three feet square.

this used to be a painting with some flowers ... on a blue background ... and i never finished it cause i never liked it much and was having trouble fixing it ... so ... feeling liberated, i covered it all in gesso mixed with some pale yellow paint ..... some flowers still showed so i covered them here and there with some dictionary pages .... any darker rectangles you see above are book pages ...... and then once that was done, i washed on some mat medium, raw umber fluid acrylics, burnt sienna hard body acrylic .... and i kept spritzing it with my trusty water squirt bottle to keep it damp as i worked it in .... when it was all wet and even, i picked up half the paint and created texture by using a trash bag .... any plastic works, but for this big a canvas, the trash bag is the right size .... then i added hearts from my hodge podge of papers that are sitting around in my studio ..... can i just confess right now that my studio might be the messiest it has EVER been .... but i need to keep plugging away at painting to meet some deadlines .... i think i'll clean sometime in the end of february .... hope i can stand my mess for that long! i don't like the mess, but that certainly doesn't stop me from making it!

bruno's flower

i hope that the person who buys this collage, gives it to a teenager ..... do you know this bruno mars song? it's a love song ... but this bit on my painting could easily be a love letter from a parent to a child ....


if perfect's what you're looking for, then stay the same ....

when the universe gets on board and everything falls in place ....

last week i used the very last page of my atlanta and vicinity street map atlas. darn. i was super disappointed. i still had a few of the last pages of the index, which are nice pages full of tidy rows of type ..... but i was a bit mournful of its passing. no one really totes around an atlas in the door pocket like i used to, right? we all have smartphones with maps? .... and just to be have another moan, both of my dictionaries are thin .. they are running out of pages as well ... nearly done. i imagine i've used 6 or 7 dictionaries up in the last 10 years .... that's a lot .... not all the pages are in art ... some are just painted papers ready to be used ... some were used for sketches or doodles ... i've wrapped gifts in them .... i use them to wipe up spills .... but i was thinking i needed a new dictionary before that one was no more ..... and i procrastinated ... i needed to just get on ebay and find what i needed ... but ebay is like a black hole SUCKING ME IN ..... and i never can get one thing .... in the past is has always been ebay spreeeeeees ... wheeeeeee for eeeeeeeeebay ..... but i was hoping against that.

so.
imagine my delight when i went to pottery class at the spruill center. and i parked at the MOST far away spot from ceramics.... and i had to walk through the library to get where i was going ... well that parts not all delightful.... until i discovered that the friends of dunwoody library were having their annual sale. yes. score. yes. so lucky. and then double the delight that they had the EXACT atlas that i had just run out of. what? total fabulous serendipity. score. i bought two street atlases and one big dictionary (that i think is the same dictionary i used at home growing up!) .... all for four whole dollars. yes. i'm considering going back for closing bag day when the books are no longer individually priced, but instead, you get a brown paper bag full for one low price .... that's fun pickings!  but then it starts to feel like ebay and i'll go overboard .... so maybe i'm just going to be super happy with my artful treasures .... super happy is always a good plan, right.

handwriting

about 8 years ago or so i made up a new handwriting for myself. my own font. i loved it. i don't even try to have it now, it's just what my handwriting is. i think that's kind of weird. i wanted a new handwriting for my art so i made it up and then i adopted it for everything .... it made for some good looking to do lists and post it notes for my family .... but lately, it isn't what i've wanted ... i've been going with swoopy cursive with some dots and dashes .... the funny thing about that is i didn't learn cursive as a kid ... i taught it to myself as an adult ... weird, right? i still am not clear on/good at uppercase cursive ... but that's ok since i generally avoid caps at all cost ....

a friend asked me for this quote .... it's a good one, right?

home sweet home.

most of the country is freezing today, huh? makes you want to stay in bed with all the covers pulled up to your nose with one gloved hand holding the kindle .... or is that just me? and yet we get up and go out and walk the dog and whine in our heads in wonderment that even with the weather in the teens the sweet dog takes too long .... but back to my warm house i go, and the dog can barely wait for me to get my gloves off, she's so anxious for her treat .... she likes being in doors during the cold too .....winter is more of a nesting time than summer i think ... and this painting is definitely about home, nesting, comfort... as all my nest paintings have been ... but it has a decidedly warm spin to it, don't you think? ....

