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Labor Of Love

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I am still in the midst of the project of last night. As so often happens to me, I have fallen in love…with this project. I am spending entirely too much time on it to ever see a profit, but I honestly don’t care. I love creating, I love drawing, I love painting, I even love sanding wood. When I find a project that really appeals to me I can very easily get lost in it. Dan often remarks to me that I need to consider my time when I am calculating a price on a piece that I’m going to sell, but it just doesn’t work that way. I never think of myself as an “hourly” employee when I work. As for price, well, every piece is priceless to me. I probably won’t ever get paid back for all of the time I’ve spent on art, but I earn so much more in pleasure and satisfaction. Some things are so invaluable that they can’t have a price. There is no cost to be placed on my thoughts, my visions, my inspiration, there is only in the end the work. My satisfaction comes from knowing that someone else buys the work, loves the work, and shares the work with the people that they care about. Somewhere out in the world something I created is possibly the thing that someone else in the world treasures, and that is payment enough. For this piece I can only hope that it speaks to some romantic soul who wants to express them-self but doesn’t have the words, or the creativity.

Speaking of romantic souls (me), I met my husband twenty-eight years ago today. It was like a bolt of lightning then, and the sparks are still flying now. I’m calling it quits for the night. A romantic dinner for two at one of the local wineries awaits me. It means my project won’t be finished for another day, but for now my priorities and expressions of love are elsewhere.

Photos of project in process, one finished card, and my beautiful flowers from Dan from this mornings Temecula Farmer’s Market.1 25 (1)

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Home

No ruby slippers to instantly transport me home, so another five-hour return drive in the car. No watercolor paintings this time. I was busy taking photographs. I began to play with my phone taking pictures as we drove through the Arizona desert. We’ve made this same journey several times before, and I have taken hundreds of photos along the way both coming and going, but I wanted to play with the filters on my iPhone. I have always loved black and white photography, and there is a filter on my phone named “transfer”, the colors were really different, very vintage looking. I went crazy for both. I shot more than five hundred photos. I couldn’t wait to get home to unload my phone to see all of them. I had been checking through them as we drove and was loving the results. Then I unloaded my phone. Not one photo appeared in my computer with the filter on it. I have been having issues with the phone, but not with the camera. I was devastated, of course me being me, I deleted all of the photos before really looking at them to see that they had unloaded without the filters. I checked with my local tech gurus (that would be Dan and Brian, husband and son respectively) but no one seemed to have an answer. I finally googled it. To my dismay it seems that there is no way to save them with the filter unless you email them to yourself. Ridiculous if you take as many photos as I do, and I had already deleted them. I called the help line (Jessica) who is always quick to help her not so tech savvy mother in a pinch. I followed her instructions and emailed myself one of my photos back out of my desk top, applied the filter and then emailed it back to myself. Success! Now I only have hundreds more to do. (Just kidding) I’ll have to take a good look before I decide which photos are filter worthy. To say I am annoyed with the entire process is a major understatement. However, I did manage to take quite a few photos today that I love, so I will be busy emailing myself for the next week. Because I have nothing better to do.

You have probably guessed by now that I am home, happily ensconced in my nest, and I am. As wonderful as new experiences can be, as lovely as visiting family can be, as intriguing as exotic destinations are, there truly is nothing like the feeling of walking in your own front door, putting up your feet, and letting out a sigh of satisfaction. Our girls, Riley, Mia, and Sophie were glad to have us back to do their bidding. Mia in particular knows exactly what she wants. She walks towards me with determination, hops onto my lap, and demands to be petted as she purrs away. I was tired today, ten hours of travel between Friday’s trip to Phoenix and the return trip today, and my usual restless hotel sleeping, I decided that tonight I would do something just for fun. A watercolor of my Mia. It’s also been quite a while since I threw in a little photography. Some desert shots, one in its original color as nature intended, a black and white, and a before and after with the filter applied (thank you Jessica!) Back to my life tomorrow, with bigger and better art to come.IMG_5105As nature intended…

IMG_4840Black and white Photo Shop

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With” Transfer” filterphoto-2

