trash .... 

the good news is that it was an absolutely joyful class for me ... i was trying something new, experimenting, excited about the prospects .... and now i'm very excited to actually plan out a reverse painting and to try again on the whole thing next week .... i think it's a perseverance thing.... i'm happy to keep trying, success or not .... 

i learned something else last night ... besides how NOT to do reverse plaster glazed mono prints .... i learned that i really am more creative in the evening ... more open to possibilities ... more relaxed ... for the last many years i have been taking morning classes .. that have many more people .... and between that A.D.D. thing and not being a morning person, the large morning classes aren't as rewarding to me ....i'm distracted by the people and the chatter ... and really, i'm just not into the swing of things .... i'm a slow starter, i suppose ....

not sure what i can do with that information .... cause during the school year, it is much better for me to take my classes while the kids are at school .. and our evenings are full up with those pesky extracurriculars (darn that notion of having well rounded kids) ... so, i'll probably move back to a.m. classes .... so it goes .... maybe i'll just to have to try harder in the morning ... work against my natural tendencies .... we'll see, huh ... 

and in my title i said pears too .... but no ... i brought home some lovely pottery pears last night but now i have to start my day ... without downloading the pear pics ... so ... we'll just leave that for another day .... in the meanwhile, you think about perseverence and turquoise pears .... 

and now i'm really out of time to wake my kids up for basketball camp... dogwalking, breakfast, what not ..... so you are lucky enough to get this as an edit free blog....oops ... sorry about that .... and i wrote it in the morning .. doesn't bode well for it's readability or spelling!!

happy day to you ....

week of grand fun ....

since i last posted, i have had house guests, been on roller coasters at six flags, seen whale sharks and belugas at the aquarium, taste tested dozens of sodas at the coke museum, been to the bowling alley, facilitated a slip n slide extravaganza, played whooonu, won at pirate's dice with nine players, learned the new monopoly card game, played video games, and stayed up too late watching tv with teenagers ......life is good .... 

what have you been doing ?

there should be a nursery rhyme about sitting on a swing ... but i can't think of one so i can't cleverly use it here as a title ....

here's another wall of art ... done in my efforts to be done with the moving in process .... so that we can just start living here without so many things on the to do list! we are SO close ... a few boxes ... a bit of organizing ... and lots of pics to hang .... where did i get all those framed photos and where did i have room for them before? all of this art is in girl.beck.artist's room .... it is mostly her art, her mom's art, or her grandma's art ..... with a bit more thrown in for good measure ... below, is the final piece of her joy .... just what she needed to complete her room .... maybe every room needs a swing ....

have you ever had a swing inside? 

do you ever sit in a swing? 

where is your favorite swing ? 

art on the walls makes it start to feel homey ....

my artistic endeavors for the day included a lot of hammering .... hooks and nails and tacks .... i put art up in every room in the house .... well, nearly so .... little.e.beck.artist was most pleased of all ..... her room is now "done" ... no boxes ... no sorting ...no chores left to do .....nothing to do in there but play and be happy .... and sleep .... this was taken just moments ago .... mr.e.beck.artist, boy.beck.artist, and girl.beck.artist are all out ......she and i are behind schedule and staying up late .... 

what's your bedtime? 

... the half blood prince ....

three of the e.beck.family went to the movies tonight .... i'd heard mixed reviews .... but all three of us adored it .... there were some clever bits, laugh out loud bits, frightening bits, sad bits .... all in all, it was everything we hoped it would be .... three thumbs up .... 

seen any movies lately? 

all sorts of artsiness....crayons, pottery, and a table long enough for all of you to sit at ....

this is how i spent much of today ... most of the week really ... coloring .... with new friends ... the class was called journaling ... but really it should have been crayons 101 .... 

and ... here's one of my most recent pieces of pottery ... a useful low bowl ... in my house it would be the right size for sliced strawberries ... or broccoli ... not big enough for a salad ... not small enough for .... well ... so much for clever ... it's just not small ... 

and here's a bit of my house ... this second table was delivered .. it's a drop leaf table .... that fits perfectly up against my kitchen table ... 

so .... drop the leaves and it is perfect behind the couch to catch magazines and such .... and then when you want to feed an army ... or all of your pals, you slide it out, pull up the wings, and voila .... table for 18 .... i used to piece together all sorts of tables ... so this is going to be fab .... all it takes is two or three other families over for dinner and we'll fill this right up ... we'll drag chairs in from the library and the dining room ....

and one last tidbit ... girl.beck.artist and i did this today .... 
it is in our sunshine yellow laundry room : laundry ... sorting out life one load at a time ....

tra la la .... here's wishing you a sunshine day ... even if you have to paint your walls yellow .....

