Family Time

No blogging for a few days since this is family time and my studio is dark for now.

The City and the giants

Jack and I are on the train heading to The City for a Giants game. For his b-d Annie & Co are taking us to this day game. What a great day so far...had coffee in bed, enjoyed the sunshine at the Roseville station while waiting to board, then the conductor gave us 50% off of our fare (secret promotion right now). I'm soaking up the ambiance of the scenary, the people, and the humanness surrounding me. I see a yard of old travel trailers stacked, parking lots, the Martinez straights and the glistening water as we travel over the bridge, tall dry prickly looking grasses and weeds, fine deep luscious green trimmed hedges with fanciful Victorian style homes at the epicenter, fabooolass and tall office buildings (newer and old) architecture of which I am in awe. Great day to be alive, with my Honey and family taking in all that my life involves. Breathing easy...easy...1,2,3...aaaahhhhh

Life gets in the Way

So doing birthday dinner tonight for Z&L, 10 & 12.  Grandma duties prevail today and probably won't get in my art room for painting.  It's good, since it allows me more time for the planning process which is still in my head at this point.   Busy, busy...breathe and smile

Happy Making Art

So here's a fresh canvas for a new painting.  As you can see there are remnants of a painting underneath the yellowish wash.  I worked on those ladies in that painting for about a year and never came to enjoy it or feel anything from it, sooooo here we go with a new painting.  I have no idea what it will be yet but am in the process of getting together my thoughts and dreams in order to get to work on it.  In the meantime I have done a few small changes to Lemons and Flowers.

I am also doing some work on DJ and Grandpa at the Strand.  The top just was bugging me so am dealing with that for a better feeling with the work.

Listening to Paco De Lucia's great guitar playing this morning in my home studio.  I took a break to water some of my front door plants and just felt so darn happy...happy to be alive, to love, and to make art.

Onward incorporating some Sahli method

Here's the group of artists that attended the Don Sahli workshop with me, far right in the gloves.  What a great group!  Don is 3rd from left and I learned so much from him.  He shared his palette; his knowledge about the impressionistic kind of painting that was done by his teacher, Sergei Bongart; his way of setting up a still life painting with everyday objects (shapes, i.e. blocks, cylinders, rounds).

So today is Sunday.  I've had my breakfast and enough coffee so am in my art room piddling around in an effort to get started.  I'm leaning toward taking an abstract painting I did of Papa and DJ and fiddling with the values since after the acrylics dried, I lost some of my value concept as the underneath darker painting began to show through.  Onward and upward. 

My Way Day

Well it's my brow waxing day which happens every 3 weeks or so.  At my last dream workshop, I discovered that my inner Psyche has been trying to tell me that I need some time on my own.  Alone with my thoughts and to discover myself outside of these walls.  So...since I am out and about for my brow waxing on a regular basis, I am taking that day for my own desires.  This means that I can go to the Mall for a day of shopping for make-up or just looking to my heart's content, or I can drive to the mountains for a lone picnic by a stream and there doesn't have to be any politics, sports or other person's desires considered by me at all.  Today, I decided to call my daughter and meet for a bite and a chat...we're meeting at 1pm at the Mall.  Yay, and

breathe...................1,2,3...breathe

Sleep and Energy

So here's Fresh and Free after the Sahli Workshop.  I think it's done.  Anyway, I need to move on and I am happy with the freshness of the paint, the heavy texture and the colors.

I also worked on At the Ocean again this morning and I'm going to move on from it now.

I  kind of got the color on the people down a value or 2 so that the girls don't look like they are cut outs pasted onto the canvas, hopefully.

It is just so amazing how one day a person just doesn't feel like ever painting again and then the next day, One can't have that paint brush moving enough.  I think it all has to do with sleep.  When One is rested, the appetite for activity is huge and the energy comes.

Breathing easy today.

JustOne More Bit of Paint

So last night did a few more strokes on Levi Flying His Kite and on a new piece I began last week, Monet's Garden.  I wonder if I ever will have a piece where I feel it is totally done, just the way I want it without another stroke of paint or texture.  Maybe then I will be dead.

Ok, so breathing and doing some art this morning before my critique meeting with art friends.

About Fresh and Free

Well, now that I have completed the Don Sahli workshop and have had a couple days of rest and review...I know there is much more to do on this painting "Fresh and Free" so am in my studio today doing the work.  It's a bigger canvas, 24"x36", so am getting my bigger brush and lots of fresh, goopy paint to get some more contrasts in there for shadows, and some lighter pigments for the lightest lights.  Yay, so happy to be in my happy place today...now breathe...1, 2, 3

Don Sahli Workshop

"Fresh and Free" is a painting I did in the last month.   I covered up one I had done a few years back of a picnic scene.  I just love my flowers.  I'll have some new paintings to share next week due to my 3-day workshop with Don Sahli which I am in the middle of right now.  Today is our 3rd day and tonight a reception, the last one at Patris S12.  From now on we'll be in Oak Park at Patris' new space if I decide to continue with her gallery.

So off to another day of painting.   Yay!

Love in Carlsbad

So....here's a cutie.  Levi, my grandson, flying his kite at the Beach in Carlsbad.  This was the weekend his mom got married to Mark, her knight in shining armor.  Her boys were very excited over the wedding; excited their mom was happy which makes them happy.  In their world Dad is happy with his life, Mom is happy with her life but their lives  are not together in one household.  Their children can feel content in their father's home and in their mother's home which is a new concept in my world where we were a family in one home, with Mom and Dad miserable most of the time.  Like Zack said "too bad you guys just couldn't get along."  

Anyhoo, I began this painting using acrylics on a canvas.  I came back into the foreground and did some oil painting work for better texture and more vibrant color.

Love my grandsons....breathe

Hotness

Worked on "Sunflower Bouquet" this week.  I think I am finally done.  Strange painting in that it has about 10 underneath paintings that I covered up and ended up with my beloved sunflowers.  I like the hotness of it though.  Found out yesterday that one of the finest galleries in Downtown Sac is closing at the end of the month and am so sad and disgusted.  I love Northern Cal and was every so happy to leave that hectic and insane Southern Cal world behind 15 years ago, but REALLY?   We couldn't support a very upward, avant garde venue as the Skinner Gallery???

Oh my, must get back to my easel...breathe

Universe...Universe

So worked on this painting last night.  It's our table in the backyard with a big bunch of peonies and the watering pitcher, thus the name...Flowers and Water Pitcher.  I did it in heavy, heavy oil paint and big color.  The orange chair in the background is an Adirondack Chair we have in the back yard.  I love orange this summer and I keep scattering it throughout the house somehow.  I even bought orange pants.

Daughter No. 1 sent me a great image of their sunrise in Michigan this morning.  That's the kind of awesomeness  that keeps we humans in check, while we have a place in this world--the Universe is really in charge you know.  Later...

Making Art Today

So as Patris says...Make Art!  I have been in my studio working all morning, finished up a small still life "Lemons and Flowers" to the point where I actually like it.  This one I did a couple months back.  The composition was a good outline however, thee were two tomatoes, two flowers and two lemons...I only realized it after I was done painting and it bothered me.  So...today, I added another lemon and I like the composition much better.  It actually needed more work on the background and foreground so I am glad I went back and did some more work on it.

It is one that I am planning on donating to the Women Lawyers of Sacramento, an organization that has an art auction every September as their annual fundraiser.

That's all for today, going back to making art and listing to Pandora's Worldbeat Radio.