wrap it up....

yesterday's post was about the happy path ....

right now, for me, my path is the gift giving path .... many gift giving occasions are cropping up ....a while back, i asked girl.beck.artist who at school we should be giving end of the year gifts to since the twins are graduating 8th grade after 12 years at the same school ... so she wrote a list .... with 22 names on it ... oh my!

sorry, boy.beck.artist, hope your people are on the list, cause that's more gift givingness that i can handle .... we ended up adding three more people to the list ... and ... when you have a list that long, you really have to make the gifts ...

so i set out to make pottery for them all .... it was actually very fun ... and funny .... all the peoople in my friday pottery class ... and at my monday pottery class where i was moonlighting to make sure i got it all done, knew that i was on a quest to make VAST amounts of similar pottery in one quarter ... with a deadline ... pottery and deadline don't generally go in the same sentence .... they all were keeping up ... how many are done? how many are bisqueware? how many need their first firing ? how many do you still need to make? .... multiple pottery pals were emotionally invested in my obsessive compulsive pottery making .... no lollygagging at pottery this quarter ... i was working hard ..... i got the 25th finished just last week ....

and really? wrapping 25 gifts was the most trying part .... then it took two shifts each for the twins to tote them to school and deliver them ... cause they aren't small gifts ... they aren't light either .... that pic above is the second round to be delivered ....

now i have some graduation gifts to finish making ... and then wrap them up ....

and then it is on to father's day ... hmmmmm... what should i make ....

.....what's your path? ....

things have been presentful lately ....

presents for my birthday ...

presents for mothers day ....

lovely and fun and happy gift GETTING experiences ...

but really?

i prefer giving gifts ....

don't get me wrong ... i love getting gifts ... especially from mr.e.beck.artist and the kids ... they go all out in the picking of the perfect thing .... but for the most part, i prefer the giving ... i like the deciding what to give, the (usually) making of what to give, the wrapping, the giving, the happy surprise ....

yesterday i had lunch with two girlfriends ... one i see a lot ... one, not so much lately .... all three of us brought the other two gifts ... isn't that kind of funny .... no one needed a gift ... or needed to give a gift .... but we all walked in and out with two ...

i like that .... nice to have friends who think like you, huh?

so one, her birthday is coming up ... so i called it a birthday gift ... the other, got a birthday gift just cause i wanted to draw a cupcake on the card too... her birthday is in the fall (um, i think) .....

when i thought of the words to put on this painting i gave yesterday, i was a little miffed that i had never thought of them before ....
that should be my motto .... how have i never thought it up before?

choose the happy path ...

you are amazing ....

sometimes it's nice to hear that someone thinks you are great ... or cool ... or fun .... or amazing ... you probably know exactly who in your life thinks you are amazing, but it's still nice to hear it, huh? ... maybe even nicer to hear it from someone that you don't know holds you in such high esteem ....

now, let's do the flipside ..... go tell someone that you think is great, that they are amazing to you .... they'll like hearing it, huh?

three blue lollypop flowers ..

so... i had a stack of new paintings and i was prepping for a show .... so i signed them, named them, inventoried them, blah, blah, blah .... girl.beck.artist was with me .... and she TOTALLY mocked my painting naming skills ... oh, that's a great one mom ... uh-huh, that's an original ... oh no, i couldn't have guessed THAT name ....

so ... this is called three lollypop flowers .... i tell it like it is ... i could have also called it three blue flowers on brown .... but didn't ....
it's a large simple canvas ... 24 inches square ... and that brown is way cool ... it is thick and textured .... textured like, well, dirt .... or maybe mulch ... very cool .... here's a close up ... can you see how stringy mulchy that fibrous brown paper is??

so that's the painting of the day ...

sweet, happy, simple ....

...home sweet home ....

boy.beck.artist and girl.beck.artist have left for the grand canyon ... we woke up at 5am to have them at school by 5.30 to hop a bus to the airport ... they are there now and have had almost a full day of activities .... i was happy for them to go and have the adventure ... sad for me that they are old enough that i need to just let them go ..... the good news is that i'll be right here waiting for them when they get back ..... home sweet home, what a concept ....
this is a painting that i'd had hanging on my wall of art that needs to be sent out into the world ... but i wasn't quite happy with it ... now i am ... i wrote allllllll those words in one sitting .... and felt like "oh, it's fixed now" .... even if you can't read all those words in this pic, it's ok ... i'll summarize it for you ... home sweet home ... pretty simple ....

... happy mother's day ....

it is mother's day .. happy day to you if you are a mom .... happy day to my mom as well ... if you are familiar with my blog, you might know that a frequent commenter is artmom ... that's my mom .... one of my biggest fans, if not THE biggest fan of my work ... it's nice how it works out that way , huh?

here is a recent painting i've done ...

it's a 12 by 12 canvas with a map back ground and turquoise glazing ... a nest seems perfect for mother's day (although i considered posting a flower collage cause lot's of moms get flowers on mother's day ... mine did last year ....) ..... a nest seems perfect for mother's day ... most moms tend to be in charge of the nest .... and have something special with the progeny in the nest ... and ... in this case, there's a key .... it could be a key so that you know the door is always open .... like in my case, my parents door is always open to me ... though my key to their far away home is metaphorical .... or, it could be the key that locks the door and keeps your family safe and tucked away... when i see this key, it reminds me of the fact that my kids are growing up .... we have keys for each kid ... little.e.beck.artist's key even has a minnie mouse on it .... she takes it with her to school when she might be coming home to an empty house (rarely, but she's old enough that it does sometimes happen .....) ... so a key in my house is a sign of growing up ....

