.... three pears ... three pairs = six ... but still just three ...

yippee .... something artsy to show you .... i picked this ceramic platter up today .... i finished it a couple weeks ago, right before summer started ... but it took me a month to go back and get it from the kiln room since i'm not taking pottery this quarter .... i think on the dots you can tell that i used the eraser end of a pencil to make indentations .... all the colored elements are relief ....pushed, pulled, poked and carved would be the technical terms .... i think it is about 12 inches across .... for now it is sitting on my kitchen counter ... eventually it will probably make it to my gift shelf ... i don't generally sell my pottery anymore ... i give it away for house warmings and hostess gifts and birthday presents .....

i DID work in my studio today .... i'll try to actually even do something photo worthy tomorrow!

.... planning and planning and planning ...

so ... i've been planning to paint this week and i'm edging in on wedensday and haven't stepped foot in my studio yet this week ... and i have two deadlines looming ... at least i've started one of the pieces .... so ... instead of painting, i'm planning to paint .... and living a full life of happy summer joy with my family ....

.... and then yesterday BAM .... i mean BAM .... i was in the shower and had this notion for a book .... and since then i've been a tad obsessive in my head about this book ... i have an occasional niggle in my brain that says WAIT you haven't really edited that last book you wrote .... but then i think and think and think about this book idea .... i kind of told mr.e.beck.artist about it ... and he was VERY encouraging .... he didn't even know he was being encouraging ... he thought he was speaking in the abstract and not directly to this new thing in my brain .... and was telling me what he thought was best about my various writings .... so .... that's it ... still haven't painted yet ... leaving the art blog blank unless i fill it up with the other stuff rattling around in my wee brain ....

how 'bout you? what's going on in your head?

.....it's a green thing ....

so .... my studio is in a bit of disarray ... the last dozen or so projects that i have undertaken have been poorly tidied upon completion ... so it goes .... instead of filing away painted papers as i finish up with them, i've just started piling them up on the end of my table ... at least they are organized by color ....

my last HUGE studio tidy and rearrange, i made my work table out of three long tables rather than just two .... so now it is nine feet by six feet .... pretty good, huh? i'm pretty sure i could have a 20 by 20 foot table and have no problem filling it up with projects in the process .... it just means i could procrastinate more things simultaneously .... the second pic here, it's just a close up of the papers i've been painting and using in recent collages .... i always make extras .... making more for me to clean up ... but giving me a ready supply for smaller pieces .....

and the last pic is a pile of green joy .... green happiness ... green green green .... my deadline painting group on flickr does a once a month theme ... this months theme is greeeeeeeen ..... hence the pile of green .... if you could only see all the brain power that had gone into the green, then you'd be really impressed ... what's that inspiration and perspiration quote .... clearly i'm still on the one percent ....

bear with me on the sporadic blogging ... next week i'm sure to be painting .... all three kids are in camp all week ... so at least a couple of those days i should be able to squeeze in some studio time ... let's just hope i don't spend the time cleaning instead of painting ... that would be bad ....

have you painted anything lately?

..... summer time surfing ....

... summer time surfing .... once, as a teenager, a friend and i tried surfing with a bunch of boys on the beach ... the boys thought they were great surfers ... and were intent on showing us just how easy it was to ride the waves ... but ... it was florida ... the waves were small .... the effort put forth was negligible ... and the surfing career ended before it began .... so ... thank goodness for the world wide web .. har .... i surf many evenings now, regardless of beach conditions .. not to mention i live about a zillion miles from a beach .....

so ... some good recent surfing for your perusal ....

i love this zen site .... and here's a good article from there for artists and writers ....

and there's zen family too ... here's a good article ....

and here's a favorite, studio mothers .... again, for artists and writers, particularly of the mom persuasion ...

here's on that's new to me ... hello my name is blog .... this is the article that sucked me in ... for artists ....

and ... here's a blog i like ... i bought the book recently .....the happiness project ....

happy summer surfing ... you don't even need to get your toes wet ....

.... summer thoughts ....

.... summer is in full swing .... no art for me lately ... but lots of joy ....

i adore my family .... mom, dad, siblings, sibling spouses, my kids' cousins .... i spent a week at the beach with extended family ... it was a pretty perfect week .....

i adore ice cream ... early in the week i took the four girl cousins to the grocery store to stock up on ice cream treats .... we went overboard ... the next day, girl.beck.artist had a different ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner ...not especially healthy ... but a fab memory of a fab week ... (personal fave: key lime pie ben and jerry's ice cream ... and visualize whirled peace ... also b and j)

i adore my brothers .... my brothers fish .... and this trip caught a shark that they couldn't get off the line fast enough to keep it alive .... one brother did his best to resuscitate it ... everything short of mouth to mouth (eek) ... and then being outdoorsmen, decided the only way to be respectful of the inadvertent death was to grill that shark up for dinner ... oh my .... i won't be trying shark again ... too chewy ....

i adore the beach ....my favorite part of the day was late, late afternoon .. tide coming in .... a frantic moving of flip flops, towels and bags ... and the waves lapping over the toes and under the beach chairs .....

i adore biking ... not cycling and spandex and infinite gears .... but sit up straight bikes, flowered baskets, and flat wide paths ..... i biked every day for seven days .... joy .....

i adore swimming ... we rented a house with a pool ... my favorite time to swim was after tennis (wow, i played LOADS of tennis) ... to be SO hot and then completely submerge in the pool to cool off was fab .... i only swam in my tennis clothes once ... when the rest of the family was at the beach .... just jumped right in ... the other days i managed to get into a swim suit first .....

i adore my nephews ... but wish they weren't both SO much better than i am at scrabble .....

how's your summer starting?

