.... puddles this morning .... so i'm waiting ... then i'll do my best ....

the painting in yesterday's post appeared in a newsletter today ..... the newsletter is for the store re-inspiration .... fresh, new things are fun and exciting ... i've had three friends email me this morning that they saw my art in the newsletter ... hooray ...

here's another painting that i did at the beginning of this week and that is now at the re-inspiration store ....

it is a very appropriate sentiment for me today ... i was supposed to have an 8.30 tennis match with my favorite tennis partner ... but we are at the moment waiting for the puddles to dry in the hopes we can get the match in .... we know the women that we are playing and are expecting to get not just beaten, but smashed .... or i am ... maybe m has a more optimistic outlook than i do .... it's our first match of the season ... and i think there is a MOST excellent chance that we are going to go 0 and 5 ... unless we got better while i wasn't looking ....but ..... it's ok ... we'll just do our best .... and hopefully get better through the thrashings .... that's our plan anyway ..... and at least we get to play tennis ...

so, just do your best ... what is it you are working on these days where your attitude is more important than your performance?

uh oh... editor's edit ... which really means an e.beck.update .... i need my next painting to be about optimism ..... my cute partner and i won our tennis match ... so i did do my best ... but optimism wasn't front and center ... i pessimistically though we had no way to win ... i was way wrong ... i'm usually SO optimistic .... not sure what happened ... but at least we won ....

hi darla! this one's for you ...

one of my regular blog readers, darla, has been reading my blog since i began it 300 or so paintings ago ...650 blog posts ago ... four years ago .... on my last post she said "NEXT" in the comments... a bit impatient with me to get on with posting some more paintings ... so ... darla ... i missed yesterday because i was crazy busy .. the best part of the crazy busy was that i went to this shop ... re-inspiration ...... and they've accepted 25 of my paintings on consignment ... that's good right? go to the website ... it is a very, very groovy store ... i could spend a ton of money there on some of that groovy goodness ...

here is one of the paintings that i finished on monday .... and left at re-inspiration on tuesday .... i've never used those words before ... dream it.do it ... i'm good at the dreaming it ... less good at the doing it ... how 'bout you? are you a dreamer or a doer? or a good balance of both?

how's that, darla? i did not post all the paintings i've finished ... so i can post another for you tomorrow ... or the next day ... or the next ...

happy day to you ....go dream and do ....

... bingo! flowers! ....

i painted today ... a lot ... after the dentist (for boy.beck.artist, not me) and between five thousand phone calls (i hate being a phone call person) i spent quite a lot of time in my studio painting ... i spent long enough in there that i turned the tv on to keep me company ... i couldn't find the remote (probably a good thing) so i just stayed on hgtv ... i'm usually drawn to mtv and vh1 when no one is home ... so it's good i couldn't change the channel and gawk ...

i worked on eight canvases .... one a commission, the rest for fun ... oh for speculation ... is that what it is ... to just paint to paint ... am i speculating that someone might buy them? ...

a lot of the time when i do simpler pieces with words, i reuse the words ... for instance, it will be ok... i've sold bunches of canvases with those words ... apparently that's something that people need to hear .... so, i reuse the ones that sell well ... i still get the joy of the painting and the cutting and gluing and such .... but there's not a ton of rethinking on the words ... well .. unless i'm doing a quote, then i look for one i love ....

but, here are new words ....

new to me ... i was just going to say grow ... or keep growing ( i still like that, we're all supposed to keep growing, right?) ... but then i though of bloom instead of grow ... and then , well, there ya go ... i got a whole bossy thing going : grow! bloom! flourish! keep learning and loving and being and changing and flourish! ... know what i mean?

so there you go .... a painting ... and a blog post on a painting ... and , presumably, i'll have time to finish another tomorrow .... and the next day ... or the next day .... still growing, you see .....

ok

i've been working on some six by six canvases .... this one is a commissioned piece .... it will be ok ... i included some tissue paper, a bag, some ribbon, and a little happy card because i know it is going to be a gift ...

i recently got a big order of canvases from jerry's artarama ... lots of six by sixes and twelve by twelves .... not sure if i'm bulking up on small canvases to sell ... or to give as christmas gifts ... christmas isn't even on my radar yet ... halloween is hardly on my radar, except for the fact that there are two small pumpkins within arms reach of my computer .... i am having the twins' sunday school class here on sunday for a pumpkin carving party .... i need to break out the decorations before them, i suppose! i keep meaning to do it but get side tracked .....

are you ready for halloween? got any decorations out?

cool blogginess ....

