Many Thanks

With the Thanksgiving Day festivities behind, I'm compelled to reflect on how very much I have to be thankful for. Twenty-two of the 24 members of the Dahl clan braved the snowy weather to gather and share food and fun and plans for midnight Black Friday shopping sprees. I'm thankful for the gainful employment that will prompt me to arise at 4:45 a.m. tomorrow morning. Needless to say, I won't be going on a midnight shopping spree tonight. My mother wasn't there, having passed away a decade ago, but her love and laughter was there amongst us. She is the reason we gather and enjoy each other's company as we do. I know she's smiling somewhere on the other side. Thanks Mom.

Wild Abandon

Throwing caution to the wind, I've begun to chop up my stash of fabric (some of that stuff I've been saving to conquer boredom during a month-long snow storm). A series of mixed-matched little pillows with various sentiments seems like a good way to use up some of the fabric. I have no idea what I'll do with them after that. One thing I do know....art is messy.

Last Minute Again

Once again, I'm feverishly preparing for several upcoming art venues. The Whimsical Rabbit and I will be participating in the Covenant Women's craft show on Saturday Nov. 13 from 9:00 to 4:00 and then Allied Arts will be starting on Nov. 19 through Dec. 24. They always sneak up on me. If you live close by and need directions, let me know. Also, I'm readying FIVE framed original paintings for the St. Joseph Hospital caregiver show in December. More details to come. Have a great weekend.

Bullseye

Please keep the natural disaster-striken people of Haiti in your thoughts. There are a lot of very special children at the Good Shepherd Orphange and elsewhere that could sure use a special measure of grace right now.

Art-Startz 2 Stars

Here they are...the brave souls who trusted me with the right side of their brains for the second in what I hope will be a long series of art adventures. Each participant brought a unique skill set to our time together, but I feel each was successful. Watercolor is like learning to drive a car with a manual transmission, you can read about it all day long, but until you get behind the wheel, you'll never know how much "gas to give it". You have to put a loaded paint brush to paper....over and over again.

Little Traditions

Oops. Almost forgot to unwrap the little family pumpkins. If you grew up in our neighborhood in the 60's, you probably made one of your own. Being the eldest, I was the first to make one of these little heirlooms. It's not easy being a trendsetter. They clearly got better as each of us took our turn. By the time my youngest (at the time) brother made his pumpkin, I was in middle school and was sculpting little round owls out of plaster of Paris. I'm thinking the pumpkin on the right may have been influenced by my sculptures. Mom.... he's copying me.

Fade to White

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had the privilege of taking a photography workshop from Brooke Gatterman of Roxsey Photography this past weekend. Very fun and I learned so much. First I learned that I need a new digital camera...which I pretty much knew before I went. I brought along my ancient Minolta X-700 film camera with my beloved 28-200 mm Tokina lens just in case. I did actually use it. The adjustments of shutter speed, ISO and whatever that other thing is you fiddle with... oh yeah f-stops, were actually easier to visualize with my old camera.

So much to know, so few brain cells with which to learn.

Good Stories

When I was growing up my mother would read to me. Not just at bedtime, but anytime we had a few minutes to spare. Looking back, I think it must have been something she loved to do. She would read me stories like Secret Garden complete with the cockney accent. Have you ever tried to read with an accent? Not easy. I loved the stories. There weren't a lot of pictures, but my mind became filled with visual images and the warm memory lasts to this day. I had the good fortune of being invited to a Stuart McLean Vinyl Cafe event last night at WWU here in Bellingham. The stories he wove were wonderful and reminded me so much of those stories with my mother.

Meet Darth

He is my little "rescue" dog. I rescued my grandchildren from him. He was advertised as a teacup Pomeranian... no more than a couple of pounds...such a darling little fuzz ball. Darth has morphed into a 9-pound dust bunny with fangs. He is 100% alert. Nothing moves in our house without Darth's approval. He is systematically eating my couch, long sections of duct tape have disappeared....stray socks...plastic containers of all sizes. I've been accused of altering his personality by naming him Darth.... uh.. I don't think so. This little guy marches to a different drummer... but he's growing on me.

