Monday In The Studio

I spent the whole day in my studio working on a new painting, and was feeling pretty guilty about not working on some of the other canvases waiting in the wings to be finished.

I couldn’t help myself. Inspiration hit and my muse came out of hiding, as I gleefully proceeded with my art project. I was dabbing and splashing color on the canvas as I completely immersed myself in the moment.

It felt so good to set aside my somewhat structured way of doing things, and let my creative child out to play.

Busy Day

I’ve been busy working on my new gallery, moving images from my old site to the new one. I ran into a few glitches, but I’m finally getting the hang of it. I still have a long way to go!

The flowers below are so magical, I took several photos to use as reference material for a new painting.

Brugmanisa

Beautiful Sunny Day

What a beautiful morning, the weather will be perfect for working outside. I plan on starting with our herb garden which really needs weeding and pruning the roses in the backyard.

I love gardening and the way it connects us with nature. We always have scrub jays, squirrels, and varying birds visiting our backyard, although for a couple of years I’ve noticed fewer songbirds. At least our lovely mourning dove is back, this morning I heard it cooing just before dawn.

Questions That Make You Think

Life is full of mystery and unanswered questions. Related to this I heard the following question asked recently; If you were watching a movie of your life, would you like what you see?

I sat with this question for awhile and thought about how our daily rituals, interactions with others, thought processes, and attitudes have so much impact on the way we live our lives, along with our cultural heritage and life lessons.

What would your movie look like? What would one day look like under the all seeing eye of the camera lens?

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase”Know thyself”!

Grey Skies & Chilly Weather

This morning I woke up to grey skies and a chill in the air, so it took me awhile to get going with my day.

Of course, I ended up puttering around and not getting much of anything done except for some household chores.

“This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere: the dew is never all dried at once: a shower is forever falling, vapor is ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on sea and continents and islands, each in turn, as the round earth rolls.” – John Muir

 

A Busy Saturday

Today we were busy doing errands and our grocery shopping. It was one of those crazy days where no matter how organized you think you are , your not!

Later we unpacked everything, and grabbed some lunch before sitting down to watch a movie. It was really nice spending some quality time together.

One of our favorite trees

“But let there be spaces in your togetherness and let the winds of the heavens dance between you. Love one another but make not a bond of love: let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.” – Kahlil Gibran

“Your daily life is your temple and your religion. When you enter into it take with you your all.” – Kahlil Gibran

Cookbook For Poor Poets & Others

This afternoon I was rummaging through some storage boxes where I had placed some cookbooks and I found one of my old favorites, A Cookbook for Poor Poets (and others), by Ann Rodgers.

I purchased this book back in the 70’s and had a great time reading it and trying some of the recipes. Three of my favorite recipes were the Skillet Scones, Irish Soda Bread, and Chicken With Parmesan.

My friend Diane always loved the Caramel Peaches recipe and would ask me to make it for her whenever she came to visit. There are so many yummy recipes in this book and if you can find a copy, I would highly recommend adding it to your personal cookbook library.

Sketch Crawl

Tomorrow the World Wide Sketch Crawl will be held locally at Ghirardelli square and the Marina in San Francisco. Go to Sketch Crawl for more info.

In addition to Sketch Crawl, my husband is really anticipating the great chocolate experience to be found at Ghirardelli square, I think he mentioned a chocolate sundae with the chocolate on the side. yum… He really loves his chocolate!

The Marina is also a very beautiful place to visit and explore.

So grab your moleskins, pens, pencils, watercolors and come join the fun.

Spring Cleaning

What is it about Spring that fills us with the urge to throughly clean our house from top to bottom all in one day?

This morning I found myself putting on a Tina Turner CD, and then I proceeded to dust down the ceiling and the corners of the walls, and by the time I hit the fourth song on the CD “What’s love got to do with it”, I was in a full “spring cleaning mode,” and there was no saving me from myself.

Hours later, a rather tired and achy woman emerged from her self induced cleaning urge, and now I am going to literally pour myself into a nice warm bubble bath.

Relaxing Vacation

My husband and I had a wonderful vacation. We sketched, painted, and visited some of our favorite places, but mostly we just kicked back and relaxed. We also took a little break from our computers, it is sometimes good for the soul just to get away from everything. No schedules, email, deadlines, zip, nada, etc..

My batteries are recharged and I’m ready to get back to work in the studio. I have three paintings waiting for their third coat of gel medium and when they are done, I can move on to my next project.

“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it in”. ~Robert Orben

The Lady Of Shalott by John William Waterhouse

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