summertime

summer is treating me very well .... watermelon, artichokes, corn, swimming pools, sunscreen, summer showers, movies, games ..... we played swap today ... what's the last game you played? 

this weekend, i am going to my first high school reunion ..... and how old am i? too old to be going to my first high school reunion .... but .... i am not a slacker, skipping reunions until now, instead, this is the first one that my class has had the gumption to get together ...... and it is our 26th!  ....  we had fewer than 40 in the class .... so it is a small gathering at the beach ..... should be a ton of fun ..... 

then? when i return ..... it's the last run up to my moving day .... i'm breathless with anticipation for that! i can't begin to tell you how thrilled i am to leave this brownbrownbrown rental house and move back to my sunshine happy house .... 

i'll have sunshine happy pictures for you next week .... 

sunshine wishes to you and yours ....tell me how summer is treating you .... what's your summer joy? 

pottery bits ....

here are photos (finally) of the two pieces of pottery i picked up this week from the kiln room ... ready to be used ... the top one is gray speck clay (which turns out tan, you see .... it looks gray when it is wet and unfired) .... and then i pressed glass beads into it .... they melted in the bisque fire ... i clear glazed it ... and then the glass melted even more in the final firing ....

then the one below, i love extra much ..... gray speck, slab rolled, textured with strips and stripes ..... transparent green glaze .... not quite square ... and the perfect size for my life ... it could hold a salad or some fruit, cheese and crackers or rolls, chicken wings or cous cous .... just the perfect size ... oh .... piles of cookies will look good too .... 
not sure if i'll keep it for myself or gift it .... 

my pottery quarter has ended .. time to sign up for the next one ... 

tra la la ... 

.....that's what i'm talking about!!

today was my kids' last day of school .... honors assembly ... half day .... pool party ... watermelon .... summer joy began at noon ..... late in the day, i stopped by my real house to get the mail .... and BOOM ... joy, joy, joy, joy .... my house just seems SOOOO close to ready ... oh my! i'm jump for joy ecstatic .... 

here's my kitchen in all its delicious ornageness ......  

..... and ... another shot ....where the range goes ....and a glimpse of counters that were installed today .....

...and a close up of the counter, the groovy windowsill counter, the orange wall .... bliss! .... i know these aren't that exciting for YOU ... and i don't know if i have the words to tell you just how happy i am about all this .... eek!
and here's a shot of the deck .... still needs railings .... but it was air yesterday ... at least today there's something to take a pic of ! 

oh .... it needs a bit more than railings ..... that first step out the door is a dooooozy ....and off the deck is my dumpster ... and, though it's been handy, i'm not keeping it ..... it was just emptied ... it's usually overflowing .....and here's the money shot ... the happy shot ... the color joy .... from where i'm standing in the kitchen, you can see orange kitchen walls, yellow family room walls, and green sunroom walls .... colorcolorcolorcolor ..... tra la la .....

this is an artist's blog ... and i mean to write about my paintings and collage and such .... but today, the art form i'm blogging is dance ..... the happy dance! .... 

what have you done the happy dance for lately? 

another wednesday .....

i'm doing well these days to blog once a week!! but the end is in sight ... i'll be back to my real house, my art studio, and real life in just a couple weeks! hooray ... my home renovation is almost done .... i met with the contractor today and talked about floors and counters and paint ... i talked to a knob guy and picked out my door nobs ..... i went to my last pottery class of the quarter ...... 

let's start there .... i went to pottery ... i picked up three pieces ... two quite good and one that i lovelovelove .... i got one piece of bisque back and glazed it ... i have high hopes for it ... white clay, long rectangle shape, melted glass beads into it .... i liked it so much that i made another one like it ... i also made a lumpy bowl .... lumpy on purpose .... i guess textured and organic would be an artsier way to describe it ... but, ya know, call lumpy, lumpy .... 

my kids get out of school this week, i need to start packing up the rental house, i have no paint days in my immediate future .. but soon... very soon .... i'll be back in my house and procrastinating unpacking the boxes and i'll go into a painting frenzy ..... do you remember the 2008 painting frenzy? i'll be like that again once my planers are realigned! i just know it .... 

and one last tidbit for your browsing pleasure ... my pal, al, who i lovelovelove to paint with, is doing a studio reno... and has some groovy toovy pics ... check them out here .... there's a teeny glimmer of me in one .... how 'bout those wall colors? girl after my own art heart!

two days, two posts .... and this one even has an artistic element to it ....

i have photos that should actually be a series of long bloggage bits for you ... but instead ...you're getting the hodge podge version ...... of the last couple days worth of pics ....

 this is a book i'm reading ... but most notable is the book mark that sweet darla made and gave me ..... shout out to artsy darla ... she rocks .... it's cute doodads on an elastic ... so, like, the book has on a bracelet to save my spot .. very cool....

my birthday was last week ... and i asked for NO gifts ... specifically said, nope, don't get me anything ... i don't want to have to pack it and move it .... but .... sometimes it's great when people don't listen .... my family gave me the pack of perfect pens ... this is actually third set of them .... first i had a ten pack that i ADORED .... used them right up ... then i got a 36er like this one ... and i adored them right into old and tatty and not so juicy anymore .... so here is my new set ... juicy and perfect ..... do you have a favorite pen set?