Outside The “Vortex”

While most of the country is suffering from “Polar Vortex” we lucky people in Southern California are enjoying beautiful weather. Dan and I hit the trails for a hike. Back to the Santa Rosa Plateau to walk in the Sylvan Meadows Trailhead. Not quite as challenging as our New Year’s walk, this trail  is much more level, no climbing, and full of little surprising pathways.  We walked for an hour and a half. Peaceful, quiet, with the exception of the birds in the trees. most everything on the reserve is the dried remains of summer and fall, but every now and then we would see a patch of bright green, or a small stray flower. As anyone who reads my blog knows, the last several months have not been easy. Today as we neared the end of our walk I said to Dan, “No matter what else happens in our life, no one can take this from us.” There are those moments in all of our lives that stay with us, however small, however fleeting, that are ours alone to treasure. Today we had more than a fleeting moment, we had more than an hour where our worries were somewhere else, where we enjoyed each others company, and the world around us. I took some photos with my phone, I’ll share a few here, but I also was inspired to do a little watercolor, an ode to our beautiful morning.1 8 14

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To my family in the midst of the “Polar Vortex”, miss you all but….IMG_3658

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I love Southern California Winters!

A Fresh Start

First day of the year, a fresh start in so many ways. I’ve made as lot of promises to myself, ones I will do my hardest to keep. I am keeping one promise right away, I am posting early. I want to stop leaving Dan to fall asleep on the couch as I rush to write before bed.

We started the year the right way, we hiked for six and a half miles. It took us close to three hours. We live very near the Santa Rosa Plateau. It is a beautiful place with hills, and wildlife. In the Spring there are vernal pools, water that rises up out of the ground for a very short time span, and fields of wildflowers. We plan on making the hikes a regular thing this year. It’s great exercise, but more than that it is a place that brings serenity. There were moments today when the only sounds we heard were the wind blowing through the trees, the cry of the hawks circling overhead, woodpeckers at work, and the songs of the birds. There is a peace that comes when you take yourself away from the world.  As we walked all I could think about was the beauty around me and what I wanted to paint. Did I paint when I got home? No, the truth is sometimes I forget how old I am, or that I’ve had six knee surgeries. By the time we neared the end of the path on our way back to the car, I was telling Dan that I longed to see civilization, a glimpse of the parking lot, or maybe roadside assistance to pick me up on the path. I was so tired, hot, and in need of a foot bath. Struggling uphill with my bad knees, hoping we were near the end. We stopped at grocery store on the way back and had to laugh as we struggled to get out of the car. When we got home I simply passed out. Happy New Year to me.  So, no painting today, instead a pen and ink of another of my favorite things. It’s an old letter opener. A simple tool with amazing detail work. Things simply are not made like they used to be, and I am definitely not as young as I used to be!

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I wish everyone could start the year in peace, so I’ll share some photos of our day. IMG_9778

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Has Anyone Seen My…?

Maybe it has to do with all the balls I’m juggling in the air these days, but I seem to be losing my mind just a wee bit. For example, twice in the last week I have gone in search of my glasses only to find them attached to my body. I hang them on the front of my shirt, I’ve done so for years, yet somehow these days that little fact seems to be slipping my mind. I do have a very long history of losing my car, and I mean losing it everywhere. Church, the grocery store, the mall, so much in fact that I now have particular spots that I use just so I know where to look. A while back I wandered aimlessly through a store lot searching for my pickup. I was just about convinced it had been stolen. I had been looking for a good ten minutes. I finally called Dan, who after he stopped laughing, reminded me that I had driven his car. Which by the way I had walked past at least three times in the search for my own vehicle. I’m obviously not a stupid woman. Look what I can do. I also solve the New York Times crossword puzzle every morning. I’d say I have about a seventy-five percent average on finishing it alone, seventy-six to one hundred if I bug the crap out of Dan. So obviously I remember some things. He was making fun of my latest glasses mishap today, referring to me as the absent-minded professor. I am of course getting older, and I have a lot on my mind, but I’m beginning to wonder if some glitter hasn’t made its way into my brain. Or maybe it has to do that as an older woman I have learned to prioritize what matters to me, pushing little details to the side. (That sounds good doesn’t it?) I can still tell the men in my life, Dan and Brian, where every single thing they can’t find in this house is at. It seems that my bad memory only has to do with myself. That would make sense since I usually put myself last. So to sum it all up, I’m forgetting things because:

