Tag Archives: short stories

Mar10

Oh What A Beautiful Morning!

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Good morning everyone.  I awakened this morning with the sun shinning in my bedroom window.   Bouncing out of bed all I could think of was,  how blessed I am to be living in beautiful Southern California.  The weather is moderate, temperatures are mostly perfect, and we have a roof over our heads.  Schmaltzy I know, but my heart is filled with joy at the prospects of the day.

With a cup of coffee by my side, and some Nora Jones singing in the background I’m thinking of all of you and the creativity each of you have to offer.  Many of us don’t feel like we have anything to offer, and creating anything is just not worth it.  My feeling is that everything we do is worth something.  If we create for the love of creating anything, that’s a good thing.  I have to remember, “It’s the journey, not the destination!”

Wednesday some of my friends and myself were playing with our iPads.  We were trying to find an app that allowed us even more options for creativity, and then learn to use that app.    That’s where the picture came from.  It’s an old picture of my old self with red hair,  feathers for earrings, and glasses.   An abstract watercolor from Sketch Master, one  the apps I’ve collected.  Just a start in the world of iPads, something my friends and I are just learning, and  It’s fun and different for me, but even though it’s something I don’t want to get involved in, there is something to experimentation.

I do love to experiment! 

This is pretty cool also!  A negative of a picture.  Maybe this would help with learning to negative shape paint, or sketch.  It would be a great exercise for learning to draw.  Can you see how this might be helpful?  I always try new things, it never hurts.

Have a great weekend. and look at your surroundings as if there is information to be used in your creativity!

Mar5

Craggy Crow

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Cragy Crow

Craggy Crow

Last week the weather was so nasty I stayed inside and made the most of being cooped up by painting, experimenting, and just plain having fun in my studio.  The rain was coming down so hard the yard and the patio were flooded, and you couldn’t see in front of your nose if you went out.

Opportunity!

Being stuck in one place gives us opportunity.   To curl up and read, bake cookies, watch a movie, or Paint are just some of the possibilitiess     So paint I did.

I played with colors, sketched out possibilities, played with different papers, and much more.  In my mind, I try to  play like a 3-year-old.  Just like my grandson use to do when he’d play in my studio.  I think letting him play in my studio was the beginning of me letting go, and not taking myself so seriously.  I’d give him a huge pad of paper, and he picked his own brush, and watercolors.  (After all I could wipe them up when he was finished.)   He’d pick the longest brush he could find and make a huge puddle of blue watercolor, he loved blue.   After he went home, I’d find blue paint all over my studio, the kitchen, and into the garage.  How can you ever get mad at one of your grandchildren? He loved blue, and he loved the way it looked on everything.  He is now twelve going on thirteen, he still loves blue, but fortunately doesn’t find the need to splatter it all over the house.  He’s a great kid, and is very creative.

The crow, well  crows speaks to me.  I love them, and can’t find enough places to put them in my art.  This time I just thought I’d make a big crow,  wet him all down like a watercolor, and drip blue ink into him.  This is how you get craggy!  Of course, once he’s big as life on a sheet of paper, he needs something to complement him.  Journal style seemed to work for me on a cold, wet, rainy day.  This is my version on playing in my studio this winter.

Feb3

An Amazing Artist!

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I always have been excited by the look of imperfect watercolors.  So when I started painting…with lessons….the first thing I did was take watercolor classes.  Yea!    I soon found out that the perfection that watercolor artists love….. didn’t fit, and so after many years of lessons, I switched to acrylic.  The problem I’ve had for years is that after years of perfection, it’s difficult to break the habit and go abstract.  I now find myself blending everything together into maybe my style.

When I found this video, quite by accident, by Millie Gift Smith, I went crazy……I love this abstract with watercolor style!

What an amazing lady, and artist!  She has certainly inspired me, and I hope she can give you inspiration also.

Dec13

The Worst Mistake

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This video is really important to those of us who paint with acrylics.  I have slowed way down with the water I use while painting with acrylics, and  have been using a glazing medium, or a retarder instead of water.  Mixing the fluid acrylics for me is the most fun,  since seeing them run, and drip is the highlight of my painting day.  Remember for me,  when you drip, and pour the results are unexpected and that takes the problem of perfection……there isn’t any!  I painted with watercolors for years, and pouring was the most fun one could have with paints.  When I started using acrylics, I first used them very thick like impasto, later I learned to thin them out, and now I’m glazing, and pouring.   What a journey!

Yes I thinned them out, but I used water to do so.

Experimentation is the friend of the acrylic painter.  That’s how we grow as artists, and when you can stop worrying about how it will turn out, and let everything go,  all those experimentations will be not just fun, but you might be able to use to results as well…

Jul20

Ideas in my Sleep

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Memories of Santa Fe

Memories of Santa Fe

The last three or four weeks have been very productive for me. I seem to be driven to do more abstracts. Really abstract….not landscape, not figurative, real abstract, abstract. Non objective abstract! The kind you toss paint at. Maybe I’m feeling a little Jackson Pollock or something, but put a brush in my hand, paint by my side, & I’ll be happy.

If I stop to rest, lay down for a nap, or try to fall asleep at night…..my mind goes right to painting.  Designing, and throwing paint at a canvas with loud energetic music playing in the background.  In my dreams, I have huge buckets of paint, a huge canvas, and BIG brushes to paint with, with long handles.  Scrapers, sponges, mark makers of all kinds.   Even oil sticks, and ink, I love working with ink!  Acrylic ink is like watercolor, and by the way didn’t I recently tell you I’m not into watercolor.  I think I did.  There are many things I still love about watercolor, but I don’t have to want to paint with it.  I also love to use printeres ink, that’s real ink too!

The piece above is a 12 X 12 canvas with 140# watercolor paper bonded to it.  I have titled it “Memories of Santa Fe.”

Meanwhile, I going to leave you to continue working in my studio, and hopefully not get any more paint on my shutters.

Thank you for  following me, it is special for me to have anyone interested in listening…..my husband only wants to talk sports!

May18

Like a Three Year Old!

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After years of purchasing just the right art supplies to achieve just the perfect results, I now have a studio stuffed with supplies that I love using!

But…..

Who knew all I had to do was use what I was born with?  My fingers and hands, maybe even my feet...who knew?

As I started to watch this video my thought was, “this isn’t going anywhere.”  But, since I had started it, I always think  you never know what might be learned by watching.  It wasn’t very long and the blending of colors seemed interesting.  Then suddenly it started to take shape and I found it even more interesting.  Remembering back several years while taking a Bob Burridge week-long workshop in Sedona, Arizona.  We were finger painting, and suddenly I felt like a three-year old,  totally in the moment.  The class was intense, and fun, and exhausting, but well worth the effort, experience and money!

It didn’t take me long to realize being in the moment was actually where I needed to be.  Especially since I constantly fight to loosen up.  This felt real and fun, and doable!

I loved it!

Running into this artist, Dena,  who was finger painting was a perfect way to distance myself from the tendency to slip  into reality.  I hope you get some inspiration out of it as I have.

Thank you for following me, and commenting on videos  and my work.  I realize I’m not getting things out there like in the past, however I am working at it.  As you all know, there are times when life gets in the way.    Enjoy….