raise your hand if you are afraid of public speaking ...

did you raise your hand? are you afraid of public speaking? 

i did a program today for about 150 people ..... last night i was ready, had my stuff in the car even, and my husband asked me i was worried, nervous, ready..... how was i feeling? i said i wasn't nervous ... and that made me nervous..... ha .... 

anyway.... my pal, helen, came with me for moral support .... i did a 45 minute presentation on this book ..... i think i did fine ... some folks said very nice things to me ... and i was asked to participate in some other events in the future ... so someone liked me enough to want to share me with another group .... and i'm pretty sure i'll never have a group THAT big again .... 

...and ... at this very moment? i am a hero .... just in my house ... but i am a HERO ... the rockingest best mom ever .... my twins' birthday is this week ... but i gave them an early birthday gift ... a wii.... a wii from mii ... a wii from mommii ..... so we'll spend the rest of this long wiikend playing wii.... yipii .... 

and one last thing .... yesterday, friday, i delivered 20 pieces of art to be in a show this week ..... i don't actually know if i'm going to even make it to the show because i have such a crammed week .... including lasik eye surgery on thursday .... i am going to try to go though, because the art that i saw when i was dropping mine off was FAB ... really great .... like, so great, that on my art journey, i realized just how far i still have to go.... 

hope you're having a happy weekend .... how do you feel about public speaking? 

happy heart

thanks to cheryl ... where i saw the make your own candies! ..... 

happy valentine's day, folks out there in blog land ..... 

heart art is some of my favorite ...... 

you can see some of my happy heart work here ....

and a favorite heart art here ....

or click on this bit for sweet heart art ..... 

hope your day is heart filled and so happy and filled with people who love you .....  

multi tasking .....

i'm blogging AND watching american idol at the same time ..... gotta love that! .....  

take a look at this first picture .... where do you think that is? you think on it .... 

monday and tuesday this week? i played tennis.... it was gorgeous, perfect, fabu weather ..... and today? nearly fifty when i woke up.... but then, walking to school? forty degrees .... and later ...on my way to pottery? 30 degrees and windy, bitter, damp cold ... brrrrrrr ..... 

i always feel most sorry for my wee, little dog in weather this cold ... she just shivers and shivers .... 

so, that pic up there? that gorgeous, snowy mountain picture? ....taken with a cell phone .. imagine that .... a cell phone!...  my dear one took that in germany ..... he was away for nearly a week... had one day off over there ... and he went skiing on this gorgeous mountain .... and the best part? now he's home ..... 

..and now for the art portion of my day ..... i had pottery class .... i glazed three pieces ... two platters and one that's more of a dish with sides .... i have high, high hopes for the platters .... cross your fingers that i'll show you fab next week ..... 

i also made a couple pieces ..... and mostly? i chitchatted with my girlfriend, carolyn .... she's one of my pottery girls .... 

and i picked this piece up ..... i'm very happy with how it turned out .... you can see it larger and with some notes on my flickr site here .....  

....and once again, one of my children said to me... too bad your resolution is about canvases .... this plate should count ..... ha .... 

tomorrow is valentine's day ... hope you are planning on having a happy one ... 

smile....

...and now, an unannounced break from e's art blog ..... for a moment of mommeeeee-ness .... 

my little sunshine said, mom, i have a toothache.....

e: really, when did it start

s: i don't know, a while ago

e: do you need to floss, maybe there's something stuck in between your teeth...

s: it hurt before i flossed yesterday too .... 

e: come here, show me which tooth....

s: this one

e: honey, your tooth is LOOSE .... 

s: are you sure? 

e: here, feel it and move it..... 

s: yippeeeeeeee .... 

....and she does the happy dance ..... she is seven .... and now the next to last child in her first grade class to have a loose tooth .... and, at the rate she's wiggling it, the next to last child to lose a tooth .... because with constant wiggling, that tooth is bound to be out soon .... 

who knows how long that tooth was loose ... she had no concept of what "loose tooth" meant .... 

this blog post is brought to you by joy ..... and happiness ....and contentedness....  and sheer pleasure in the small moments...... 

here's what made me happy today: 

2 phone calls from a far-away-on-a-trip-been-gone-too-long husband...

