I’m longing for Spring. Not for the reason you might think. While much of the Country suffers the Winter cold and ice, we are enjoying beautiful weather. It was 79 here in Temecula today. What I need is for the clock to change back. Daylight Savings I need you! In the short amount of time since the clock switched back my body has refused to cooperate. I cannot seem to sleep past five these days, that in spite of how late I go to bed. Christmas Eve that meant bed near one in the morning, and rising at five. It affects my ability to function, with my art as well as pretty much everywhere else in my life. I began three entirely different projects today and couldn’t get my mojo together enough for any of them. That’s when I thought about what I wrote the other day. I decided to take brush in hand and see where it went. It went in the direction of what I long for, longer days and spring flowers. 
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Merry Christmas
What was I thinking? I said last night that I would possibly make some art for myself today. I think not. Not after all of the cooking, and the cleanup. A few weeks ago I filled a special request for a personalized ornament. I couldn’t post a photo of it because it was meant to be a surprise. So while I technically didn’t create art today (or did I? Pork Roast, gravy, spinach and garlic bread pudding, homemade chunky applesauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, chicken and spinach lasagna, and a Frango Mint Cheesecake, all of which was made today…) I am going to use my special order as my project for this evening. Long day on my feet. I’m tired, off for some sweet dreams. Merry Christmas to all! 
Straight Out Of Dickens
Merry Christmas Eve to all. Quite some time ago I posted about my orphaned paintings, work I started but never finished in fear of being judged. I pledged at the time to rescue some of the orphans and see them through to completion, I did a few, but then I moved on to other things. Today I have rescued an orphan. Consider it to be straight out of Dickens, a rescued orphan. You may also consider it my ghost of Christmas Past. My son is now twenty-three years old. The painting is of him…at eight or nine. It’s obviously been awhile. One could almost hear the cries from my studio, “Please Ma’am, won’t you finish me?” I have made a gift for everyone in my family this holiday season except for Dan. I had something particular in mind for him, but alas time hasn’t allowed me to do what I wanted. This painting was also for Dan. He has been waiting for many, many years to see it finished. Well, Merry Christmas Honey, it’s done. For Christmas Present, I’ll try to knock off something tomorrow, maybe something for myself. Christmas Future? I have been writing about moving ahead with my work. Getting ready to present my stuff to the world. I’ve been writing about it, but I haven’t been doing it. I had a doctor appointment this morning for the mysterious pain in my side. (I’m not dying or anything, graceful girl that I am it seems that in my efforts to stay healthy, when I walk I am not doing it right. I am pulling muscles in my thigh or something…only me. The doctor asked if I stretch before I walk. My reply? “Why would I do anything the right way?”) Back to the future…I began a conversation with a lovely woman who works for the doctor. She likes art, she has a friend who opened a gallery in nearby Escondido. As if it were meant to be. Just last night when Dan and I walked I spoke of trying to sell my art…do you think maybe someone is trying to tell me something? I need to get there, I need to get somewhere. It’s time, and there’s no time like the present, and wouldn’t be wonderful to think about the future and feel cheery and bright.
Letting The Canvas Speak
Sorry fellow pyromaniacs, no burnt paper or cardboard tonight. I had an overwhelming urge to paint this afternoon. This was more difficult than you might imagine due to the fact that my studio looks as though Blick (Art Supplies) has imploded. I decided last week to completely reorganize my space, and why wouldn’t I with Christmas right around the corner? It’s not enough that crafting had put me behind in my normal Christmas cleaning, Christmas decorating, Christmas shopping, essentially everything. I went upstairs today to work and there wasn’t an empty spot to be had, well except for one, and that was the floor. Not that the floor isn’t covered too, but a little bit of pushing piles around with my foot did the trick. I grabbed a few brushes, a canvas, some acrylics, and sat on the floor in the midst of my disaster. I really had no idea what I wanted to paint. I started filling the canvas with paint, layering thickly with a brush. I hated it. I had a full size scraper within reach so off with the paint. Still no idea where things were going I tried again, scraped again, painted again, scraped again, and then something began to reveal itself. A reflection of color from above and below were left on the canvas, really beautiful, but I just couldn’t leave well enough alone, so I started adding paint, and I absolutely ruined it, scraped yet again. Meanwhile silently berating myself for not stopping, for not having enough confidence to know when to quit. Instead of the brush I grabbed a small palette knife and began to pick up some of my discarded paint, and again something began to reveal itself. I noticed in my box of paints a bright, deep pink, I dipped my knife in and smeared a little of it across the top of the canvas, and then I knew where the canvas wanted to go. Quite often when I go outside in the early morning, or at dusk here in Temecula there is a rich pink hue in the sky. It’s incredibly beautiful. I began to see my painting take shape. Mount San Jacinto Evening was born. Its been a really long time since I took the time to let the brush and canvas speak to one another. Sometimes I’m just trying too hard. Too often I concentrate on thinking that I don’t know what I’m doing. Tonight I didn’t think, I painted, something I need to do more often.