... and today i went to pottery .... and picked this up ... gray speck clay, transparent green glaze, on a slab rolled bowl with a groovy texture rolled onto it .... it turned out pretty fab ... most of my pottery is .. um... quirky ... um ... charmingly imperfect .... this one is a little more perfect than usual (though certainly not completely so ) .... a little more perfectly pretty is always a happy surprise ....

and more pottery .... turquoise on white clay .... i carved that tree in .... someone asked if they could borrow my tree stamp ...nope, no stamp ..... it's a great color ... but a little tippy .... not quite flat bottomed ... but who wants a flat bottom anyway?

here they are with some size perspective for you ....

and seeing this made me think ... OH! that's the color of my family room ... and of course, i thought you'd want to see ....

and here is little.e.beck.artist today ....

she had her end of season soccer party ..... one girl got best offensive player and was given a shark tooth necklace ... she's a shark ... one girl was given a tiara... queeen defender .... my little girl? she was given a party hat ... because she's a party ... she got this prize for showing unbridled joy on and off the field .... love that .... there should be more unbridled joy out there, huh? 

joy to you and yours .... go find a party hat if you need some joy encouragement ....

colors

i'm not doing art at all ... 

i'm buying nobs and lights and fabric ... 

still cleaning and purging my junk so i can move into an uncluttered space .....like, not take all my clutter back with me ....

i'm visiting my renovation house every day (sometimes two and three times a day) to ooooh and aaaahhhhhh the progress .... 

i should be moving back in less than a month ... 

hopefully they'll remember to turn the water on before then ... i dream about that ... spending the summer in the happy house ... with no water .... but at least i'm dreaming about the happy house .... 

the painters have been going to town ... the library is painted this turquoise.... benjamin moore fairy tale blue .....

the dining room is this green .... benjamin moore rosemary green

the family room is this yellow .... (or maybe not ... it's too muddy here...but you get the idea ) ... benjamin moore sunshine ..... i might have chosen it JUST for the name!

the halls are this yellow .... benjamin moore highlighter yellow .... bright! 

and they haven't painted the kitchen yet .... but this is what i matched it to more or less..... ben moore calypso orange ..... 

if you're looking for a time waster .. go to the benjamin moore virtual fan deck of colors ... it's pretty groovy ... you can see my colors and find some of you own faves .....

a dog and her footstool ........ or ... today's artistic endeavor ....

s: mommy, how do you know how to do this

e: i've covered lots of furniture in fabric before .... the dining room chairs, all kinds of things

s:  but how do you know how?

e:  it's kind of like wrapping a present, just good folding and planning

s:  don't use the staple gun on my presents... ok?

today was JOYFUL ... yippee zippy hooray JOYFUL .... 

i played tennis in the sunshine .... 

i watched my kitchen cabinets getting installed ... 

i showed my kids my newly cleaned and spectacularfied studio .... 

i brought my footstool bits from the studio to my brownbrownbrown rental house and finally finished the project (with little.e.beck.artist's assistance).... 

i sat in the sunshine and watched girl.beck.artist's tennis lesson.... 

i took the kids out for ice cream after dinner ..... 

i have  a perfect dog who decided to pose for pictures for the first time in her life ..... my kids were about two also, when they started being camera aware ....

so .... the artsy bit for you .... 

i recently painted fabric to mend a tattered footstool .... go back a few blog posts if you don't remember ..... 

today, i finally put the whole thing together again ... fabric on stool .... small dictionary papered legs reattached .... all in orange delightfulness .... 

the dog says... wait ... why did you crop out my face?

the dog says, why yes, i can stand next to the stool so you can get a better shot .... 

the dog says, but i prefer this higher vantage point .....the dog says .... cheese ......have you ever done an upholstery project?

it's pretty easy!

artless art blog ... oh my!

we had our weekend in the woods ... this picture was taken sunday morning AT church .... cool huh? 

all is well ... though artsy moments are few and far between .... tell me what you are working on so i can vicariously share your artsiness .... 

tra la la ....

oh happy days ... 

yesterday, allison came over and oooooohed and aaaaaaaaaaahed my renovating house AND my fresh clean studio..... 

we spent a couple hours painting and had a happy lunch out .... 

today was tennis and chores and only a few moments of working on my freshly painted fabric that i'm working on attaching to the footstool .... 

all is well as i rush into this weekend .... 

all i have left on my list of things to do is buy worms .... for fishing .... 

in all my days, i have never had buy worms on my to do list ..... have you?

anyone else contemplating some fishing on mother's day? 

in the spirit of full disclosure ... i'm not really a fisher girl .... but i see some bank sitting in my future .... 

