done....number 15

this painting is called "gladness and singleness of heart" ..... the background has been blogged about before ..... the foreground was a brand new idea today ...... i think i can point to two things that influenced it .....

1..... i recently went to lola's gallery .... kristy, there, had the collages that she normally carries, and also had still all the ones that she had left from folk fest ...... she didn't need that many so she picked which ones she wanted to show first .... she sent home mostly flowers ... becuause she has never sold any of my flower pieces ...... which is so interesting to me, cause my flower pieces are what i, personally, sell most often ...... i've sold boatloads of flowers ..... kristy, however, has sold mostly mona lisas and hearts ..... so that's what she kept ... well then.... i say to myself, really maybe i should do more hearts cause i don't have many to sell ..... and i DO have quite a few monas about .......

2..... i am teaching a spiritual journaling class for sunday school ..... i've only done a couple classes so far ..... and was having a bit of a balancing issue between artsiness and substance ..... we are painting (in our church clothes! oh my!), collaging, doodling, writing ....... and this week, yesterday actually ..... i found the right balance .... we had a great class, i think ..... at one point, my pal, melinda, came in and said the room was in a state of zen like calm .... we were all writing furiously about gladness and singleness of heart .... what's it mean in general...what's it mean to you ... how can you manifest it better kind of things .......so.......gladness and singleness of heart ......

and those two things together led to me putting this heart and home on my collage today .....gladness and singleness of heart was what was in my heart ..... selling hearts well is what was in my head! .... so that combo of heart and head .... and saying that reminds me ... next sunday our topic is about being blessed with "memory, reason and skill" ......

i had a great art day ... i got a lot of other things worked on today ..... allison is coming over tomorrow, so that is more, for sure, art time ..... i'm pretty sure that the art i show you tomorrow will have a heart on it ...... hope i don't start boring you ..... let me know when i do!!!

14

ah.... 14th painting in 14 days .... i am feeling fresh and full and fun and fffffff .... i ran out of illiteration ..... i finished this piece at 9pm .... i don't usually art at night ..... but i have been lately ..... anything to get in my one a day! .....

tomorrow is actually a full on art day .... i'm going to school in the morning ....julia has a speaking part at morning chapel .... and i have a couple errands to do .... and some keep up with life things ... but i'm sure i'll get in a couple hours!! ... yippeee .... absolutely looking forward to something BIG .....

hope you had a grand weekend ..... come back on monday night, i'm sure to have some pics to show for my artsy day in my studio ......

13

day 13 and i have completed a painting ... this collage started as a tall yellow canvas with large letters ....now? there are glimmers of yellow and letters behind the turquoise loveliness ....... the best thing about flickr is you have to title your pieces .... i called this heartstrings ....... i'm VERY happy with how it turned out ..... three out of the four other people in this house had nice things to say about it too!! ..... i'm raising art critics apparently!!!


these are four canvases i have been working on .... layers of background papers and glazes and thicker acrylics and stenciling or stamping of letters and, on some, tissue ...... the one on the far left should go in between the two previous pics on this post as the in between of the process ........ i also have a fifth canvas this shape that is well under way ..... i have plans for some of these ... but not all... i have faith though that the ideas will come .......


i do not usually have an idea and then get the right canvas and work towards a very specific end goal .... i usually do the first 4 or 5 steps of my "process" ... but on this one, i have a big idea... a plan .... now the trick will be not getting off track and actually following through on my plan .... no guarantees there ..... if it starts not looking like the preconceived notion i'll veer off and do something else ...ya know how that goes?

hope you've had a happy saturday .... sophie's team won their socccer game by a lot to a little ... sophie looked like a good player today .... for the first time this season!! ..... drew had baseball practice ... played at catcher and pitcher ..... the girls went with andy to play golf ..... 9 holes on the par 3 ..... i took drew to buy new cleats ... my sweet little boy wears a men's size nine ..... it is so not cool to cry in the sporting good store about your baby growing up too fast ..... nine? that's humongous feet ...... he's only ten years old?? .....i also have gotten my lesson plans and such all together for the next three sundays worth of journaling classes ...... one day i'll remember to take my camera to that class!! ......

hope your are having a fun and fab weekend ..... go do something artsy ......