warm thoughts to you and yours this cold winter morning.

mae west and ralph waldo emerson. incongruous.

 my big kids are high school juniors ... SAT tests and ACTs are this giant thing that hangs around. the english teacher gives crazy hard vocabulary every weak. i rock hard vocabulary and was stunned that i didn't remember what calumny meant ... now i know. but how did i forget? slander. slander is a hard enough word without turning it into calumny. anyway. when i titled this post i liked the incongruity of mae west and emerson. incongruous is an excellent vocab word, right?

these are art card happies that i have sent off to new artsy friends.

art cards again ....

here are two art cards sent out to people in my new art group ... 

this first one is a maya angelou quote ....it is from her poem touched by an angel .... i'm completely into poetry right now. i did patti digh's design your life camp last fall and there were poets .. the most astonishing poets ... and then i saw billy collins ... and it was all kinda revolutionary in my wee brain .... i wish i had studied poetry in college .... so i'm doing it now instead.

 i have a thing for mandalas now .. cause i took an online mandala class ... we have a self help/change yourself/expand your horizons thing going, huh? ........ this one is a partial which made it fun and tricky to do ... well.... not that tricky, but still ... a little tricky.

i've been working on canvases too .... but not snapping pics for you ... better get on that.

art cards

 i've joined an art group ... on facebook ... as a way to stay accountable for my vow for increased art activities ... why is it that i LOVE any art activity so much, and yet i find it difficult to carve out time for it sometimes. enough of that. i am changing myself, just like rumi says too. more art this year. not sure if that'll mean more or better blogging, but let's hope so.

so these two art cards have been mailed out to people in my art group .... i have cards like this hanging on my backsplash in the kitchen ... and in cabinets ... and in the fridge even cause there was plenty of space ..... not sure what my new art friends will do with them... like them, i hope.....

new years resolutions

on yesterdays blog post, i was asked how i track my resolutions.... so here it is... a word document. i actually didn't make it ... well i did ... but in 2009. when i used it to chart art .... see a VERY perky blog post about it right here ..... 

so this is this year's calendar .... i have a for art ... days i do art..... e for exercise, the days i exercise ... b is for book ... and i intend to read EVERY day cause that's the only way i'll get to 100 books read .... you can see the books i've already read this year right here .... and p is for pal ... i 'm going out to eat with pals 50 times this year ... though i'm thinking i'll do more than that.

realistically, i'm certain i'll make my exercise goal so long as i don't get injured .... i think i'll get my pal goal early and go over the goal number. the art goal is hard... i'm super easily side tracked from that ... which is funny/odd/ironic/incongruous since this is an ART blog......  and the book goal, i think i can read every day, but getting 100 books finished is hard. but doable. i'll know by summer if i'll make it.... pretty much i need to do ten a month and then take it easy in november and december when life gets so busy with other stuff.

new year. new stuff. here's to 2014.

i'm late to posting this new year!
i started the year in australia ... sydney harbour for the greatest new years eve celebration in the world ... and then i got home and things were a whirlwind. but, now i've updated my books for 2013, and started the list for books 2014 ....
one of my resolutions this year is to read 100 books .... even if i don't make it, it'll be awesome to try! i'm way ahead of schedule having done so much reading in the first few days of the year while i was on interminable plane rides!
another goal/resolution: 200 days of art this year .... i already feel a bit behind on that.. i think i'm four for 15 today .... but i'll work hard to get back on track ... and share some of the fruits of that labor on this blog ...
third goal: 200 days of exercise this year. i'm further along on this one than the art one at least ... i think i'm 8 for 15 ...
and final goal in this year of doing LOTS OF what makes me happy .... 50 breakfasts/lunches/dinners with girlfriends. i just did the first of this one ... so, off track, but expecting it to be not so hard .... my daughter made fun of me for this one ... too easy, she said ..... so if it is easy, it'll still be fun to keep track of ....

here's an art card i made ... on one of the art days, of course .... hope your resolutions are going well ....
happy new year.