A.  I am trying to do too much

B.  I am absentminded

C. I have glitter on my brain

D. I’m older

E. I put myself last

F. All of the above?

Actually I have decided that it because for the first time in my life I am devoting every waking moment to creativity. My house is falling down around me, and right now I don’t really care. I am motivated and determined, and have had in recent weeks some new-found confidence in my work. The things that are important to me are always on my mind. My family, my kids, and most of all Dan, but for the first time in my life I’m beginning to see the glimmer of a dream for myself, and if that means I lose a few things along the way…well, except I really do need those glasses.

For tonight a little “upcycling”. A vintage box that I found in OK shape. I’m giving it a touch of nostalgia. One of my photos from Paris changed to black and white and then computer colorized, decoupaged to the top. Inside copies of some of my collection of vintage French postcards, and a small mirror. I have a few finishing touches to complete, but the glue on the mirror needs to dry so those will wait until tomorrow.  I’m pretty happy with the finished product.IMG_2729

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Once Again, Only Me

One of the pleasures of living in Southern California are the November days. Today was a beautiful day. The kind of day that can lift a mood, just the kind of day I needed. Dan and I walked for about forty-five minutes this morning, and it was…painful. OK, I don’t mean to ruin the lovely picture I just painted, but I’m getting old. If you are older you will understand, if you are younger, beware! Every single injury I ever incurred in my life is coming back to haunt me. If you know me then you know that there are quite a few injuries to feel. I won’t bore you to death with the list, but it does bring to mind an “only Me” story. Ten and a half years ago we were preparing our home in Illinois to sell in order to move here. I was painting in the powder room, Dan repairing something in the living room. He was hammering, I don’t recall what, but the vibration was bad enough to knock the mirror off the bathroom wall. It landed on my ankle, my Achilles Tendon to be exact. There are no words to describe the pain. I have given birth to two children, naturally, no drugs, nothing, this pain was right up there with pushing a human being out. It instantly swelled and turned black. Fortunately my tendon didn’t snap. About a year ago my doc looked at it and said I have atrophy of my tendon. Atrophy. A lovely word, right up there with decrepit. Words that begin to appear as you age, like my all time most hated “ma’am. The ankle pain comes and goes when it chooses, and today it chose to visit. I try not to let these things get to me. I own a hospital supply closet (it also happens to be where we keep our clothes), I have every imaginable wrap, brace, elastic bandage, and splint. I also own three canes and three sets of crutches. One was mine, the other two were left on my doorstep by not so funny neighbors when they moved. I grab the corresponding brace or bandage, for the corresponding ailing body part and off I go. I refuse to give in. For the last few days we have seen an elderly woman pushing a walker, the kind with a seat attached, near our house. The kind I keep pointing out to Dan that I will need some day. She was even out there in the rain. I want to be her. I want to be that old and still walking and giving it my all.IMG_2551

Inspired by the lovely sounds and sights of our morning walk, a photo taken on the walking path in our subdivision, and a watercolor dedicated to the lovely sounds we heard.IMG_2582

A little creativity in the kitchen tonight as well. A Devil’s Food cupcake with a Dulce de Leche butter-cream, drizzled with dark chocolate ganache, and topped with a caramel and chocolate dipped pretzel. Just one of the many treats we hope to have in our cafe.IMG_2579