4 of us meeting 3 pals for dinner...

60 minutes of tennis with 1 groovy coach and 1 groovier pal...2 days in a row

12 girlfriends rsvping yes to plans for a valentine brunch ....

fed ex's 1 email to me, 2 valentine gifts for my true love being delivered tomorrow...whew....

2 canvases i worked on today...

3 children making valentine's...

wearing 1 pair of doodle shoes today......

and of course, 1 wiggly tooth... in 1 giggly mouth ... 

what made you happy today? 

what are you persnickety about?

i started painting with acrylics in some post bac art classes in 1988ish.... i think ... and i used liquitex tubes ... i had some jars .. but mostly tubes .... then four or five years ago i started using golden's ... they are more expensive ... but i was trying to be "serious" about my paint .... i love them... they mix well ...they have a great smooth texture ..... about a year ago i needed a better black for my edges .... what i was using was bugging me .... and the liquitex basic looked like it came in a good tube for that ... not a toothpaste tube that you have to pinch and squeeze and torture ... a gently forgiving plastic squirter.... i  loved it ...not too pricey but good edge coverage ... and that's important cause my edges are frequently junky with bunches of oozed over collage or medium ....  that liquitex basic is awesome .... i have it in a couple colors .. but love it for the black ..... and then .... within the last year ... pearl's was having a sale on some of its store brand acrylics......so i just bought "pretty" ones .... and i ADORE them .... they are scrumptious .... and colors that i don't have many other tube acrylics in ..... so .... some artists are true to a brand ...only like a certain acrylic..... not me .... van gogh has a red that is primo fabulous bestest ever ..... can't live without it!  

 ...so what are you like? brand loyal to your paint? to your shampoo? to your soda? 

i am brand loyal to my soda... i should just go ahead and have diet coke tattoed to my forehead ... it would help waiters and waitresses ..... should have done it 20 years ago! 

i am not brand loyal to shampoo .... i have a favorite ...until it isn't my favorite ...and then i change ..... i was using nexxus something or other ...it had grapefruit conditioner ... that i LOVED ... and then they switched it...no graperfruit ... and i stuck with it ...until i saw burt's bees had grapefruit! ....had to have it .... so, for the minute, i'm burt's bees brand loyal.....

 
i'm getting more brand loyal to my canvases ... i didn't know that, until i got some i didn't love ... same with brushes ... i'm not brand loyal ...but the more i paint, the more persnickety i get ... persnickety is just another word for brand loyal ... did you know that? 

so, are you a brand loyal type? always buy the same something or other? used the same ________ (fill in the blank) your whole life? what's your favorite paint? color? shampoo? underwear brand? ..... i have no underwear loyalty .... i probably should ..... i have to rethink and refigure every time ... it would be easier to just KNOW ..... anyway? what's your persnickety? 

would you wear a broom as a corsage? well, what about it if were pink, then you would, right?

hi, this is jumping jack mona .... pull the string and her arms and legs kick up and down ... i made her two or three years ago at the front out of my mona lisa thing ..... if you read this blog post, you'll know she was hanging up, yet buried, prior to my '08 studio purge .... now she's in a place where she can be seen and appreciated .... 

and do you remember the pink dustpan and dust broom? that i picked up for a pittance just to keep it in my studio ... turning over a new leaf with a little pink broom? well, i found it today ... and whaddaya know? i have NEVER touched it since the day i bought it, blogged it, and bragged on it ..... never touched it .... what's up with that ... so, it obviously was in the wrong spot .... that little pink broom needs to be used ... but, out o' sight = out o' mind ..... so .... now mona is holding it .... i used a wire to make a hook for mona to hold the dustbin and broom for me .... so ...now, i'll either see the broom and use it .... or, alternately, i'll still be a mess but it's a handy dandy pink accessory for jumping jack mona ... 

so .... my weekend was ballet, two basketball games, two guitar lessons, a trip to the mall for a return, church, sunday school, one birthday party, and two president power point presentations ...oh, wait ... that was my kids' weekend ....  i don't think *i* did anything .... how 'bout you? good weekend? 