... of orange paint and lettered floors .....

 i was painting fabric ..... and had left over orange paint .... .....and i looked at my floor .... so dirty and paint splattered .... just concrete slab .....
so i used that orange paint ... i put a letter stencil in the corner of the floor .... and painted my floor .... and then? i liked it .... so i moved the table out of the room ... so i'd have more floor to paint ...
.... and i got more and more orange paint and put stencil letters about ..... and then i did some red squares ... and some green lines ... and then .... oh ... let's just whip out some nice papers .... why shouldn't i have bingo pages glued to my floor .... 
so you can still see the mess and the dirt if you look ... but i think you mostly just notice the new nifty bits .....
are you impulsive ..... 

are you a procrastinator? 

because all of this was just a grand procrastination ...... 

procrastination as an art form ....

this is how i pretend to clean my studio these days .... i find something that has been sitting in my studio for days and weeks and years waiting for attention .... and give it attention to avoid sorting through drawers of things that need to be thrown away ... or at least dealt with....

it's a footstool with a wicked gash across the top ... the top of the simulated leather something or other .... i think the stool cost five or ten dollars ..... a long time ago .... and was dumpster bound .. goodwill wouldn't want it .... but i just couldn't do it ... not the dumpster death for the poor little footstool!

so ... some duct tape to mend the gash ... and i briefly considered having a duct tape footstool ...covering every bit of it all the way around in silver sticky tape..... quite edgy .... urban .... sleek ... contemporary .... but .... i'm not any of those things ... nor is my decor .... and though it would be fun to do ... and funny to have in my house ... i didn't really want to start a new house with a funny footstool.... groovy, cool, unique, interesting...yes ... funny ...no ...

....so ... given that we are doing a house reno ... spending money on things like bigger water heaters .... i'm trying not to shop at all ... ever ... really! ... so ... not going to be able to go buy fabric to cover this, i was just going to make do and use something from my formidable fabric stash .... but ... alas .... it wouldn't be ... none of my pieces that i like for it were big enough ... i mostly just do fat quarter sizes .... i could have sewn some pieces together for it ... but i didn't want the quilty look .. and, frankly, i didn't want to sew ....  SO .... i had a piece of white canvas  .....

but of course, i dont' want a white foot stool .... so i chose orange .... and painted the canvas orange .... and it was too peach ... i guess i watered down the paint too much ... i didn't want it all stiff ..... so then i dry brushed on some darker orange paint ..... and then .... i had a bunch of watered down orange? and nothing to do with it? so i started painting the floor ....
instead of finishing this procrastination project? i started procrastinating and started off on something else ....took some letter stencils and made an orange alphabet off on the edge .... and then? i should have mixed up some orange and umber and letter stenciled the fabric ... and let it dry ... and stapled it onto the footstool... but no ... not me .... instead? i moved all the furniture and started painting the floor full force ... har .... so the duct tape foot stool and the orange fabric? stashed off in a corner .. unfinished ... how many days weeks months years til i get back to that one? 

but my floor? looking groovy .... 

come back tomorrow and take a look .... 

i wanted to clean .... and i got side tracked .... no surprise there!

if you had a groovy cool, yet woefully messy, art studio in your basement .... wouldn't you wish for a drawer like this ..... full of neatly organized fun papers for collage work? that stuff used to just be hither and yon all over the place ... now? no hither and yon for me ... or it ....but then .... woe is me .... my cleaning binge was side tracked by this forlorn little bench .... 

goodwill? or not goodwill? keep and try to love? or cast aside and never think of it again ..... brown floral? hard to love?
i could not cast it aside .... so i took off what i thought was the most hideous upholstery .... just to find exponentially worse upholstery ..... dirty pink and brown plaid ....luckily for me, i'd been on a weeks long cleaning binge and ... lo! ... three new fresh organized drawers of tools .... and there's that splendid staple gun ... rah .....i'm on an anti buying binge ... not buying anything art related .... or frivolous .... or not house renovation related ..... but luckily i had a big enough piece of the perfect colored fabric in my stash (newly organized stash, might i add?) .... stapled it on .... wrote a letter to little.e.beck.artist so that she would know why this bench was saved from goodwill just for her room ....and ... ta dum ..... hideous becomes turquoise and little.e.beck.artist practiced sitting on it .... and decided that's where she'd lay out her clothes (rather than on the floor) and where she'd sit to put on her shoes .... how very practical of her 

.....and stay tuned for the ongoing saga of "i'm really tired of cleaning out my studio and just need more ways to procrastinate" ..... 
this poor footstool! ... luckily i have a whole drawer of JUST tapes .... so the duct tape was easy to find .... i considered an all duct tape footstool ... but thought it was a little too urban for the rest of the colorful decor we have planned in the house .....

and the punch line? i started this second little upholstery project as a procrastination technique..... and then i ended up procrastinating that by collaging and stenciling my floor .... eek! that was not the plan! i'm supposed to be cleaning still!