...still posting ....

here's another bloggy update for you .... 

same as yesterday ... a little house ... a little pottery ... a studio in disarray so i'm not painting much .... 

here's a pic of  girl.beck.artist's bedroom .... she is in one of the new rooms that we built in the attic ... you can see a hint of the funky celing angles in this pic .... 

the paintings above her bed are mine .... collages ... full of groovy papers and hidden surprises .... when i was first starting out i did about a zillion of these .... and then had to do some more when i didn't have enough left for her! i'd show you the rest of her room ... but it isn't ready for photos ... we spent the afternoon today building her desk and a book shelf ... so hopefully some more boxes will be unpacked soon ....

and here's some pottery i'm kinda proud of .... i made a textured bowl with a number of separate slabs .... 

the trick was that i glazed it all one color ... a blue i think .... and then a pal gave me FIVE small cups of random glazes .... glazes that no one would ever choose to mix and use together ... and i just squirted and splashed .... and serendipitously, it turned out coolio ....   glazes are all just chemistry experiments ... some are just more successful than others .... i don't show you the bad ones! 

here's my newest ... a few weeks ago i sprained my wrist ... and i've been ignoring it ... but now, it still hurts ... sometimes worse than ever ... so ... i'm wearing it in a wrap  .... what's that going to do to my chances at art? .. oh ... and it's my right hand .... hopefully i'll heal quickly now! 

until tomorrow! 

go do something creative .....

this and that and this

my kids and i are spending this week working at a camp for inner city kids ... i'm running a drawing class .... have had five groups a day so far .... little.e.beck.artist is one of my assistants ... she colors with the kids, passes things out, tidies up between classes, keeps me company .... the two big kids, boy.beck.artist and girl.beck.artist, are assistants in the recreation group .... basically they spend the day playing red light green light, elbow tag, sharks and minnows ... lots and lots of running ... all four of us come home exhausted! but it's a fun week .... and we all feel like we're doing something good ..... even when it's hard .... 

so .... in spite of that overtaxed tired feeling, i have some pics for you .... house ... and art .... 

here's the art:

these are pears i made in pottery class ... pretty groovy, huh? gray speck clay ... chartreuse and yellow under glaze ... clear glaze high fire ... real leaves .... they are sitting on the skillet part of my fancy stove top .... and have been there every day except saturday ... when mr.e.beck.artist decided it was high time we used that skillet and made us all pancakes .... 

and this is my library .... in most houses it is that living room that no one uses ... but we use ours .... to the left there is a wall of books (hence, the library name) .... it is also the music room ... boy and girl both take guitar lessons ... and little.e is starting piano lessons in august .... 

and ... if you read yesterday's post, you can guess that these are the paintings i've just hung .... 7 of the eight are my mom's work ... the 8th was a gift from her ... there are two more of her paintings hanging in the room too .... groovy, huh? 

so ... that's what i've got for you .... i'm going to try and take some pics of the artists in my class tomorrow .... come check back in ... let's see how many days in a row i can post .... or will it just be two? two days running ... better than usual!!

what have you been doing that's better than usual?

hi mom!

my mom worries about me when i don't blog enough ... clearly she was spoiled by the post a day halcyon moments of yesteryear .... but ... i'm still up to my eyeballs in recombobulating my life after the six months of brown bland rental house discombobulation .... this weekend, i started hanging art ... actually, mom, in my library, i hung NINE of your paintings ... and i'm considering a ten and an eleven .... but between boxes and organizing and children? not so much blog posting ....even though my last blog post promised pictures ... and here i am pictureless again ....i did just get home from pottery class ... where i glazed a pear blue .... somethings don't change, huh? i'm working on getting my artsy self back on track ... i'm just not there yet! 

all you blogger friends, leave a comment for my mom ... and then she can go read your blog, since mine isn't quite keeping her busy enough! 

yawn ...

last night i went to pottery ... 

i went early and stayed late ... 

i picked up 6 pieces that were finished .... 

today i worked on getting my house organized and looking like i didn't just move in ... 

i took pics of the new pottery ... but was too busy to load them onto the 'puter and get them on flickr or the blog ... 

tonight .... well ... i watched the waltons with the family ... 

and now i'm too tired to blog with art pics .... 

so ... really ... this is a blog post to tell you i'll do better tomorrow ... or the next day ... and i'll give you a pictureful blog post ... ok? 

what do you need to do better?

fourth of july ...

little.e.beck.artist took this photo  .... i was stunned at how beautiful it is ... especially when none of my sunset pics really turned out .... 

happy fourth of july to you and yours if you live in the u.s.... if you live abroad, i hope you live in a country of grand freedoms .... or at least one where you can be happy ....

how did you celebrate the day ? what was your favorite part? do you love watermelon as much as i do?

should be thinking red white and blue ... but i've got orange for you ....

this little desk is from my elementary school ... my mom gave it to me about ten years ago .... it's usually been in one of my kids' bedrooms ... but, for the house reno, while i was getting all sorts of other furniture painted, i got this painted calypso orange .... and it now has a prime spot in the family room ... the family room paint is called sunshine yellow .... those books are called harvard classics ... and when i was a kid they were in our house on that exact same bookshelf .... they were the go to books in highschool .... if you needed all of walt whitman's poems, the iliad, socrates, or to do a little research on olde english poets, these were sure to have what you needed .... i've browsed all of them, read some of them, and love the set-ness of them .... on the top of the shelves, the plant is in a pot that have each of my kids' handprints on it .... and then two pieces of pottery that i made in my wheel days .... the bowl holds mr.e.beck.artist's wallet, phone and id badge when he gets home ... the other is for his loose change that he always has a preponderance of ... no quarters though .. he keeps quarters in circulation .... from this spot, i'm near the couch in the family room ... to the right is the new sunroom addition ... to the left is the kitchen .... 

so that's my house update for the day .... an orange groovy toovy desk .... that little.e.beck.artist says she'll do her homework in this fall .... for now it just looks fun .... 

do you have any fun useless furniture at your house?