Open To The Future

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Here I go again, sitting here at ten o’clock writing my blog with blurry eyes. Another long day of working on my fairies. I did sell a few which is of course the point of all of this, but I have this weird thing going on in my head. I had a goal in mind of how many I wanted to have for the show on December 7th. I have been working towards that number, but then I sell one, or two, or as it turns out this week, seven, I find myself thinking I won’t have enough. As I said, the point of all of it is to sell them. I guess my worry is that I won’t have enough physically to put out at the show. I still have thirteen days to work on them, and of course I don’t have to put them up on etsy, I could just save them for the show, but what if I don’t sell as much at the show as I’d like? Do you see how my brain works? I am easily my own worst nightmare. I’m like one of my cats chasing my tail. Any way I make money these days is good enough. I have to admit I am enjoying them, and it does make me happy to sell them. I need to go to bed.  Speaking of my cats…last night Mia made an appearance. Tonight it is Sophie. Every time I sit down to work she sits at my feet waiting. For what? For me to amuse her with something. Its my duty as her human. As always I obey, a piece of string, her favorite.IMG_2475IMG_2476

I’m still struggling to make that time for art. I may be sticking to pen and ink for the immediate future. Tonight I began to think about our business. I can’t wait to get in the space and go to work. I can’t believe how many people feel the need to point out to us that it will be very hard work. We know that, we are hard workers, and I actually love it. The closer we get to making it a reality, the more nervous I get, but I can’t wait to hang our sign that says “Open for business”. I began working on our sign some months ago and haven’t finished it. I need to pull it out after Christmas and get it completed. It is a rather large wood burning project. I want to put our personal touch on everything in the place. Tonight just a little sign to spur us on. I can’t wait until I can hang one for real.11 23

 

The Battle Is Lost

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I surrender. The glitter has won. My house is beginning to look a little like Santa’s Workshop. Actually due to my bad knees I’ve lost an inch in height, I believe I am beginning to look like an elf. We had a friend come over for dinner tonight, as she walked in the door and gave me a hug I warned her, “The glitter, it will get you”. She laughed and told me that there was glitter outside the front door. I was so worried about Dan going for his job interview the other day sparkling, I actually brought in the wet/dry vac to get as much of it up as I could. Even my cats are glittered. Of course in Mia’s case it’s because she has some strange need to sit in the middle of my supplies. We keep catching her digging through my boxes looking for little objects to run off with.

See Mia here in a box of silk flowers?IMG_2405Do you see Mia here?

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I’m working as hard as I can to produce as much as I can in a very short amount of time. I’m sure everyone knows by now how much I appreciate my husband. Once again I need to praise him. He made lunch both yesterday and today, and dinner both nights so that I could get my work done. He also sat this afternoon and painted forty little wooden heads for me, painted on their eyes, painted enough hands and feet to match, and traced and cut out the body base. Once again, wonderful! Thank you, thank you, thank you. Oh, and tonight he mentions that we need to go to the Farmer’s Market in the morning so he can buy me flowers. What can I say, I am the luckiest woman in the world.

Needless to say, (so why am I saying it?) my blog/project is taking a serious backseat these days. I am trying to get to it earlier in the day but stuff just keeps coming up. I even gave thought to putting this project on hiatus, but I know the reality is that if I do that there is a good chance I’ll never come back. My friend suggested I post fairies. Not every night. We are still of course working towards our business. I have more ideas than I have time for in terms of marketing and advertising. Tonight because my day ran late, I did one more book-plate. This one I really like. I really don’t have anything planned for tomorrow other than work. I have a couple of half done projects to get back to. I’d like to have at least one completed for tomorrow night.

My pen and ink bookmark, with a little font help via the computer.11 22

 