happy mother's day ... hope someone has the key to your heart, too ......

do your best ....

earlier this year i hurt my back ... kinda my neck ... c4,5,6 and maybe c7 vertebrae ... or maybe c 5,6,7 ... the ones that would make my hand go numb cause of pinched nerves ... and pain and ouch and oh my aching back .... but i'm better now .... but i took 6 weeks off of all exercise ... and 8 weeks off of big exercise ... and for the last two or so months i've been trying to get back to where i was when i stopped .... so, i'm working my way back up to big exercise .... and getting there ... although at my exercise class i have to do modified stuff .... i don't do any weights over my head, i use lighter weights than i had been, i don't do the treadmill over a 9% incline cause it throws my posture out of whack ....

but, with all that said ... i've just been trying my hardest, doing my best even when it isn't that great .... i went to my class today .... an hour of hard exercise then 15 minutes of stretching ... then, two hours of tennis in the sunshine with three pals ..... my arms were like noodles by the end .... and no back pain!.... i'm getting there ....

that painting is six inches square ... done in just the last couple of weeks .... vintage papers, transparent fluid acrylics, happy collage bits ....

have you been doing your best on something in particular?

.. heartstring .....

... this is a new painting .... 24 inches square ... little bit of dictionary ... little bit of map ....

it's about being open hearted ... similar to being open minded, but more than that ....

i have had an art filled, friend filled, family filled week ... it was a good one ... and now i'm happy it's the weekend .... there are mother's day gifts wrapped and on the mantle for me .... it's going to be a nice weekend, i think ...

happy days to you ...

....mini me ....

i had a table at a tiny little market place last night ... my mini me, little.e.beck.artist, came with me to help set up .... i sold four paintings .... had a nice evening hanging out with some pals ....

not a bad way to spend a wednesday night ... now i'm spending thursday playing catch up ...

what's up with you?

art blogging about pottery while i paint .....

i went from being a post art every day kinda girl for a couple years ... to a hardly post at all kinda girl for a couple months (a year?)... to now ... where i'm about 20 posts behind ... i could do 20 posts today if i had the time ... but i don't have the time ... cause i have a tiny show tonight ... that i've been painting madly for .... and now? i'm waiting for paint to dry ... so i can photograph the newly finished art and pack it up to go .... and price it ... and make an inventory sheet ... and find the table cloth ....

so while the paint dries, lemme tell you about my monday pottery .... it's a continuation from the last couple of weeks of pottery story ....

i have a big gift giving even coming up ... where i'm giving a present to a bunch o' people .... (yes, i'm being vague on purpose) .... so i've decided to make the gifts ... and i decided on this pottery .... the day i decided all this, i made four .... the next week i glazed them ... and this week i picked up the four finished pieces ... whew! what a relief, i like them! .......

so i have four done out of 15 or 20 or 30ish ... my number is not exact ... yet ..... is a pencil about 8 inches long? one of those above is a 12 inch platter .... one is a good sized bowl ... and two are smallish bowls ....

after i ooohed and aaaahed my new pieces , i got to work glazing eight more ... yes! eight! .... two more classes worth of making them .... here they are glazed and scrubbed ... i scrub off some of the mexico point green glaze so that the chocolate clay shows ....

you can see above that i made quite a variety of shapes and sizes ....then, after glazing, i washed my shoes ...

luckily, i was wearing shoes i could sponge off ... in my efforts to be a speedy glazer, i was quite messy .... glazing all 8 pieces took almost two hours ... lots of steps to the task ....

and then i got to work .... i made four more pieces out of the chocolate clay .....

can you see i made a square piece and a rectangular platter too... i also took my lunch cause i was there at the pottery studio for hours and hours ....

back to work .... surely the paint is dry by now .... tomorrow i'll post a pic of my table of wares ... mostly small canvases but some big ... wish me luck! hope i sell some too!!

purple ...

i spent HOURS painting today ... trying to finish off a bunch of small canvases that i've got going .... and working on two big ones that i don't think i'm going to get done for the small show i'm doing tomorrow ... or maybe i'll finish one ... i'm going to try!!the most interesting thing about the canvases i've been working on is the purpleness .... i NEVER ever do purple painitings ... or ... seldom ... no .. really never ... i can't think of a purple painting ....and i have quite a few purple canvases ... two i finished today (and didn't snap pics of the finished product) ....

i'm in a hurry scurry to prep for the show ...

but .. stay tuned for multiple finished painting pics ... pics of the display at the show (it's at my church) ... and way cool pottery i've finished ...

hooray for art, huh?

... painting painting painting .....

i've spent a lot of time in the last four days painting in my studio ... saturday morning we painted in our jammies .... with paint clothes over the jammies, of course ...

this is girl.beck.artist ... she was painting a 12 by 12 night time scene ....
this is little.e.beck.artist ....she's working on a mother's day gift, i believe ... but i'm not peeking or anything ....here are nine 6 by 6 canvases that i've put maps on .....and here they are with some glazing .... transparent paint so that you can still see the maps ....

and here are 3 twelve by twelve canvases that have been papered and glazed ....

since these were started last week, i've finished quite a few of them ... but, i'm a bit behind on my picture taking ....

all of this is working towards a small show this week ....

what can you imagine on these backgrounds?