eleven

summer in my life has ended even though labor day isn't here yet ... my kids have been in school for two weeks as of today ..... the twins started high school, little.e.beck.artist started fifth grade ..... life rushes ahead full tilt ... how did they get so grown up so quickly? i never stepped foot in a wading pool this summer ...played in no sprinklers .... blew no bubbles ...created no sidewalk chalk masterpieces ... we did do fabulous things ... but they are more grown up things .... alas ....

but .. with the summer closing out, my family is returning to routines ... i had set aside painting for the summer ... and now i've taken it back up ... now if only i can make it part of my routine again ... i'm hoping! ..... i have a shop expecting a fresh batch of paintings ... and i have a wee show in october that it would be nice to have some fresh work for .... for me it always help to paint with a purpose ..... now i just have to carve out some regular time for it ...

at the top of the this post is "eleven birds" ..... a 12 by 12 canvas with old decrepit dictionary pages made fresh and blue ..... i started it last week when painting with my best pal al ... and finished it yesterday when she was painting with me in my studio (or in my catastrophically messy basement that i call my studio ... but that's a different post ) ..... my intention is to move back to more blogging to mirror the more painting ..... let's just cross our fingers on that one ....

how did your summer go? were you artful ... or art full? will you start something anew with labor day upon us and ending our summer fun?

.... this and that ....

i have updated my book list for 2011 ... i am well into the 60s .... i'll surely make 100 by the end of the year ...

i have actually been in my art room multiple times in the past few weeks ... in.the.art.room..... must mean summer is drawing to a close ... my big kids started having school obligations so my little.e.beck.artist and i spent some time on some crafts ... and some tidying ... now i really need to get organized if i'm going to get serious about some art time ....

i have a deadline, august 29th, for the fifth year anniversary of the deadline painting group on flickr ....

allison and i are painting together this week ....

i'm doing a tiny show in october ... so i need to get some pieces finished DESPERATELY ...

not to mention, the shop that's carrying my work locally, reinspiration, is moving from a good location (near forsyth fabric and ikea for y'all in the ATL) to a great location (virginia highlands area) .... so i need some fresh work for there as well ... and i have a pal opening a bakery and she want some cards ... like birthday cards to go with the cake or cupcake you are buying ....

summer time ....

i've taken the summer off from art endeavors ... i've been hanging with my kids and traveling a bit ... i'm almost done with my galapagos blog .... and i've just updated my reading list for 2011 ....i think i'm on track to read 100 books this year.... and ... more importantly, my kids start school in two and a half weeks ... so my plan is to have art to show you in three and a half weeks ... so, before the end of august i'll be back to my painting self .....

e.beck.galapagos ...

hello dear kind art blog readers ....
i am taking a small hiatus from this blog, to blog elsewhere ....
i have started a blog called e.beck.galapagos.... i'm thinking you can guess why ...
i'm trying to be all organized about it and have a new post drop in every morning at 8am for a month... 30 days ....
i'm not technologically savvy enough to know for sure that it'll happen quite like that .... and though i think i'll be writing it for 30 days, my trip is just a fraction of that time ... i just think it's gonna take about 30 posts to tell the story ....
so ...
if you miss me here,
see me there ....
happy trails ... 
back in a flash .... as fast as a giant galapagos turtle can cram a rolly suitcase into the overhead bin on its air galapagos flight......

book blog

hi ... i've just updated my blog page that lists the books i've read ... i've not done well keeping up on a book to book basis .. but i just updated a huge stack that's been sitting on my bedside table ..... so, we are up to the minute now on my book reading ... i've just read book 41 of the year ....

wrap it up....

yesterday's post was about the happy path ....

right now, for me, my path is the gift giving path .... many gift giving occasions are cropping up ....a while back, i asked girl.beck.artist who at school we should be giving end of the year gifts to since the twins are graduating 8th grade after 12 years at the same school ... so she wrote a list .... with 22 names on it ... oh my!

sorry, boy.beck.artist, hope your people are on the list, cause that's more gift givingness that i can handle .... we ended up adding three more people to the list ... and ... when you have a list that long, you really have to make the gifts ...

so i set out to make pottery for them all .... it was actually very fun ... and funny .... all the peoople in my friday pottery class ... and at my monday pottery class where i was moonlighting to make sure i got it all done, knew that i was on a quest to make VAST amounts of similar pottery in one quarter ... with a deadline ... pottery and deadline don't generally go in the same sentence .... they all were keeping up ... how many are done? how many are bisqueware? how many need their first firing ? how many do you still need to make? .... multiple pottery pals were emotionally invested in my obsessive compulsive pottery making .... no lollygagging at pottery this quarter ... i was working hard ..... i got the 25th finished just last week ....

and really? wrapping 25 gifts was the most trying part .... then it took two shifts each for the twins to tote them to school and deliver them ... cause they aren't small gifts ... they aren't light either .... that pic above is the second round to be delivered ....

now i have some graduation gifts to finish making ... and then wrap them up ....

and then it is on to father's day ... hmmmmm... what should i make ....