A Periwinkle Day

When I was much younger, I used to describe my feelings in odd ways. Maybe I was some kind of over-the-top, in-touch-with-my-inner-poet little person back then. I remember telling my mother at one point that I felt like an "R". I have no clear recollection of what that meant. I think it was synonymous with feeling blah - borderline sad - close to tears maybe. Today was a periwinkle day -- not quite a blue day, but definitely not a pink day. Come to think of it, I felt like an "R".

Connection

He was fast asleep when I snapped this picture. His hands were so little, but I couldn't help but wonder what those hands would someday accomplish. Would he hold a paint brush and make paintings, would he throw a football or would he hold his only child's hand in his? It will be exciting to watch the changes...that zip by at the speed of life.

Up with ... Monday

Well, it's Monday again. There sure seem to be a lot of Mondays in my week sometimes. It was different when I was a swing shift person, when it was almost Tuesday before I started my work week, but those were unique years. Reality is the 5:00 a.m. alarm clock, but I'm thankful to have a reason to get up that early. Reality is using my half-hour lunch to make greeting cards to get ready for fall/Christmas shows, trying to be artfully productive within any available morsel of time. I once read a book written by a guy who developed a way to paint watercolors in the driver's seat of his car (while it was parked, of course). Now that is artful determination. Happy Monday.

Windblown

It started in high school, this looking down at my feet thing. It was all those scary boys that lined up along the lockers... what was that about? I felt like I was running the gauntlet passing by those guys, half expecting them to hold up a series of cards numbered 1-10. Sends chills up my spine to this day, 30 some years later. But I digress. Looking down at my feet last fall paid off big time in leaf pictures. I started looking for shallow puddles of water where spontaneous compositions had gathered. When I paint this, I think it will be a mixed media piece with acrylic treated like watercolor and an oil bar layer for the reflections.

Everlasting...well, almost

I'm very excited about a photography workshop I'm going to be taking later this month from Brooke Gatterman of Roxsey Photography. She does phenomenal work and I'm sure we're all hoping her talent and knowledge of pixels and shutter speed will magically transfer to us. You can check out her work at roxseyphotography.com.

Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

After a hectic summer, I stole a couple of hours this weekend to work in my yard. I used to have time to garden and it was so therapeutic to get outside and putter around. My back wasn't too happy about the idea, but I pressed on. The 5 acres of what I call "elephant grass" (because it grows 10 feet tall if allowed to) was pressing in on all sides, but with my trusty weed-eater, I found the little patio of pavers I created several years ago, just before it started to rain. This aqua wooden box was certainly feeling neglected, but I love weathered surfaces and grabbed some of the Gravensteins I had picked earlier in the year and created a still life. The cloudy weather was the perfect condition for good pictures and gardening.

A Classy Class

Here they are, the faithful friends who ventured out for the first Art-Startz session. The watercolor paintings they produced were so wonderful. They were complete novices and were able to follow my example to complete unique paintings filled with expression and their own creative instincts. When they took the masking tape off, they were amazed at what a difference the crisp white border made in their paintings. Session two coming soon.

Woodland Fairies

They grow up so fast. You can try to hold the moments in your heart, but they slip away. I fear this is a generation of children being abandoned by parents preoccupied with the technology of the day.... techno abandonment, I call it. In my generation, it was the father who sat behind the daily newspaper and never uttered an encouraging word to his children for years. Now it's parents who are texting, talking on cell phones or surfing the internet. There will be a price to pay for this "advancement". Please, look your children and grandchildren in the eyes and talk to them. They miss you, even though you're standing right next to them.

Saving the Best for Last

Personally, I think fall is the most colorful season of the four. Sure, summer has it's moments, but autumn seems to pull out all the stops before everything falls asleep... for what seems like forever. Or maybe it's because orange and golden-yellow are such brilliant colors that pink and green pale by comparison. Just speculating here.

One of my favorite aspects of designing a painting is playing with shapes and the shapes that define those shapes (negative space). These peppers are a perfect example of the types of compositions that grab my attention. I can look right past the similar, almost monotonous shapes and get caught up in the black shapes between the peppers. Weird, I know.

Summer's Swan Song

Here we are again. The calendar says we are on the edge of a new season. I always struggle with this particular seasonal change. I love fall, but I'm not a fan of winter. Well, I'll just have to make the best of it. New goals are waiting to be set. My new project, Art-Startz, is on the horizon. A new sewing and photography class and... of course... new paintings. Maybe I'll be so busy I won't notice it's 20 degrees outside.