15

i've been a bit out of sorts ... for a variety of reasons ... but i figured out how to be back to sorted .... 

do something fun .... 

so i went back to my old faithful favorite .... mona lisa ..... have you met her? do you know our history ..... i have a flickr set of all my mona art ..... and i have a juicy blog entry about her too .... 

anyway .... why was i procrastinating painting? why put off doing something that you love doing? oh, cause i was enjoying a good wallow, maybe .... so .... instead of going to my basement to work .... i went and just played ..... and made something fun and happy and easy .....

mona on an ice cream cone isn't new to me ..... so i was just reworking an old fave .... actually, i think the first thing that ever sold at lola's gallery was rocky road mona .....

i started with a long background that i papered and lettered at allison's a few weeks ago ..... today, i glazed it brown, thinking of this piece .... but it was too brown and i didn't know what to do with it .... so then i painted some dark turquoise glaze on it ... and it was au courant with turq and brown .... then i puttered around ...not sure what i was going to do with it .... it was nice ..... but not nice enough ....so i started rummaging around ..... and found some mona's ..... i didn't plan on using her, but i gave one some pink highlights ... you know, just looking for something to do ..... and then i was making her into ice cream .... fast forward a bit .... and i had a full ice cream cone ...not glued down .... but it didn't look great on the background .... so, i decided to add sherbert colors to the background .... some of my very favorite paints that i bought ONLY in sherbert colors ..... so .... i loaded up the background with more vibrant colors, added ice cream mona ..... oh..... and put a cherry on top .... 

and that is number fifteen of the 100 canvases i am hoping to complete this year .... ok? 

ps.... over on flickr ... i've posted my background ... and some close ups of this piece ... well worth a peek .... have a happy weekend ... do something creative ....

when will e EVER do her 15th canvas .... starting to worry ??? ... maybe....

ya know .... i'm this artsy, busy, mom-ish, well (over?) educated, dog walking kind of girl ..... i love to read .... i love museums .... my favorite section of the paper is the front page and the editorials .... i've got a strong nerdy streak ... yup, on paper, i'm a true blue geek ..... 

but in real life, i'm not so highbrow.....my current dilemna?  lost, project runway, and an american top model marathon ..... all on at once .... an abundance of 9 o'clock viewing possibilities ..... and this during a writer's strike? what would i do if there were good tv on ... ah, the mind spins ..... not to mention, i flat out missed the opening episode of the new survivor ..... i just forgot about it .... oh well ..... 

but enough of my problems! here are my solutions to yesterday's blog.... fixed up angels: 

this first one is about eight inches tall .... white clay, red oxide glaze (is that right? now i'm not sure....)  i had her in the raku kiln yesterday .... and her wing fell off in their .... it was rescued and i scrubbed it up .... and glued it back on .... i believe that this is a lopsided flier ..... but no matter .... angels don't expect to be perfect ..... if only people were so smart .... 

i finally tossed out the other angel .... she wasn't lucky enough to be fixable after i mangled her .... that big chunk out of the side of her disattached head was just more than glue and glitter could fix .... luckily, these angels have no planned future ... they are just meant to be happy experiments .... or ordinary experiments in the case of the exploded head .... 

i have about 8 more bisque fired blobs ..... two that i have glittered and finished .... see them here .... and bunches to finish .... do you like this one? it is raku fired .... hawaiian blue glaze ..... i need to decide if i'm going to second fire the others , like this one, or if i'm simply going to leave them white .... julia, resident art critic and art cheerleader, likes this one better than the white ones ....i'm undecided ...... what do you think? 

i have a commissioned canvas ... the hardest kind to work on!! ..... somehow it is JUST so hard to do what i'm supposed to do .... i'm much more inclined to do my usual puttering and ignore the canvas with a deadline .... it's the slacker in me .... but i'll get it in gear .... i always do .... 