You Get What You Wait For

I’m waiting again. This time it’s not for someone, but for something. I’m trying a new technique, something I’ve been wanting to try for a while. It involves transferring a photo copy of a picture onto wood. I’m not even sure if it will work. The directions call for a laser printer, I have an ink jet. The wood used in the directions I found was unfinished, mine is painted. Finally, it is supposed to set for 24 hours. Who has that much time? I have to admit that there are a lot of places in my life where I am just plain scared, or completely intimidated. If you read my stuff regularly you also know that it is also an issue in my work, except for a couple of places, in those I’m fearless. One is in design. Give me a room to redo and I am a very happy girl. My passion for interior design goes back to my Barbie days. The other thing is craft projects. I can pretty much see it and do it. That being said, if I don’t follow the directions, or I rush things, or I don’t wait the recommended twenty-four hours…you get what you wait for. The photo is printed with the image reversed. Mod Podge is painted on the wood, and then the photo is pressed down using a Brayer, the back of a spoon, or in my case my finger. Wait twenty-four hours, dampen the photo and gently rub off the paper. The image should remain on the wood. My project didn’t turn out where I wanted it to be, but it turned out enough for me to see the possibility. Tomorrow I’ll try again. I won’t be posting the results until Saturday, twenty-four hours later! I’m posting as promised my warts and all projects. My failed project to follow. I do however have another little creature to post. Inspired by myself, a fairy artist.

The original photo. A sepia toned photo I took in Paris.IMG_2434

The second photo is when I wet the paper and the photo began to reveal itself. Notice the lower right corner, I had dampened the entire piece but when I began to rub the paper off I could see that it was too soon. Did I stop? Of course not. As you can see by the third photo, if I had actually waited the twenty-four hours it might have been really cool. Then again since I didn’t start with an unfinished piece, maybe not. Tomorrow I may actually follow the directions. What a novel idea.IMG_2435

IMG_2437Finally the one thing that did work out, my fairy. Here I had a little patience, and look what happens.IMG_2401

Finding The Right Words

There are many nights as I sit and write this blog where words fail me. I can’t quite think of exactly what I want to say, or exactly how to form the sentence to convey the point I’m trying to make. Eventually something comes to me, and for the most part I am happy with the outcome. Last night in my description of the glitter issues that confront my family I consulted a thesaurus looking for synonyms. I was trying to express just how defenseless we feel in the war against glitter. Tonight as Dan, Brian and I sat at the dinner table it became apparent that the glitter was already taking the upper hand. Each of us was sparkling. While that wasn’t surprising for either Dan or I, as we were both in the middle of the mix of my supplies all day in the dining room, but for Brian who had only passed through to be sparkling just proves my point. That’s when Brian came up with the words I was looking for last night. He called glitter the “herpes of craft supplies”. I couldn’t have said it better. I laughed at him and asked where he was last night when I needed him.

Dan as always is my extra pair of hands. He is doing all of what he calls the “grunt work”, but it is of immense help to me as I try to crank out as much work as possible. I  shouldn’t say “crank out”, I actually spend far too much time on each piece. When I stated last night that I don’t charge enough for my work I wasn’t exaggerating. I will fuss over the smallest detail, but I care so much about what I do that I can’t help myself. When it comes to pricing I agonize over it. I’m always sure that I’m charging too much…wait, not enough, but no one will pay that much, I wouldn’t pay that much, but it took me this (insert minutes) long, then there is “There’s always a kid with $5 , I need to have something they could buy”.  Years ago in Chicago I had my own business painting murals. My first clients lived a half hour drive from me. They wanted their “Hey, Diddle, Diddle” border reproduced on the nursery wall in a much larger scale. Get ready to groan, shake your head in disbelief, have your jaw hit the floor, I charged $250. That’s all. A week’s work, an hour drive daily, including supplies, for $250. Dan tried in vain to talk me into a price that was reasonable for the amount of work I was doing, while being fair to the clients. I couldn’t do it. As I explained to him, the wife was a social worker, and the husband worked at a grocery store. He tried to talk some sense into me, explaining that they hired me, that it wasn’t my problem what they could and couldn’t afford. I didn’t change the price. Apparently I have many issues, and much in the way of my favorite scapegoat, Catholic guilt.

We had other company in the dining room. Our cats are particularly happy. There are many small items for them to steal and bat around, or string to run off with. Mia loves it most of all, so much in fact that she likes to join us in the center of things, like the middle of the table, in the middle of my supplies.image

Tonight another upcycled project. One I like so much I may never sell it. An old box that I bought for a few dollars. Painted, decoupaged with one of my photos from France and some scrapbook memorabilia. Acrylic paint projects (12)

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IMG_2177But then again, I need the cash…now if I only knew what to price it at…