Happy Birthday Jesus

Every year I purpose to keep Christmas simple and this year I think I actually accomplished it. The weather in the most Northwest corner of the continental US has been challenging and money has been tight, but perfect conditions for a truly simple Christmas. With the snow came the "pulling of the plug" on holiday shopping and the spending that comes with shopping. Feeding the birds became more important than feeding my desire to make this Christmas more magical than the last. My wish for you.... May all your Christmases be white and God bless us, everyone.

Delicious Christmas

What I wouldn't give for these treats right now! There is a foot of snow on the ground and another foot coming our way. Where's global warming when you need it? I actually set this still life up in the backyard (where I drag all my great props) to take advantage of the strong September sunlight and dark shadows. It was so warm, the chocolate was starting to melt. If only I could hold onto that thought .... until June! This is acrylic on hot press watercolor paper with colored pencil.

My New Harley

Well, not really MY new Harley, but I have managed to complete this commission in the midst of the Christmas season. This was done with acrylics treated like watercolor on hot press 140-pound paper with a touch of colored pencil to smooth some of the edges. Once again, as with the other Harley I painted a while back, this was an exercise in abstract shapes and could almost have been painted more easily upside down (for those of you getting a "visual" of that statement, let me clarify that that would be the reference photo and/or the painting upside down, not the painter). I love the way a painting comes together and looks real when you are only focusing on shapes.

Connectiveness

With Halloween behind us and the winter holidays rapidly approaching, I'm reminded of so many memories of my past...the good and the not so great. Dwelling on the good times, I feel blessed to have a family that remains pretty intact...we all have our little quirks. These little pumpkins were carefully crafted by me and three of my younger brothers in our early elementary school years. Bellingham was a small town then and we went to a small school and all had the same teacher at one time or another... who obviously did the same crafts from year to year. These little orange guys remind me of the gift of being connected to family, friends and community by the traditions of the seasons.

Thankful

This is an historic day in our country, voting day. I have so much to be thankful for. The freedoms I enjoy today were fought for by people I have never met, will never be able to personally thank-- my freedom as a woman to vote for the candidate of my choice, the freedom to speak my opinion about those candidates, the freedom to write this blog entry. I hope I never take for granted the gift of freedom in America and I hope I will always strive to preserve that freedom for those who come after me. Some sage once said, in essence "You can judge a country by the number of people who want to get in and the number of people who are leaving it." Judging by the number of people who want to come to America, I'd say we're still a wonderful nation under God.

"Goldfish Dreams" - Something Different

They say that necessity is the mother of invention and I have the necessity to "recycle" about .... a million... frame samples in some artful way. The moldings are so beautiful, how could I let them be tossed into the trash when my favorite local framing shop closed their doors. I got my dad to cut points on pine boards to fit these moldings and let my imagination run wild while repeating the words.."Fun-funky-folk-art". Ten done, 990 to go.

Summer's end

Oh my gosh! Will you look at the date! How is it the middle of September already. I really do have a good excuse for not posting anything since June. Let's see....

I have completed my 7th season as a vendor at the Bellingham Farmers' Market. Once again, it was 4 months of meeting wonderful people and getting to talk about my favorite subject in the whole world...ART!

In April, at the urging of a good friend, I entered a pastel into the Northwest Pastel Society's International Show. As I am somewhat of a novice when it comes to soft pastels, I was surprised and very pleased to be accepted into the show with the second attempt at "Pear with Mini-Blinds." (I will post the image when I have a web-sized jpg available. The jpg I have is HUGE.) The entries had to be very large (by my standards, 22" x 33" is big), so all around this was a challenge for me. Imagine my even greater surprise when my painting was selected to receive the Northwest Pastel Society's Award of Excellence, a generous monetary award and a year's subscription to The Pastel Journal. My subscription had just expired. How timely. Like my friend said, you will miss 100% of the shots you don't take... and she was right. Thank you, Trish.

I recently completed the illustrations for a charming little book by Joan VanWykhouse entitled "Jillian and the Elusive Queen." It is a tale of a young girl named Jillian who is concerned that the Queen may be in trouble, or else why was everyone be saying "God save the Queen" ? I'm looking very much forward to receiving a hardbound copy of my own. The book will be available on Amazon.com by Christmas time, I believe.