... oh, i'm late to finding this blog-for-a-year-blog ... but here ... very good reading and learning from a groovy philanthropic type ..... what gives 365 .... i wonder what she'll do next year ....

doodle-iscious ....

i am a list maker ... i have a gorgeous quilted notebook that i fill up with lists .... frequently, i put a little box in front of each item on the list so that i can have the joy of ticking it off the list .... sometime, truth be told .... i do something, write it on the list, and then tick it off just to prove that i did it ... just to prove the point, i'll go put blog lists onto my list and i'll check it right off ....

so ... that's me ... professional artist, prosaic list maker, and amateur doodler ... so ... imagine my procrastinatory delight when i ran across aimee's newest blog post .... she's an artist, a doodle girl, and a list maker too ....

i dashed over to the kitchen counter and my book of lists in the making... i am still on last week's list ... need to go ahead and put make a new list on the list .... and while perusing my lists, i noticied this artistic list ...
girl.beck.artist filled that in on a doodle calendar for me .... she had been discussing words that go plural with an i ... and that she and a pal were listing them or using them or pondering them or laughing at the absurdity of a plural with an i .... and i asked her to write it down ... and this was her clever way of giving it to me ... great list, huh ?

brontosauri

fungi

platapi

hippopatomi

asparagi

cacti

alumni

octopi .....

and why, you ask, did i need this list written down?

well .... i'm writing a book .... still .... i've been working on it for .. well ... for ever .... or so it seems ... but i'm on my second edit now .... chapter four-ish i think .... and when i can, i add in bits that my children give me ... like words that plural with an i .... i promise that's better than it sounds .. anyway ... i started it LAST november during nanowrimo .... and november is coming along ... recently kris at collage contessa asked me if it had been worthwhile participating in the nano ... if i was going to try and publish the book .... i told her that i wasn't participating in nanowrimo this year because i had high hopes of getting through my original nanowrimo before embarking on another ....

my kitchen backsplash has an array of doodles and words on it .... here, you can see the truck load of weird plural words and a couple others .....

off to write blog on my list and check it right off ....

i'll add book editing to the list too .... need to put in more hours a week into that if i'm ever going to finish it!

.... weighty matters ....

in my last blog post, i mentioned my art wall redo ... had to be done since i sold quite few paintings last week .... so here's a photo of the art wall with its up to the minute look ... a couple of the paintings up there are only a week old ... i'm not usually so prompt .....

... now, a small break from the art blog, to tell you about the colors inside of my head ...

so ... you know how i'm all about color ... hot, popping colors ... on my walls, my shoes, my paintings .... that wall up there is the ONLY white wall in my whole house ... i like good saturated color ... i daydream about good colors ... i guess the daydreams help decide what colors to put into paintings ... or because i want some turquoise converse sneakers .... or because a hot yellow colander caught my eye at target (little.e.beck.artist tried to talk me into getting it ... but that's a whole 'nother story ... remind me to tell you my colander story sometime) ....

i like that blues and greens can be soothing ...

i like that oranges and reds are stimulating ...

i like that some yellows can give you a headache ... but some yellows are your happiest memory of a beautiful spring day ...

i like that some browns are gorgeous ... and some are really just hideous ....

... so ... color ...

i've been going to a new gym since june .... it's a class, more than a gym ... but it's got gym stuff ...crazy treadmills that have three speeds: too fast, faster than that, and gerbil leg fast .... balls that you balance on, bounce on , sit on, and curse .... medicine balls (yuck! send me to the doctor!) .... slider discs (no really, i'd rather my feet remain stationary!) .... rubber bands that seem to go every direction but the one that i'm intending .... implements of sheer torture, all of them.... but ...i've worked my way up from a contemptuous mix of embarrassment and pain ... to resignation mixed with a bit more flexibility, balance, strength and endurance.... now i'm going three times a week ... as compared to the whiney days when i started out and could barely walk the next day or the day after that ..... but color ... my thoughts of color are amusingly tickled by the colorful weights that sit under sunny window ....

the hour work out alternates between treadmill and strength training .... i like the treadmill portion better ...well, except for when i'm actually ON the treadmill .... and i like the strength work ... but only when i have the orange dumb bells ... orange .. you know? orange? my color, right ...