Addicted
I always say I don’t have an addictive personality. I’ve thankfully never smoked, have a take it or leave it attitude about drinking, and…well OK, there is chocolate, but I don’t consider that an addiction, I consider it a necessity. Oh, and there’s coffee, and my secret unhealthy relationship with Double Bubble. What did I say about not having an addictive personality? Never mind, because I am addicted. To what? To the paper, glue and candle crafting I did last night. Today I decided to go for it again. I saw a photo on Pinterest again, this time it is the sign that hangs in front of The Writer’s Museum in Scotland. I loved it, showed it to Dan and he loved it, so that became my project for tonight. This time recycler that I am, I decided to try using a box that a book was delivered in. I had visions of never throwing away another box and making great art in the process, you know a one woman show, “The Box Lady”… Not so fast. The box was corrugated. It did not cooperate, it did not want to be cut out with an exacto knife. Thankfully the piece wasn’t as intricate as last night, but still by the time I had finished cutting it out my wrist was throbbing. (Thank you 18 years at the grocery store for giving me carpal tunnel) It did take the glue and burning technique OK, but not quite as nice as last night’s board. Color is another issue. It took the metallic hue, but I am not satisfied with the result. I decided to rest my hand and go back to it tomorrow with some light bronzes and gold acrylics that I have. So here you have it. I’m good on about three-quarters of it, but I also am not crazy about the size. I want to go bigger and bolder with it. I have to admit I’m pretty excited by this stuff, and I don’t get enthusiastic about anything…except maybe chocolate.
The original box top drawing
The excruciating cutout
The not quite where I want it so it’s not quite finished piece.
Don’t Play With Fire
I have mentioned from time to time that my parents, my Dad in particular, didn’t get the art thing. He was proud of me to be sure, but it was more in the “Look what my offspring can produce” department. Its fine, at this point in my life I actually find it amusing, gives me material for making fun. Actually I believe that’s where my hobby of making fun of the general public comes from. My Dad makes fun of everyone. Dad would very often pass comment about me, he would refer to me as eccentric, or bleeding weirdo. I had an incident today involving my project and flame that reminded me of one of those times with him. I think I may have been nineteen or twenty, as always I was is my room with the door closed, music playing, and I was painting. I had a small candle burning. The wind blew through an open window and the curtain caught the candle flame. In an instant the curtains were in flames. I can honestly say in an emergency, I am the person you want near by. No panic, I may worry myself into a frenzy later about what I should or shouldn’t have done, but in the moment of the emergency I am as calm as can be. I put the fire out. Then I heard them, the sound of his footsteps on the stairs. Crap! The room smelled of melted polyester. I moved towards the window and stood to hide the charred curtain. Dad walked into my room, “What is that smell? What are you doing?” “Nothing, I’m painting and I had a candle burning.” Hoping the entire time that he wouldn’t see behind me. “Bleeding weirdo, no more candles in the bedroom.” With that he walked out. I later heard him telling my mother what a weirdo I was. I learned my lesson, at least about candles and open windows. I waited until he was at work the next day to throw the curtains out.
This little tale brings me to today. I have two or three times in the past eight months showed a technique for burning brown paper so that it looks like metal. I saw an old metal sign on an auction site. It is a perfect gift for my daughter and her husband, they are newspaper people. The sign was much, much more than I can afford these days, so I simply made my own. I don’t like to use work without giving credit, so this is officially credit. To whomever created this piece, nice work! I love it. I wish I could have bought the actual piece, but money is tight. I decided to recreate the piece using my burning technique. (Speaking of credit, I think I first saw the burning technique on Aleene’s crafts a million years ago. Not quite as sophisticated as I do it, but credit…) I hadn’t planned to use this piece for the blog tonight, it’s a Christmas gift, but it took me the better part of the afternoon to cut it out, thus no time for other art. I decided to try the technique not on brown paper, but on a heavier white board. I drew the design on the white board, and cut out the negative spaces, coated the entire thing in glue, and began to burn. I was coming out beautifully, in silver tones unlike the bronze tones of using the brown paper. I was enjoying the process until suddenly the end caught fire. Yes that’s right, fire. No panic, I put out the fire. I thought it was ruined, but I loved the top so much, and thought it looked so good I didn’t want to lose it. I lost the center P, and parts of the A and E. I made new letters from the left over scraps of cardboard, attached the letters to the bottom, re-glued and burned. Afterwards I burnished the entire piece with both silver and bronze metallic paint. I think this one was a happy accident, I love the results. 