i've also had a decorator come by and she took a few pieces away ... and i realized that i really need to do some larger canvases ... i also need to do some more of my florals that aren't assemblaged ... more conservative ..... well, i don't need to, but i usually sell those pretty easily ..... i just need to get on with it, huh? ...but here i am fretting about poor, sweet jack on lost .... i love him ... but i'm really worried about his sanity ... and unless lost starts making more sense, you might need to worry about my sanity ..... tomorrow i WILL show you a canvas that has been completed .... maybe ..... i hope .... really, i'll try hard ... 

pick a title, any title:

a. good angels gone bad 

b. when angel heads explode

c. angel, ready to run.... 

d. well, this one made it ...... 

i had pottery today .... i had three large angels to raku .... and i did one small one that will turn out something like this ......... 

one angel, dropped a wing after firing, before being put in its fire pot .... my friend kathy nabbed the wing and tossed it in the pot ..... i've performed reconstructive surgery with e6000 and predict a full recovery, though lopsided flying might be an issue .....

one angel, when the kiln was opened, was standing there headlesss ..... my teacher, carol, nabbed the head and tossed it in the pot for me ..... later, i discovered that it was actually half a head ... half a halo too, actually .... kind of cataclysmic ...apocalyptic even .... i should have picked it up and thrown it away .... but, for some unknown reason, i toted it home .... i guess to mourn it .... it's a gorgeous blue ... ok ... the body is a gorgeous blue ..... the head? not so much .... 

and then ... one ghosty thing to turn into an angel with hardware and doodads .... it came out fine .... and then i dropped it when i got home ...oops .... headless angel.... again .... luckily, again thanks to the miraculous curative powers of the gloriously strong e6000 glue, it has been mended ... and halo'd and winged .... but is drying face down .... not ready for its photo op ....

so an angelic recap? this green one, looking like it is about to sprint away, in the photo, worked out ..... do you like it? 

one, dead and gone forever ..... once i'm brave enough to throw it away .....

two, on the mend, currently residing in the angel hospital that once was my art studio .....

and one last colorful note: 

i was at our ash wednesday service this morning .... the cross was draped and hidden ... in PURPLE ... you know i have a love/hate relationship with purple ... ok ... a like/ hate .... no ... a barely like/hate relationship with poor purple ... julia remarked on the purple .... and then asked .... what do you think god's favorite color is? i bet it's purple ..... well, i'm sure it isn't purple, is what i said .... a bit close minded and stubborn perhaps ... but not purple! purple is the color of a good hard bruise! .... i think sky blue or grass green or spring green or strawberry red is his favorite color..... what do you think?  

super tuesday ....

when i walk my kids to school (how old fashioned of me) i walk the dog too .... and then i continue on walking .... for exercise for me ...and to be nice to the dog .... today, super tuesday, dixie and i walked from dropping the kids off to our polling place ..... dixie was the only dog at the polling place .... imagine that ...... there was one toddley child  there ... dixie was better behaved than the kid .... there was one infant there .... the infant was calmer than dixie ..... there were lots of old people there ... they all liked dixie better than either the toddler or the infant .....i'm not sure how the toddler or the infant voted ..... dixie didn't tell me either .... she was between bark obama and mutt romney ...... 

i've been telling that joke all day ..... yes, i know, i'm a dork ...... 

i did nine thousand six hundred and forty two errands today .... i got in a bit of art but took no pictures for you ...... so, if you haven't read yesterday's blog, go ahead and do that ... it was long and newsy and full ..... for now, hope you had a super tuesday.....i promise pics and links tomorrow .... tra la la .... 