.....what's your path? ....

things have been presentful lately ....

presents for my birthday ...

presents for mothers day ....

lovely and fun and happy gift GETTING experiences ...

but really?

i prefer giving gifts ....

don't get me wrong ... i love getting gifts ... especially from mr.e.beck.artist and the kids ... they go all out in the picking of the perfect thing .... but for the most part, i prefer the giving ... i like the deciding what to give, the (usually) making of what to give, the wrapping, the giving, the happy surprise ....

yesterday i had lunch with two girlfriends ... one i see a lot ... one, not so much lately .... all three of us brought the other two gifts ... isn't that kind of funny .... no one needed a gift ... or needed to give a gift .... but we all walked in and out with two ...

i like that .... nice to have friends who think like you, huh?

so one, her birthday is coming up ... so i called it a birthday gift ... the other, got a birthday gift just cause i wanted to draw a cupcake on the card too... her birthday is in the fall (um, i think) .....

when i thought of the words to put on this painting i gave yesterday, i was a little miffed that i had never thought of them before ....
that should be my motto .... how have i never thought it up before?

choose the happy path ...

you are amazing ....

sometimes it's nice to hear that someone thinks you are great ... or cool ... or fun .... or amazing ... you probably know exactly who in your life thinks you are amazing, but it's still nice to hear it, huh? ... maybe even nicer to hear it from someone that you don't know holds you in such high esteem ....

now, let's do the flipside ..... go tell someone that you think is great, that they are amazing to you .... they'll like hearing it, huh?

three blue lollypop flowers ..

so... i had a stack of new paintings and i was prepping for a show .... so i signed them, named them, inventoried them, blah, blah, blah .... girl.beck.artist was with me .... and she TOTALLY mocked my painting naming skills ... oh, that's a great one mom ... uh-huh, that's an original ... oh no, i couldn't have guessed THAT name ....

so ... this is called three lollypop flowers .... i tell it like it is ... i could have also called it three blue flowers on brown .... but didn't ....
it's a large simple canvas ... 24 inches square ... and that brown is way cool ... it is thick and textured .... textured like, well, dirt .... or maybe mulch ... very cool .... here's a close up ... can you see how stringy mulchy that fibrous brown paper is??

so that's the painting of the day ...

sweet, happy, simple ....

...home sweet home ....

boy.beck.artist and girl.beck.artist have left for the grand canyon ... we woke up at 5am to have them at school by 5.30 to hop a bus to the airport ... they are there now and have had almost a full day of activities .... i was happy for them to go and have the adventure ... sad for me that they are old enough that i need to just let them go ..... the good news is that i'll be right here waiting for them when they get back ..... home sweet home, what a concept ....
this is a painting that i'd had hanging on my wall of art that needs to be sent out into the world ... but i wasn't quite happy with it ... now i am ... i wrote allllllll those words in one sitting .... and felt like "oh, it's fixed now" .... even if you can't read all those words in this pic, it's ok ... i'll summarize it for you ... home sweet home ... pretty simple ....

... happy mother's day ....

it is mother's day .. happy day to you if you are a mom .... happy day to my mom as well ... if you are familiar with my blog, you might know that a frequent commenter is artmom ... that's my mom .... one of my biggest fans, if not THE biggest fan of my work ... it's nice how it works out that way , huh?

here is a recent painting i've done ...

it's a 12 by 12 canvas with a map back ground and turquoise glazing ... a nest seems perfect for mother's day (although i considered posting a flower collage cause lot's of moms get flowers on mother's day ... mine did last year ....) ..... a nest seems perfect for mother's day ... most moms tend to be in charge of the nest .... and have something special with the progeny in the nest ... and ... in this case, there's a key .... it could be a key so that you know the door is always open .... like in my case, my parents door is always open to me ... though my key to their far away home is metaphorical .... or, it could be the key that locks the door and keeps your family safe and tucked away... when i see this key, it reminds me of the fact that my kids are growing up .... we have keys for each kid ... little.e.beck.artist's key even has a minnie mouse on it .... she takes it with her to school when she might be coming home to an empty house (rarely, but she's old enough that it does sometimes happen .....) ... so a key in my house is a sign of growing up ....

happy mother's day ... hope someone has the key to your heart, too ......

do your best ....

earlier this year i hurt my back ... kinda my neck ... c4,5,6 and maybe c7 vertebrae ... or maybe c 5,6,7 ... the ones that would make my hand go numb cause of pinched nerves ... and pain and ouch and oh my aching back .... but i'm better now .... but i took 6 weeks off of all exercise ... and 8 weeks off of big exercise ... and for the last two or so months i've been trying to get back to where i was when i stopped .... so, i'm working my way back up to big exercise .... and getting there ... although at my exercise class i have to do modified stuff .... i don't do any weights over my head, i use lighter weights than i had been, i don't do the treadmill over a 9% incline cause it throws my posture out of whack ....

but, with all that said ... i've just been trying my hardest, doing my best even when it isn't that great .... i went to my class today .... an hour of hard exercise then 15 minutes of stretching ... then, two hours of tennis in the sunshine with three pals ..... my arms were like noodles by the end .... and no back pain!.... i'm getting there ....

that painting is six inches square ... done in just the last couple of weeks .... vintage papers, transparent fluid acrylics, happy collage bits ....

have you been doing your best on something in particular?