The finish project with repairs.
The Three Little Kittens
No rants tonight, no complaints, just some words about my “Three Little Kittens”. There are many days when I really have no idea what I’m going to do for an art project. Then there are those days when something just pops out at me. Today it was Riley, our cat, rather a photo of Riley that I took a week or two ago. Riley is a tabby cat, and I have to say with no prejudice what so ever, the cutest cat I’ve ever seen. We have two others, and lost Spouncer our older cat a few years ago, but none are a cute as Riley. Contrary to what people say about cats, ours are not standoffish. Mia, who is our three-year old makes an appearance nightly, announcing herself in a loud mew that she is ready to be petted by me. It doesn’t matter if I am busy, she jumps in my lap and remains there while I pet her until she has decided she has had enough and leaves. If I dare stop petting before she gives leave I get a few mews, sometimes a little bite, (to remind me that I’m not doing my job) or she begins the process of petting herself by head butting me. Sophie, our most recent addition only likes to be held by the men in the family. She favors being held up in the air. It’s a very funny and strange thing. Riley is our oldest, she will be fourteen in March, and loves nothing more than to be with us. She follows me from room to room, but if Dan is seated she is in his lap. She sits there every morning as he reads the paper which is where I took the photo that I sketched from this evening. The drawing is pencil with the exception of her eyes which I tinted green with pastel chalk. I love cats, I love quiet and they fit right in with that, except when Mia decides to chase Riley across our bed in the middle of the night, then it’s not so quiet and they aren’t so cute.
One of Riley’s cutest…
The lovely Mia…
our little Sophie.
And our beautiful Spouncer.
Restart
The last vestiges of glitter remain in the crevices of my wood floors, but aside from that I’m ready for Christmas, at least on the first floor. As if I didn’t have enough to do I tore my studio apart, the second floor of our house looks like the aftermath of a tornado. I know I’m just a little crazy, but this has been such a bad year that I am determined to head into 2014 ahead of the game, and set up for success. I started this blog/project carrying some very heavy psychological baggage, I am two-thirds of the way through, its time to move forward. I’ve subjected anyone who reads this blog to my working out my artistic issues, and quite a few personal ones as well. Not something I set out to do. Actually I don’t know what I started out to do other than to use up art supplies. I honestly didn’t think about it prior to heading into it. I guess I thought I would create art and talk about it. I never dreamed that my life would change so much, or that I would find myself pouring my heart out to the vast unknown. I think at this point maybe some of you know me more than you want to. There have been nights when I have gotten on a rant on something completely non art related only to stop myself and backspace it into oblivion. I have a steel rod of self-righteousness that runs straight up my spine. It can be used for both good and evil, but when I get upset about things it is bad, really bad. I obsess. I try not to let my obsession spill out onto these pages. I need to redirect my efforts. I’ve mentioned selling my work in the past, but haven’t bitten the bullet as of yet. I began the steps to rectify that tonight. I opened up a second Facebook account for business, a place to tie this blog, my etsy account, and my pinterest all together . The next step for me will be some serious self counseling for separation anxiety. I don’t like to be separated from my work. It needs to be done. I was hoping that over the course of this project that I would produce enough art that I wouldn’t take it so hard when one left the nest. Unfortunately that hasn’t happened. I still have trouble letting go of my babies, but I want and need to contribute to the care of my family. Sometimes I find myself feeling sad, wishing I could go back and tell my younger self to go for it. To recognize what a gift I have and to do something with it. These days I do a lot of talking myself out of feeling old and regretting I didn’t get a handle on things sooner. There’s no going back, and quite frankly this is a year I would never want to revisit, with one exception, my daughter’s wedding. Seeing your child be so happy makes the separation just a little better.
I’ve been crafting for weeks and not putting forth my best work. Time to restart the project. I decided that I need a little back to basics. I had hoped to have more time to paint today, but cleaning all that fairy dust takes time. In the end I decided to just do some drawing. My scissors, as if I hadn’t seen enough of them in the last few weeks. Maybe its symbolic, time to cut out my nonsense…get it? I know, I should have quit while I was ahead. 
Sun Kissed Trees
They’re here, the snowmen. It took me roughly two hours to arrange them, there are far too many, and it seems like an awful lot of work for the amount of time that they are out, but I do love my snowmen. In particular, as I mentioned last night, things my kids make are always my favorites. The collection was never meant to get this large. I had intended only to collect vintage snowmen, but you know how it is. People think that you want any snowman and they begin to buy them for you. Then thanks to my Catholic brain, I feel too guilty to not put them out. You never know when someone might fly in from Chicago to make sure that the gift they gave me ten years ago is still on display.
An embroidery project from Brian in the third grade.
And a reverse glass painting Jessica did at home with me at about age six.
The entire display. We have an old built-in from Chicago that we bought at a salvage yard and restored. It makes a perfect snowman display case.
All this Christmas decorating doesn’t give me a lot of extra time for art, but I was in the mood to draw tonight. There have been some particularly beautiful sunrises in the last few days, and I wanted to recreate one. I was looking to do something soft so I decided on pastel chalk. I didn’t want to do a complete landscape. I love the way that the morning sun kisses the tops of the trees. 
Feeling Merry and Bright
Dare I say it? I’m feeling just a little merry, as in Christmas. We went out today to get our tree. It’s really sort of a non event for us. We don’t have little ones who are excited. There is also the fact that as we chose our tree I was taking photos in the garden center at Home Depot to torture my sisters with. (Come to think of it that made it worth the trip.) I knew it was snowing in Chicago and it was eighty-four here. The temperature also affects the way I feel. When you grow up in the Midwest you want a white Christmas. The only snow I see here is on the tops of the mountains which are more than an hour away. I’m not complaining. I’m getting older, and I am getting to the age where every injury I have sustained in my life is tapping me on the shoulder to say, “Ha, forgot about me didn’t you?” I hurt in multitudes of places depending on the day. I can only imagine what some nice icy weather would do to me. I think I miss the idea of a white Christmas more than anything else. Didn’t I say I was merry? Doesn’t sound like it, but I am, really I am.
There is also this, before we moved to California we cut down our own tree. Our home was outside the city and we lived only a few minutes from a tree farm. I have fond memories of going with the kids in the cold picking our tree, coming back to the house and drinking something hot, and decorating the tree. The experience isn’t quite as picturesque at the home improvement store when I’m too warm to wear a jacket, but once the tree is in the house, and the boxes of ornaments come out, I’m in full holiday mode. I am a very sentimental woman, I remember nearly every ornament and when we got it. My favorites of course are the goofy ones that the kids made, and one that my mother in law made. It is in the tradition of the old German ornaments made with cotton and cloth with the exception of a cut out from a photo of Jessica’s face. It was really cute when it was new, but as the years have gone by it has gotten really creepy looking. I make sure to put it front and center. The tree wouldn’t be complete without creepy Baby Jessica. Every year I am also reminded of an ornament I made a very long time ago. It was in the third grade. When I was a kid there weren’t many of the current safety regulations in place. We created an ornament with a Styrofoam ball, toothpicks, paint, and glitter. I remember mine was orange. We had to stick the toothpicks all around this ball, dunk it in paint, and then again in glitter. It wasn’t an ornament, it was a deadly weapon. Like a giant porcupine ball, or some Medieval instrument of torture. (Possibly a craft idea inspired by the Inquisition?) I can’t imagine a school these days allowing kids to make anything close to it. Of course once the ornaments come out, the snowmen come out. I’ve mentioned my dirty little collecting secret before. I haven’t taken them out of the boxes quite yet, they are awaiting my attention in the morning. (Photo tomorrow night)
Tree trimming in our house usually starts with Vince Guaraldi and the music from Charlie Brown Christmas. It sets the tone perfectly. Dan really likes Charlie Brown Christmas so a few years ago I made him a Charlie Brown tree and painted an ornament red for him to hang from it. I also painted a few ornaments for him as a gift. They will have to suffice as my art project for the day. I spent the morning creating my Dad’s five Irish fairies. (Much thanks to my cousin Lorna in Ireland for giving me the correct spelling of Merry Christmas in Gaelic.) One of the things I truly love about the artistic abilities I have is that when I want to make something special for someone, I have the skill to do so. It makes me very happy…I mean merry.
And finally, a few Irish fairies.
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