14 .... spell check says purpley isn't a word... that's too bad...

hurrah ... i finished my 14th painting of 2008 ... it was done on a canvas that i started work on a bit ago ..... a 12 by 12 ..... it is further exploration of a theme i've been working with ....some people hang their heart on their sleeve .... but when i got sidetracked and went to play hide and seek with everyone else, i hung my heart out on the tree just in case ..... 

a heart on a tree seems like openness.... ready for something or someone .... ready for the extraordinary ..... i like the notion of open hearted ..... 

so .... that said ... can you belive it's purpley? i NEVER use purple .... ever! ..... well, never say never .... cause it looks even more purple in real life .... 

but .... while exploring my happy and familiar themes, i'm working on stretching myself in different ways .... like the purple ... but also, this heart

 string notion has always been on a partial branch, not a whole tree....like this one, or here....or this one .... and two out of the three have been sold,

 adding yet another reason to continue to explore the theme ...... so, with this painting, while staying the same, i'm also trying hard to be different ..... 

and ... while we are talking about being different ... here's a different piece .... a blue pear .... i've done loads of pears ... here's a whole flickr set of fruit ..... but this pear was different for me when i did it ... more brown than my usual ... more subdued .... but very bold in its blueness ... very textured .... so ... this is the piece i donated to my school's auction .... and it sold for more than i would have sold it for .... that made me happy ..... 

i also was going to tell you about the nativity i made with sophie's class .... it think it went for more than three hundred dollars .... that's what it was the last time i checked on it .... and i don't think that person actually got it, so someone outbid her in the silent auction ..... 

....and .... off of the art subject .... tomorrow is super tuesday and i'm voting ..... 

here's an interesting e.beck.voter tidbit ..... the person that i vote for in the primary NEVER is running for president in november .... like, i voted for the first george bush in the 1980 primary ... and he ended up as reagan's running mate instead ..... or ..... let's see, paul tsongas .... he ran against bill clinton in 92 primaries .... so ... i can't pick them, apparently .... regardless of party affiliation ..... i also am HUGELY irregular in my party affiliation ..... oh well, at least i get a fresh chance every four years .... 

i've been talking with my fifth grade twins about the election ..... i give them simple pros and cons for each candidate ....why people like a candidate, why others are opposed... the kids hear the same thing from me .... and one hopes i'm voting for mccain ... the other wants me to vote for obama ..... both have reasonable reasons ....  both think the other is dead wrong .... ha ..... so, happy super tuesday to you , don't forget to vote tomorrow if you are a super tuesday state .... 

and i'm just going to keep going .....apparently i shouldn't have skipped the last few days of blogging cause i have a lot to say ..... 

i went to a PRE-OP appointment today ...gasp..... oh my..... but, acutally, not really gasp worthy .... i'm going to get LASIK surgery on my eyes..... my regular eye doc is a friend from church ... and my pre-op was with her husband who is with a different eye doc group .....so, he knew me a bit ..... and here is why i am telling you this ...... on the papers that i filled out ....under job? i wrote artist ..... the truth .... but so interesting to write it ... declare it ... put it out there for someone to challenge.... artist? really? you sure? ...when someone then reads it, they don't know how i sometimes feel like i'm pretending to be an artist .... i'm doing a fine job pretending .....but it still doesn't always seem real... ya know? ..... so ..... dr. s. said to me, i know you are a gifted story teller, i've heard you, is that what you are referring to when you write that you are an artist? .... and i had to tell him no..... i'm a painter and collage artist ..... i said it without giggling even ..... he said that was interesting but that he hadn't known it .... i preceded to ask him about three heart collages in his home .... that i had made! ..... kind of funny.... his wife bought three hearts at an auction ...... he just hadn't connected the dots that they were mine .... so he was actually quite familiar with some of my art ..... 

and one more thing .... in case you haven't read enough of me ..... i have an article, a story, in my church paper .... here's the link .... you have to scroll down to page six ...... one of those days in january that i didn't blog, i was writing this instead...... 

i have plans to do art tomorrow .. but my plans have been going quite astray lately! ...... let's hope it works out ..... stay tuned .....

ps.... i just reread this .... and it is the type of blog entry that is HARD to read .... cause if you want to comment, you have trouble remembering all the different parts ... so i'll recap ... you can comment on 

a. the purple painting

b. the auction's blue pear or nativity  

c. my peculiar voting record ... or my children's choices .....

d. lasik surgery, oh my! or my eye doc having my art

e. the article i wrote 

ok ... go ahead, review done, comment away .....

i love this video ....

thanks heidi .... i grabbed it off your blog ....