so, when i start exercising there are frequently a black set of weights and an orange set of weights sitting there waiting to be used at my station, my spot on the floor.... and the orange ones are too heavy for weakling me ... but ... they are orange ... so i try them anyway ... for as long as i can ... because ... well, because they are orange ... when i give up on orange and need a smaller weight, i move down to black ... heaven forbid the black gets too heavy, cause then you might have to walk over to the weight rack and trade them in for blue ... sometimes, your workout station starts with blue weights there ... that's good ... the blue five pounders are a really great vibrant blue ...

so this is what i think about while i'm doing weights .....their color ... not about my triceps or my biceps or why-ceps .... but the color of the weight .... has anyone ever used those eeny weeny beautiful color one pound weights? ... i think not ... or the two pound purples? ( i don't love purple, so let's call them lavender...) why isn't the heaviest weight black? black has heft...those weight designers just weren't thinking, huh?..... last week there were two men in my class and while i was heaving away (barely) on my royal blue weights, they were going to town with lovely pinks ... i smirked between my grimaces ... right up until i dumped my blue weights all together and just did the squats without weights (i'm toting plenty of weight right here inside my own skin... who needs those blues?) .....

and the best color weight? the threeser ... the wee three pounder that i've been looking at longingly for the months that i've been going to this workout ... months of going to this class and i NEVER even got to touch that wee green weight in all it's verdant loveliness (did i use verdant right? does it mean springy?)... sigh ... the best color and it is so tiny that i thought we'd just never get to use it ... well... be careful what you wish for .. on monday, imagine my delight when i walked in and there were bright beautiful tiny green weights at every strength station ... yes! limey goodness for my exercise ... it's going to be a good monday, right? .... i get to strut my strong stuff with those darling chartreuse weights ... i was smiling right up until the point where we started and i was kickboxing and carrying on with those lovely greens AND weights strapped to my ankles ... oh ... the torture ... chartreuse torture ...

so ... i have gone from whining inside my head during my workout ... to daydreaming about colors ... i think that's progress, right? ... i daydream ... i wonder why there aren't any yellow weights ..... i marvel at the people on the treadmills next to me and wonder not IF i'll be that fast one day, but when i'll be that fast (eternal optimist finally shows up!) ....

so .... you can take the e.beck.artist out of the colorful art studio ... but you can't necessarily take the colorful artsiness out of e.beck.artist ... right now, i'm wearing black shorts and a vivid green shirt ... and i'm on my way to work out with colorful weights .... hope the weights that i'm told to use don't clash with my shirt ... might alter the daydreaming if the color combinations are too distracting ...

what color is your day today?

... monday ...do you like mondays?

wow ... fall is here ... and to this warm weather girl, it felt a little bit like winter while i was out walking my dog early this morning .... brrrrrrr ....

do you like mondays? i usually don't ... i like when my family is around ... and everyone heads off to work and school and monday is a bit of a let down from the weekend .... but ... or BUT ... but, i actually like the fresh startness of monday ... this morning after the dog walk, i had a huge work out ... and thought about color the whole time ... which was nice ... usually during a work out i'm thinking about how much one thing or the other aches ... or bounces inappropriately .... but today it was colors .... nice ....

so when i got home from the gym (and the grocery store, bank and gas station) i went and puttered in my studio... mostly painting papers, just to think about color some more ...

the biggest chore i accomplished today was an art chore ... i took all the art down off my display wall and started fresh ... i had butchered the display when i did the show last thursday, then sold a number of pieces that had been on it..... so it was good to get a fresh wall up .... the painting up at the top is on the fresh wall ... of course, i neglected to take a pic.... maybe tomorrow ... or .. maybe tomorrow i'll blog about colors .... hmmmmmmm.......

two new ones ....

i finished these up just before thursdays show ... they could be sold as a pair ... or individually ....
they are 24 inches square i think ... bigger than usual for this subject ....

i sure do love those lollypop flowers ...

... friday night ....

little.e.beck.artist is long asleep ...

mr.e.beck.artist is home from a week of travel and has just gone to bed ...

boy.beck.artist is watching a tv show with me ...

girl.beck.artist has giggle gaggled off to her room with friends and a bag of cheetos ...

and all is well in this house ....

last night, i was at a show .. and sold more than a dozen canvases in a fast three hours ... and have a couple potential commissions to figure out ...

happy weekend!