The Morning Ritual of Coffee
A good cup of coffee is one of my favorite things in life. There is a wonderful coffee house we occasionally visit in San Anselmo, which has a lovely garden area. We love the “neighborhood feel” of the place, along with the friendly atmosphere.
There’s something so comforting about the delectable aroma of freshly brewed coffee, the hissing of the frothing machine, and people gathering together for their morning ritual of coffee.
The Morning Ritual of Coffee
“In Seattle you haven’t had enough coffee until you can thread a sewing machine while it’s running.” ~Jeff Bezos
“Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after.” ~Anne Morrow Lindbergh
Happy May 1st
I love the month of May! Everywhere you look, everything is turning green and blooming. I also enjoy how the days are warming up, yet the nights are still cool.
Today, I took our garden furniture cushions out of storage, and worked on creating a comfy area for us to enjoy our garden. I’m happy with how it turned out.
Afterwards I relaxed and sipped my cup of Earl Grey tea, as I watched the birds play in the water fountain.
“Gardening is the art that uses flowers and plants as paint, and the soil and sky as canvas.” – Elizabeth Murray
All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar.” – Helen Hayes
“May our heart’s garden of awakening bloom with hundreds of flowers.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
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.
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
Knocking About In The Studio
Today I have been mostly knocking about in the studio trying to tie up some loose ends and such. Later on, I prepped a couple of canvases and decided to call it a day.
“The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web”. -Pablo Picasso
“All true artists, whether they know it or not, create from a place of no-mind, from inner stillness”. – Eckhart Tolle
“A lot of it’s experimental, spontaneous. It’s about knocking about in the studio and bumping into things”. – Richard Prince
Earth Wood – Combined Mixed Media
Acrylics & Mixed Media
Here are two photos of something I was working on today, I had a lot of fun with this project using a canvas I had prepared with gesso, tissue paper, and various rice papers.
My intent was to play with color and lifting techniques with no particular design element in mind, so when I took a break and stepped back to look at how the painting was developing, I saw some very interesting patterns and shapes beginning to emerge.
I used gel medium, fluid acrylics, flow enhancer, and colored pencils.
Creative Experiments With Acrylics
Today I experimented with creating some more acrylic textures, this time I used Atelier acrylics, Golden acrylics, and Liquitex acrylics.
Test Series #1
Test Series #2
Test Series #3
Crocus Flowers
“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment. I want to give that world to someone else. Most people in the city rush around so, they have no time to look at a flower. I want them to see it whether they want to or not”.
– Georgia O’Keeffe
I worked on the Kuan Yin painting this afternoon, laying in some more layers of color and developing the golden bamboo leaves.
Later I decided to prepare another canvas and set it aside to dry. Then I looked out my studio window and noticed rain clouds moving towards us. Ah, such is life…
Spring Equinox
The Spring Equinox! A time when the light and dark are in perfect balance.
As I look outside my window the sun is shining, the sycamore trees are beginning to leaf out, and this for me is the time of the year that always stirs up feelings of hope, expectation, joy, and wander lust.
I ask myself what will I change, create, and give birth to during this season. I can foresee endless possibilities to explore, yet each one requires change and we know change can sometimes be difficult yet without change we become stagnant, resigned, and settled.
So I choose to open myself to growth, new insights, new adventures, yet also let intuition and common sense guide me through these feelings of restlessness, excitement and laziness which we call Spring Fever.
The Visitation
Combined Media on Canvas (9 x 7 inches)
“If one looks closely enough, one can see angels in every piece of art.” ~Adeline Cullen Ray
A Day In The Garden
I spent the day in the garden raking, clipping back the hedges, and clearing out more tree limbs. Whew! What a job that turned out to be!
All I want to do right now is take a shower, fall into bed and sleep. I had planned on catching up on some reading, but its nighty- nite for me.
In The Garden
“In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful”. ~Abram L. Urban