12 ... i'm going off long titles and i'm gonna just call this one 12, ok....so read about 12 now

i had a morning full of studio time ..... i worked on five canvases that are 30 inches by 10 .... so long and skinnnnny ...... i worked on giving them text and texture and depth ..... two are gorgeous.... two are fine ....one needs some serious help .... or a coat of gesso to start over!!! regardless, it was a good art filled morning of puttering and working on this and that ..... i probably actually worked on about 10 different pieces ...... BUT .... during my studio time, i did NOT finish a piece ...OH NO .....we can't have that can we? why slow down now? so, tonight after dinner i worked on a small piece, this heart .... did the embroidery and called it a day ..... so, the mostly yellow background heart with turquoise is a six by six and entry number 12 .... yippee!!



this photo is a smidge of a piece i'm doing ...... it'll probably be saturday or sunday's entry into an art a day keeps the doldrums away ........
and my doldrums are definitely away! my sweet husband has been out of town all week and got home today, safe and sound .... and he brought me a GREAT artsy, groovy souvenir ..... i'll snap a pic tomorrow so you'll just have to come back!
happy weekend to you and yours ......

11 and some other stuff.....

two wordly wise vocabulary and spelling tests tomorrow .... spell cultivate ..... two math tests tomorrow ..... and i'm all brushed up on prime numbers, factors and prime factorization (2x2x2x3=24) ..... two essays(i proof read) on inventions that have bettered the world (guide dogs and close captioning for the hearing impaired) ..... and a quick brush up on social studies...... ok, i didn't really do anything for the social studies questions and answers except for sing the star spangled banner about 12 too many times ...... fine mom, i get it that you know who frances scott key is ....... luckily, the first grader and i were like this: ....did you finish your work....yes ...good ..... that's how we were today ..... usually half the first grade math assignments begin like this ....tell someone at home what you learned in math, then with them do ________ ..... that's ok ..... but this real life does get in the way of arting!!! i actually finished today's piece during survivor!!! that's some late art time for me ..... survivor!! it's on! it sure has changed a TON since that first season, oh so long ago .......

this sweet, small heart art is my eleventh entry in my finish a piece every day grand hooooha ....... i'm happy with it .... i have a row now of seven smallish canvases in my family room .... proof of my commitment to get my art groove going .... and going and grooving it is .....



i had four blank white canvases, 10 by 30 inches each .... and today i papered them, glazed them, and added some acylic colorful interest to them ..... and here is one ... the others are loaded onto flickr if you are so inclined as to go and look at them ..... just like i did five ten by ten canvases all backgrounded ...and 6 of the six inch by six inch squares ..... all in one grand effort .....so that i could then finish one a day .... so it shall go with these, i hope ..... soon you'll have four days in a row of long thin creations ..... i wonder what they will be ??

heart art again? ...yup ... hope that's ok .....

i had a meeting this morning ....then i went to pottery late ... and stayed late too ..... dashed home, walked the dog, ate a late lunch, made a few phone calls and the kids came home ..... three spelling tests to help study for ..... weird letter cubes to be built ... that's the new kinesthetic way to teach phonics...... how do you spell mitochondria? what? i didn't have to learn that until eighth grade ...... and all manner of busy, busy, busy ..... and then there was a lull .... a dog patting kind of moment where we're all waiting to see if sophie knows how to spell monday ....she does ..... and in that calm, julia said, hey mom, what art did you do today? .....julia, i haven't done any yet .... i had a meeting and pottery and barely a spare minute for anything ...... and she said ...oh, pottery should count .... but no... i need to have FINISHED pieces ... and i just started pieces ..... she said, quick, you have to do something before we go to sophie's soccer practice .......so, today is not the day that i say i coulnd't finish a piece ...... i did finish one .... it is REMARKABLy similar to the last three that i've done .... but i just said finished pieces ...not spectacularly original pieces every day .... all though .... of the ten now that i've done ..... at least a couple make me awfully happy ...... and the rest will round out a grand art display nicely ......

here's a funny thing .... when you ask sophie to spell monday .... she says m o n d a y ... you then say AND .... and she says and don't forget the cap lock .... ???? ..... that's what she says to prove she remembers to capitalize monday ..... how twenty first century is she? ....

this heart art is finished off with embroidery floss ... and i had a good stew over what color to use .... i was going all matchy, hearty and it wasn't doing it for me ..... so i went with big contrast ..... i think turquoise and red are perfectly fab together ...... note to self: more turquoise and red combo ......

and pottery ..... i am nearly out of ceramic flat bits to add to my canvases ..... so i made more .... i made a larger sized disk so that i can make a bigger bouquet on a three square foot canvas .... i haven't done that before .... then i also made small balls that i flattened ..... so they'd glue easily ..... so those'll be more buds .... or bottle cap equivalents ..... if you know what i mean .....

tomorrow is like today .... very busy while the kids are at school..... tests to help study for and homework to supervise afterwards ..... not sure what the art outlook is!!! stay tuned ......

once upon a time there was a mom who had a sitter but instead of leaving when the sitter came she just went right on blogging ..... why...not sure....

yippee, zippy, hooray .... i finished this out today with black fluff and a key hole escutcheon .... now that's an SAT word ..... don't go checking my spelling though .... escutcheon means little fancy metal bit around the key hole .... or....i THINK that's what it means ...... anyway ..... this is my ninth finished piece in nine days .... i'm cranking and feel good about my art accomplishments ...... i'd love to stop and chat and tell you what all i did today ...BUT .... the babysitter just got here ..... cause andy is in switzerland (milan tomorrow....paris the next day!!!) ....but this is my art blog not my woe-is-me-can-i-whine-a-bit blog ..... i'm thinking you wouldn't be so likely to come read it for that ..... and the sitter is here (can't call him a BABY sitter since i have no babies ....oh....i could whine there too .... no.... i won't .... deep breaths ...... ) the sitter is here so that i can go to back to school night and hear just how woefully ill prepared for fifth grade i am ...even though the twins seem to be doing fine with it!!! .... luckily first grade is a breeze for me ..... and sophie seems to be doing fine with it .... when she isn't fretting over just how much work they are making her do ..... anyway..... art blog, art blog.... i must keep saying that ......i have POTTERY class tomorrow ... that's a fab thing, eh? ..... i'll at least make something flat and fab to glue to a canvas ... might even make something worthwhile enough to give as a christmas gift ..... we'll see ..... ok .... have i mentioned the sitter is HERE ... no doubt wondering why i am still here too .... haven't budged since he got here ... but i did get this whole nonsensical blog out .... whew .... i'll be charming and enlightening in tomorrow's blog ...... promise .....

late edition.... p.s.....NUTSO ....somehow i'm a day off .... i was thinking TOMORROW was the 18th but it is TODAY ....so ... happy birthday to my sweet brother david ..... i sent him this link so that he could take a walk down memory lane ...... those of you who push it, that was a HUGE part of our childhood ..... kinda funny to think about it now .....

eight is great .....

...day 8 .... and this is my 8th finished piece .... it is TINY at 6 inches square .... i haven't done something this petite in YEARS .... really! years!! ..... i've been on a bigger is better kick for a good long time now ..... six inches hardly gives you space to do anything!! ..... but i did it .... and i'll have five more soon ...maybe over the course of the next five days ..... i didn't mean for this challenge to get me making smaller stuff ... but time wise, smaller sure is faster!! ...... plus, since i am prepping for a show in LESS than two months now, it makes sense to make some smaller ...since smaller is definitively less expensive (in my booth, anyway) ..... and not everyone is willing or able to afford a larger canvas .... so.... contrary to all previous mantras (bigger is better) .... i shall now be chanting "small is lovely too" .... so there you go .... i did work on one three foot square canvas today .... RED, red, RED .....though it is days away from being done .... i'm sure i'll have another tiny piece for tomorrow, day nine in my quest for completed canvases ........

i loaded a bunch of pics to flickr with this heart ..... this one, and this too are interesting glimpses into my studio, my life, my quirks ...... if you slide the mouse over them i've made lots of little notes to read ......

happy monday ....have a great week .....

have a heart!

.... i am SO happy i decided to challenge myself to a finished piece every day for as long as possible .... this is my seventh piece in seven days and is a monument to stolen minutes!!! ......

today, after teaching my ART JOURNALS class at sunday school (ineffable joys was the topic today!) .... and after picking up the kids from a birthday party ..... before we went to baseball ..... in the FIFTEEN MINUTES between birthday and baseball .... while my kids were changing out of swim suits.... while STILL wearing my backpack purse EVEN .... i whipped out a paintbrush ....but wait, i'm getting ahead of myself ......

i had done a heap of backgrounds a while back ..... this is the last of the ten by tens ....... so, i was ready .... and i had planned on one more flower for it ... but didn't have the time!!! .... so i went with faster .... and without even putting my pursed down... i used my burnt sienna glaze on the BRIGHT background to mark out a heart ...... so you can still see the papers and the letter stenciling and whatnot ... but outside the heart is darker, drabber .... inside the heart is bright and lovely .... get it? then i needed a stronger delineation so i fuzzed it up ..... i used pink fibers and sewed them around the line of the heart .... i'd considered doodling it but went with fiber for the fun and fast factor .... and the keys .... i was actually not working on the finishing touches in my studio .... i was doing it in the family room while dinner was cooking ...... and julia was at my elbow and giving me advice ....i had four keys to add on .... but she didn't like one of them ..... she understood the key to my heart thing ...... and said i had three kids, so three keys would work well .....

i finished this at about 8.30 .... so no chance of taking the photo outside in natural indirect sunlight (do y'all do that?) .... the colors might not be too true ... but close!!!! and it's posted .... and i'm still on track with my challenge .... hooray .... and i do think that the need for speed freed me up to do something that i wouldn't have normally done, perhaps .......

if you put the word pear in this particular spot on the scrabble board are you effectively blocking future triple word scores?

hooray .... i finished a piece this morning .... pear, double word, 12 points! ..... andy and the twins were golfing ..... and i got it done before they came home .... all before sophie's soccer game! .... i used a burnt sienna glaze on the game board to age it ..... so the lines weren't glaringly white, actually ...... i was just going to do that at the bottom half to make a horizon line/table top ..... but i liked how it looked so much that i did the whole board and then added the blue-ness at the bottom of the game board for the horizon line ...... the blue-ness goes well with the double letter score square...... the pear is made of vintage dictionary ..... the brown background canvas also has a layer of dictionary pages ..... i usually make pears out of maps ... but it seemed reasonable that a scrabbley pear should be made out of a dictionary just to keep that whole letter thing going on ...... right?

.... and ... the grandest thing of all about being an artist? having fresh art whenever you want! ..... and when this was done? before the glue was even dry? popped it up in the family room ....redecorated all together .... took all the mantel pieces down and started fresh ...well, the monkeys are same old, same old ... but the rest is fresh ... there is actually another three foot canvas BEHIND the pears ..... so i can switch the look out on a whim now ......

....and ....if you are keeping track .... this is day six of "post a NEW piece of art for as many days in a row as possible" self challenge ......PNPAFAMDIRAP challenge ......

teensy tiny turtle time ..... may many marbles manifest machiavellian mania .....ferociously fabuloso flowers

..... today's painting is "turtle flowers" ....fifth piece in five days for those of you keeping track of the new painting post each day ........ i love this little vintage turtle card ..... and when i saw the coloring of the turtle it made me think of some marbles i have ... so.... i dug out those marbles and they were perfect ..... kind of orange, greeny, yellow stripedy ...... just like that turtles neck ....(this would be the right spot to have an e6000 shout out to heidi!!) ...... this background was one of the multitude i did a while back ...... just ready and waiting for a day when i didn't have time to do a whole piece .....

i'm not positive that i'll be finishing a piece tomorrow ..... is that bad that my big self challenge might be broken on day six? ... i guess as long as i have backgrounds pre-done, i have a chance ......but, i am going to a soccer game and a baseball game tomorrow ..... not to mention just all the usual weekend life stuff .... but .... i PLAN to do a piece ..... i actually have a grand plan ..... we'll just have to wait and see how my execution of the grand plan goes ...... here's a clue ....pear for twelve points ......

tra la la .... have a fab. weekend .... hope you find time for something artsy!

yesterday was a jack painting .... so today's king and queen flowers seem a likely follow up ....

here's where i planned out what this painting would become .... i was purging the studio and found this background that i must have started well over a year ago .... and decided to go ahead and use it .... usually my backgrounds are just backgrounds, but this one even had a horizon line .... i repainted the green ground ....it was too minty ..... i made it a bit more greeeeeeeeeeeeen ...... the top half had a red mesh over the background .... apparently i had big ideas for this piece and then abandoned it all together ..... but ... the red mesh made me decide to go with reddish bottle caps and bingo call numbers that are red painted wood bits ..... i had tried the cards mounted on red, but that was tooooo red .... and on black it seems to "go' with the cards better .... and makes a grand focal point .... the far, far, far background of this is maps .... from some long ago road trip, i imagine! ......

yes, this is my fourth day in a row of posting a new painting ..... rah .... five pieces in five days, not bad .... and this one is even a healthy size at 12 by 16 inches ......

i just did a search through my flickr pics and found the sister paintings to this background .... apparently i started four at the same time .... and this one got left behind ......this monopoly flower painting, this flower field one that i know i sold at marist last year and this one that i think my mom has are all the same sized canvases and have similar background maps...and mesh ....i must have been on a mesh kick? ..... they are related ..... i'm glad this king and queen flowers has finally lived up to its potential ......


and just one more thing ..... one of my oh-so-very-favorite-bloggers, heidi,(heidi's so favorite that she has a link on my tool bar!) posted some sorted buttons and this and thats...... and i ADORE buttons and button sorting ..... in some issue or other of cloth, paper, scissors they asked what you did to relax, or to find your art zen .... and i actually had two of my things published .... one of them was about button sorting ....... so, for heidi.... i took a photo of one of my button collections .... it is actually looking a bit depleted ... i should do some sorting soon .... but actually, i'm too busy creating when i'm in my studio.... who has time for zen?