.... we interrupt the regularly scheduled art blog ... to make excuses ....

my kids have been out of school for exactly one week now .... since then i have:

*played tennis six times (i'm not getting any better, but i really like it),

*golfed twice (all my kids are better than i am, and i'm trying to keep a good attitude in spite of a wicked slice...),

*taken the kids to the pool three times,

*finished an entire spray can of sunscreen

*played monopoly deal (my fave) 27 times,

*played oh heck 3 times,

*played backgammon 19 times,

*done 17 (estimating low there) loads of laundry,

*watched six episodes of deep space nine with the twins,

*watched three episodes of josie and the pussycats with little.e.beck.artist,

*gone to one graduation and the afterparty,

*gone to one graduation/memorial party,

*painted little.e.beck.artist's toe nails twice,

*fought a valiant (though losing battle) against ants in my kitchen,

*taken the kids shopping for summer church shoes, swim suits and shorts,

*.... and i have not stepped one step into my studio YET ... yikes!

no art to report, but i'm living life large ....

how's your summer shaping up?

big flowers... it's your life ...

i finished and delivered my commissioned painting today .... it looks like the small ones that i've been posting ... but it is 30 inches square ... it was very well received and made me feel all warm and mushy inside ... rah for that ....

here's a link to the song that i was asked to use ... just the chorus is written through the grass ....but i attached the full lyrics to the back in case years from now someone is wondering what the song was ....

tomorrow is my kids' last day of school ... yay me! i'm as thrilled as they are .... what's your favorite thing about summer? my favorite thing is more time with my kids ... coinciding with fewer commitments.....

happy happy joy joy!

be present ....

one of my great joys as a collage artist is the people who "get" me ... i have more than my fair share of friends and family who give me their extra bits that they think/know i'd like to use in my art ....i get road atlases and world atlases and maps of kansas from 1962 and french horn music and monopoly boards and bottle caps and dress patterns... and it all makes me happy ... i like that someone can give me what they don't want/need/love anymore and know that i DO want it ....because i am so rich in goodies i can get double, triple, happy creative and use some of it as wrapping paper .. so map art inside, and map outside .... groovy huh .... i wrapped about ten gifts tonight while we watched american idol ... every single one, i showed the closest kid: LOOK, don't you just love this? ....

the tenth time i said it, one voice piped up: i'd like it better if the present was for me ...

ha!

gotta love presents, huh?

two paintings and it is almost summer...

i finished two six inchers today ... and worked (hard! i worked hard!) to get my big commission done ... but it's not done ... but it is absolutely getting done ... whew ....

these two new are similar to other recent pieces ... i've gifted and sold a couple so i'm restocking ....

my big kids have one more exam ... then a day of goofing off, like signing year books and emptying lockers ... then a half day with the honors assembly ... and then SUMMERtime .... we're all ready for summer ... and no homework and sleeping late .... and for me? summertime means children in my art studio... which is perfect ... i always want company!

how 'bout you? what's summer look like at your house ....

lollypop flowers .....

spring has sprung and if i'm not mistaken, i need to quit saying that because summer is minutes away....

have you noticed your grass? mine is beautiful ... the dog and i played in it for a good bit today .... that dog gives me countless reasons to notice the small things ... like the grass ... so when it was time to take pics of the art i finished today, it was nice to appreciate the grass ....

i always take tight pics of my art and crop out the extraneous ... but i like the look of them in the grass ....
here are close ups .... of the lollypop flowers ...and my little bump people

if you want to read more about these five pics ... or get a better look at them ... click over to my flickr site .....

i got a great start on a 30 inch square commissioned piece today ... i hope to finish it tomorrow ... in the morning if it rains or in the afternoon while my kids are studying for finals ..... it is meant to be a graduation gift that the buyer is giving to her child .....

do you have anyone important graduating this season? lots of my friends do ..... graduation is definitely a changing of seasons, huh?

don't forget to notice your green grass ....

paint, paint, paint....

i had a very productive, paint-filled day ....

i finished a 12 inch square piece ... a graduation gift ......

i started eight small canvases ... got the backgrounds painted and glazed ... all six inch squares ....

please notice that i have been cleaning up after myself as i go along, these days .... yes, yes, that's clean... really ....

and i painted green and green and green and green on all sorts of papers ....

i've always had jenkins green in my golden's fluid acrylic stash ... but i never knew i loved it until today ... i love it ... love it ... jenkin's green ... rah for that ...

and i took photos ... and i actually, same day, got them onto my computer, onto flickr and onto my blog .... not to mention, i had a to do list with nine things on it today ... and i ticked off every single one ... i usually make a list and then don't do the things on it ... in my head thinking, at least i have this list to remind me to do them tomorrow ... or the next day ... ha ... any other procrastinators out there?

it's an orange thing ....

that's me in front of a stingray .... a car at the high museum's current big deal exhibit .... that's me in the cute orange skirt .... it was after hours ... i was at a party .... cool, huh?
and these are my patent leather orange sandals and my patent leather orange watering can purse ......
and these are curly orange ribbons on six inch canvases that i wrapped up in maps for various gift giving purposes today ..... i actually wrapped a fourth, but it had pink and green ribbon so it didn't make the picture ....

so i've had some orange karma going on .... how 'bout you? what's your color du jour?

and ... tra la la ... didja notice i fixed my t? my T ... the key tey? ... i used a tiny dry paintbrush and dusted and decrumbed my laptop's keyboard ..... terrific, huh .... my c is sticking now though ... i'm thinking i still need a laptop check up or tune up or something, something ....