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Doodles

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As I face this empty page I once again find myself looking for excuses, but the truth is that I have a fairly busy life. Contrary to what so many misinformed people believe, women, and men for that matter, who stay home to tend to a house have full days. I have a few voluntary commitments aside from the day-to-day of my household. One of which I have regretfully not been very faithful to, but that is soon to change. I got a little lost in my own problems for a while. That commitment involves some motherless children. I lost my Mom when I was forty-six, these four children, two of whom were under six, the other two not much older, when they lost theirs. The inconsolable grief I felt when I lost my Mom is beyond description, but at least I did have her for all of those years. These kids won’t even begin to understand the realm of their loss until they are much older. Theresa brought them into my life, and it has been a gift. I decided last night that I would be there this morning to see the two younger ones off to school. I actually prayed last night to be awake in time to get there, and boy was God listening. I think I woke at least five times. When I finally dragged myself up it was 5:15. Not too bad, although it was tough to get out of that warm bed. Then I got to their house, I was greeted at the door by a little girl with a huge smile, and a little later upon waking her little brother another to match. We had breakfast and laughed and talked, it just felt great to see them so happy. A great way to start the day. Something I plan to do much more often. I did promise French Toast after all.

Then there is my Dad. He hasn’t quite recovered from the recent head injury. Still major confusion and forgetfulness. Shortly after my Mother died he confessed to me that he has trouble sleeping without talking to anyone. Thus began the now six-plus years of nightly phone calls, that’s right, every night. That is more than twenty-one hundred phone calls. I’ve missed a few here and there, mostly due to things like the jaw surgery I had two years ago, when I actually couldn’t speak, but I have been more than faithful to this commitment. