numbers

1/4 .... number of inches of snow in our "winter weather event" .... that was yesterday evening .. this morning there was only a smidge left on our roof .... my children were SO distraught that they didn't get a snow day! 

14 .... number of canvases i worked on today .... here's a sampling: 

 

3 to 7 ... the ratio of monkeys to art on my mantle: 

4... the number of canvases i have completed this year ( i'm just counting canvases, not all art projects)  .... so this home on a heart is my fourth of the year ... ALL four have hearts on them ... i hope i'm not overdoing a theme! 

45 .... the horrifying number .... and the answer to the question on my last blog .... i had some good guessers ... 10 ... 20... 30 ... 100! (my kind of gal!)  ... but no, my pal al bought me 45 canvases ... 20 that are 6 by 6 .... 20 that are 12 by 12 .... and 5 that are 30 by 10 ..... they were bargains .... i had to have them! 

1 ... the number of rulers inadvertently glued to my table

2... the number of pencils glued to the table 

756 ... the number of blobby glue mishaps i had in my artistic frenzy

0 .... the number of times i got in my car and went somewhere today .... i didn't NOT leave the house .... i walked the kids to school ... i walked the dog multiple times .... i walked to pick my youngest up from a playdate .... but i never WENT anywhere ..... all day long i worked in my studio ... i was working hard! ... i got a TON accomplished .... i have many, many, many canvases started now ..... all in various stages of completion .... none further than just background ..but some of them have four or five different background layers..... it was a painty, lovely day .....

tell me one of your interesting numbers! 

three ..... is four hearts

first ... it was just a papered canvas with some yellow glazing ........
then...... i squared it off and added some more glazing...orange, blue, green  ........ 
then i finished it out with some hearts ..... i had grand plans of further embellishment ... and had it sitting in the family room waiting ....with my needle and floss all ready to start embellishing ... but i spent a lot of time looking at it and not wanting to change it .... so, i didn't .... allison came over today and helped me decide that it is done .... so ... that's the evolution of number three......
i must have been moaning about my slow start to my artistic new year more than i knew ... because i got some encouraging comments and emails .... jeannie said she knew i could do 100 because they didn't all have to be big ... she gave me permission to crank out some little ones ... so ... i started just that! .... i started eight canvases ... six inches square ..... that'll get me going! 

and here is my happiest happy of the day .... my pal allison called me this morning .... she was due to come over to do art .... but, she was at dick blick ... and dick blick was having a big old art sale ..... she asked if i needed SALE canvases ... oh no, i'm set, i'm fine, got plenty for now ..... ok, they are just SO cheap ... how cheap .... WOW cheap .... so .... she bought some for me ... how many canvases did i ask my dear pal allison to buy for me .... why don't you guess ..... 

how many canvases did allison buy for me? .... and how did you figure your guess? 

two

in my quest for 100 canvases this year .... 

i am on number two ... 

such momentum! ... 

can you stand it? 

and i going too fast for you? 

whew ... 

i think i might need to take a break ......

i'm not used to working at this pace .....

or not .....

at this rate, one a week, i'll be hitting fifty or fifty two .... ack! ... fifty cause i know i won't be completing any at christmas time! 

alas, i need to get it in gear ... but while i look for that momentum, that drive, that quicker clip that i need..... let me tell you about this one... this two, actually..... 

this is a tall skinny canvas with cool papers in the background ..... turquoise and blue glazing ..... dark yellow letter stencils ..... and one iconic heart blowing in the breeze ... suspended from the branch.... waiting for someone to come by and pluck it off .... some people wear their hearts on their sleeves .... some people hang them out in the breeze, free for the taking .... available to all ..... you can read a bit more about it on my flickr site .... 

how 'bout you? are you a heart on your sleeve type? or do you keep it tucked away in your pocket? out in the breeze? tucked in a drawer? 

happiness is a brand new seven year old .....

sophie turned seven ... she asked if she could have art for her gift ..... at this rate she will have a huge art collection before she can even drive .....she's pointing to the go of these go flowers ..... 

she sure does make me happy ..... 

what makes you happy .......

today i painted and painted and painted and painted and painted .... yippee

.... hooray .... i painted in my tidy studio .... thereby making it a titch less tidy, of course! ..... i was working of four canvases .... one four foot by one foot .....two that were three feet by one foot ... and one 20 inch square ...... i had done the paper collage backgrounds and the initial glazing before christmas ... probably my last art bit of the year that wasn't christmas related .....
this is the four foot by one foot canvas... above, it is just starting with a papered background and some blue and turq glazing .... the pic is showing a little dark ....
here's teh next step ... truer coloring ..... i added turquoise stencil letters to it for some textural and textual interest ...
and here i have added four hearts to the canvas ..... the reds i used are quite transparent ... you can still see letter stencils and some of the papers beneath .....
.... and last ... the finished piece ..... the truest coloring .... with three key escutcheons ... and one skeleton that my grand pal jeannie gave me ... cause she knew i'd do something groovy with it .....

so for those of you who are counting with me .... one.

something old, something new, something groovy and something blue .... and not a wedding in sight ......

something old..... is a mona lisa jumping jack doll ..... i made it on an art excursion with allison .... was it art and soul in hampton, virginia? i think so ... but it might have been at the one in ohio..... anyway ... we took this groovy evening class that was run by a totally funky woman ... er.... don't know her name ..... and she was new to teaching .... and quite a bit funkier than the other mainstream teachers that week ..... she wasn't one of the classes that everyone tried to get into ... and then some of the people taking it were a bit crabby .... cause they weren't learning specific techniques from a published/known/followed artist .... but i ADORED her and her class in all its quirkiness..... and this is the quirky thing i made .....oh... and it is something old ... because i just unearthed it in my studio tidy ..... i hadn't laid eyes on her in quite a while .... i missed her and love her! 
something new .... this is like a little bribe to be tidy .... e, if you keep your floor tidy, you'll have the opportunity to use your cute pink sweet dust pan ...... sophie thought it was one of her birthday gifts ....she turns seven in a couple days ......
something new ..... i dressed up today .... well... dressed up for me ..... i was still wearing jeans .... but i was "a program" this morning at church for one of the women's groups .... did a session on praying in color ... doodle prayers ... using your doodles for centering your prayers ... meditating, contemplative doodling ... so .... dressed up, i wore this new ring ... it is wired beads that a girlfriend gave me for christmas .... 
something blue .... i painted today .... rah!!! this canvas is four lovely long feet ...... it is either going to be a landscaped or embellished collage hearts ... i'm leaning towards hearts ... but i'm not sure .... here's a funny blue thing ... i was dressed in real clothes (nice ones) so i put on a paint sweatshirt and my apron to protect my cute shirt and my best jeans .... and i painted blue and blue and blue ..... done ... kids came home ... hung out in the front yard with the dog and the children .... did all kinds of things with them .... HOURS later .... julia said, are you ever going to wash that paint off your face? .... well .... duh ... i didn't know it was there ..... sophie, why didn't you tell me i had paint face? ...... i like blue ..... drew, why didn't you tell me i had paint face? ....... i didn't know you cared .... julia, why didn't you tell me? .... i did, just now ...... 

i had a one inch by three inch streak from my nose across my eyelid up to my eyebrow ... i guess i had an itch? 
and these don't go with my wedding title ... but are another find from my clean sweep .... i had loads and loads of christmas buttons that were gifted to me last year ... but, of course, when i was doing christmas button kind of activities this past month, i didn't even know i owned them .... but, they are now safely ensconced in a lovely clear jar on my wall of doodads .... and i will most certainly be able to find them for next year ..... tra la la ..... 

ok ... tell me the best thing you did today...... art related, or not .....

the things you find when you go on an archeological dig in your basement ......

when you dig through your studio you might make an amazing find ... like ... this pen .... i didn't know there was such a thing as an INDUSTRIAL strength sharpie ... but i own one .. i wonder how long i've had it?  
it seems like a normal sharpie but is a little bit stinkier ..... 

i ran errands this morning ....all errands were related to my studio tidy and make over ..... 

i bought a cute pink whisk broom and tiny little dust pan .... that i will keep in my studio... maybe i'll use it since it is pink and sweet .... will have to wait and see on that one .... 

so ..... i'm done ... or done enough for pictures .... ta dum: 

you can see my table top!!! 

all that's on my table is PAINT ..... 

the kids came home today and NEEDED to do projects .... sophie used markers and colored pencils .... drew whipped out his sewing kit ... did i ever tell y'all that was HIGH on his list at christmas time? really! my tough little boy wants to sew ... he already cooks ... he is going to be a catch ...... so they've already , ahem, broken in my tidy room ! 

yesterday i was at lowe's to get lumber and brackets and screws and dry wall mounts .....for shelves i put HIGH in my studio .... today i went back .... i bought two little build them yourself shelves ... too bad i couldn't wait for drew to put them together for me .... and for more lumber to put across those two shelves to make one of my tables more hutch like ... and maybe more organized ..... 

doesn't that look more organized .... are you impressed ... i built those small shelves today ..... i put up the high shelves yesterday ..... 

i threw away four HUGE bags of trash ... HUGE .... i can't emphasize enough how much i threw away ... and i wasn't even throwing away good stuff .... just stuff that was pretty much meant to be trash ... who knew? 

so.... i have loads of pics over at flickr .... this one is a close up of the back wall has loads of notes on it ..... roll your mouse over the pic on flickr and you'll see all sorts of comments .... and then this one is of the left wall up high ...... also with a bunch of notes .... for your reading pleasure .... 

superficially, my studio is ready to go ... but i still have so much i can, could, should, might do .... i'll keep going til i run out of steam , i suppose ... wish me luck ! 

tomorrow i'm guest speaker at a women's group meeting .... oh my! .... wish me luck on that too .... but hopefully after that i'll have plenty of time to mess my studio up .... um.... i mean paint! 

cleaner... but not clean....

tra la la ... 

i got lots of words of encouragement from my tidy friends who love me in spite of my messy bessy tendencies .... thanks!

i spent a good three or four or five hours cleaning my studio today .... i really did great ... i cleaned off and put away all the stuff on my three favorite surfaces ... my six foot square table ... my sink's counter space .... and the high counter top on my wire baskets .... cleared them, cleaned them, took pictures of them in their newly clean state..... and then ? then i messed them up again.... i decided i needed to rearrange furniture, build some shelving, clean out some bins .... so all those clean surfaces? cluttered up again with all the stuff that i had to move out of my way to do my rearranging and carrying on .... it really was grand ... and i'm very happy with my plan .... but i now have another day or two of heavy duty tidy, organize, and fix-up ..... but that's ok ... it will all be worth it .... but right this moment ... the room looks WORSE than the photos i didn't want to show you on my last post!! 

so, that makes those photos LESS frightening ......here, take a look ..... i put them on flickr .... five photos to see!  .... and here's one of re cleaned, pre-re-messed ... got that? 

 

and here is the one tiny bit of art i did today .... 

...........this sweet bald thing was buried in my mess .... i felt a bit like an archeologist when i found it ... ah, an angel that lost its halo in the raku firing ..... so, i fashioned one out of copper wire .... took five minutes ... and that was my artistic moment of the day!! 

did you do anything artistic today? 

did you clean today? 

hope you were lucky enough to have a happy day doing either! 

uh oh!

i took a frightening, horrifying, embarrassing before picture of my studio space ... ack ! and it is just too bad... i can't show it to you ...maybe once i have a decent after picture to show you, i'll be willing to fess up with the bad ... but for now, just know, i'm hardly arting .... my kids don't go back to school until tuesday .... we've been baking (really! i'm not even fibbing on that one!) and running (my block is 1.1 mile...again, no lie) and playing basketball (well, them, not me) ..... really... just about everything but art ... not a great start on my resolution of 100 pieces ... but ...um...well.... i'm working on my momentum ..... i'm heading for my upswing ...that's right ... my upswing starts on tuesday ....um ...... or maybe i'll still be cleaning my studio ... eek! 

.... i finished that tiny bit of a blog ... and pushed publish ... and then wondered why i was toooooo sissy to show you my pics of my messy studio space .... so i thought ... quite the strain to think too much....i'm not the most introspective girl in the world ..... and what did i find when i was looking inside me? oh no! fear! fear that if you know how really truly horribly dramatically messy i can be that you, my artsy, groovy readers, won't LOVE me anymore.... i could hear YOU say ....oh, she's such a slob, i don't need to spend any more time here learning about her and her art ... she's a mess .... 

pay attention ... i typed this next sentence and it is hard to grasp.. so here's the warning .... tricky concept following ..... 

the little voice inside my head was mimicking you ...and you weren't being very nice to me .... the nerve! 

didja get that? i'm scared you'll think ill of me for my mess .... so i can't show it to you ..... 

do you know who that is in the photo? click here if you aren't sure .... i could use his help  

a)figuring out why my little voice is mimicking YOU being mean to mean (... i know you aren't really mean or thinking rude things about me, right? ... she said in an unsure font)

b)telling me if it is ok that i have a loud little voice

c)figuring why i'm so messy

d)tell me why i am procrastinating cleaning my studio ...when i really need to clean it so that i'll have some clear surfaces to create on ..... 

enough psych 101..... which i actually did horribly in my freshman year! 

ok.... there's a good question ..... 

what was your least favorite class in college or high school ..... i hated psych 101 and calculus .....

 

true to my procrastinating self .....

because i procrastinate so well .... i've waited til the end of the day on january THIRD to broach the subject that i'm certain is weighing on your mind ..... right? you know what it is, dontcha? 

resolutions ..... are you wondering about my resolutions ... the one for 2007 .... the one to be for 2008? 

let's start with 2007 .... no, let's talk about 2006 ... my boy always asked me to play games ... always at inopportune moments .... while i was cooking dinner or reading to the littlest one .... five minutes after bedtime ... two minutes before it was time to leave for school, church, errands, anywhere .... so, that led to my 07 resolution ... to play 500 games .... it was the first resolution that my children were ever aware of .... i'm sure that they think that's the only kind there is .... they don't know the lose weight, stop smoking, don't cuss kind of resolutions that the rest of the world does .. they just know family friendly resolutions ..... and ... rah! success ... in 2007 i kept a journal of games played ... and we played 514 .... the last two were on new year's eve with sophie before we headed out to a party ...... 514 ... pretty good, huh .... i had a resolution and it took the whole year ... and we persevered ... and success!!! 

so... that leads to 2008 .... i have an awful lot of people who have asked what this year's resolution will be .... my answer for the last month has been "i have no idea" ..... well ... i had ideas .... in 06 ....or maybe it was 05... my resolution was to read and journal 100 books .... and i did .... and i enjoyed it ... so i thought about another book journal .... or a reading journal with my kids of all the reading we do ..... but at some point it is just a chore to keep up with that kind of thing .... so it wasn't too appealing .... more games? no .... the kids wanted it to be a playing outside resolution ...but ya know? i don't really want to go play outside with them all the time ... i like when they play outside WITHOUT me .... hmmmm ..... on flickr there are lots of picture a day groups .... self portrait every day groups .... creative every day blogs .... so much to choose from .... but .... i decided this year was going to be about me ... not my kids ...not someone else's group .... but me .... and right now, i'm all about art .... i'm an artist, ya know .... so i decided to set an art goal .... 

it was a process coming to this resolution .... i tallied up what i earned last year selling my art .... i tallied up the number of canvases i painted .... eighty six! .... here are 36 i completed .....

i also tallied up how many i sold ... how many i gifted .... and then thought about prints and pottery and ATCs and art boxes and ..... i thought about art .... there's a show coming up that i'm putting pieces into ...maybe a dozen or so ...that's in february..... and i'm having my first opening at the gallery that represents me here in town ....that's in may..... and ......

... well .... i don't have much art for these shows! i need to get working .... and i think i'll do three shows again next fall ... and NEXT year, that's 2009, i'm having a show in florida (two man show ...with my mom!!)

 ..... so .... with all that in mind my resolution is to do 100 canvases this year .... do you think i can? it is hard to imagine! that's a ton! i did as many as i can imagine this year, and i did 86 ... can i even do that many again? 

should they be huge like i love? 

medium sized that sell so well?

small ...that torture me? 

flowers?

monas? 

homes? 

abstracts? 

hearts? 

something else entirely? 

oh my ..... and in the meanwhile? my studio looks like christmas exploded all over it .... coating an already messy room in even more messiness .... 

so... short term goal? attack my studio disaster....

long term goal? lots and lots and lots of canvases ...... 

wish me luck! 

january 2, doobity doobity doo

the kids are out of school for the rest of the week ...yippee for that!! .... so we made the most of our day and headed to the high museum .... once we got over the no parking in the deck, park far, walk long, wind tunnel building through ways, and 20 odd degrees ..... we were fine!! well... fine once we warmed up!! 

oh.... interruption sidebar: e. beck fact (take notes, it'll be on the test) - art history major

 

the high museum has a partnership with the louvre ....(oh, more note taking - e spent a summer semester in paris) .... our first exhibit today was the second of three in three years .... you might recall i went to the last one over the summer .... remember? e and marie antionette both wear nancy drew headbands?  so, we got our headphones 

and listened and learned our way through "the louvre and the ancient world " .... ancient egypt, greek, roman and etruscan artifacts from the louvre ... all very interesting ... and those headphones are god sends ... my kids dig them and they are very informative ..... 

the second part of that exhibit "the eye of josephine" was all art that empress josephine had collected for herself, that eventually made it into the louvre .... even after napoleon divorced her (is that right? ) she went right on collecting ancient artifacts ...my absolute favorites were a series of frescoes that were rescued (stolen?) from the wreckage of pompeii ... the original was a large mural of apollo with the nine muses .... in josephine's collection, you see apollo and just eight muses .... apparently one muse was left behind at the pompeii site .... 

here are two muses ..... the muses of comedy and tragedy ....

aren't they gorgeous .... they are framed now ... so, nine in a row maybe 16 inches tall .... luscious gold backgrounds ..... cool women.... and one apollo ......... very stunning ... my favorite bit .... 

we also saw an exhibit called "inspiring impressionism" .....  it showed old masters and impressionist paintings side by side to show the correlation .... how the old masters influenced the impressionists .... lots of the impressionists  were registered to paint in the louvre .. they copied the masters .... there was a mary cassatt painting of a mother and two children that was remarkably similar to a renaissance painting of a madonna and child ... and the second child in the renaissance painting is a cupid ... it was quite striking ... lots of them were ..... we listened to descriptions of this exhibit on headphones too .... my favorite bit is when the narrator asks a question, and sophie answers it aloud .... 

so, not my usual artsiness today .... but quite an artsy day, nonetheless ..... 

oh wait .... who can go to a museum without going to the gift shop ..... and when sophie asked for the mona lisa night light, how could i, of all people, say no? ......

so, what's your favorite museum? 

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

happy new year ......

we had a new year's evening filled with food and friends and fun ..... around about 10 o'clock sweet sophie went from cuddled next to me to sprawled over me .... getting heavier and heavier as she fell deeper and deeper into sleep ..... i woke her and said, let's go home ... no mommy, i was awake ....i'm just resting ..... no baby, you are asleep, let's get you home to bed ...no mommy, we are supposed to stay up ..... so..... we went outside with our second wind and did sparklers ....... ten kids or so ..... then went inside to watch the tv count down .... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz .... i'm thinking i'm middle aged, cause those minutes leading up to midnight are getting looooonger and looooooonger! ...... we did actually make it to midnight .... with horn tooting and kissing and such ...... 

did you celebrate the last day of 2007? 

did you have a resolution last year? 

was it successful? 

do you have a resolution for 2008? 

how are you going to make it happen? 

here's wishing you and yours a joyful 2008 .... full of all the things that make you happy .... 

happy 2008 ....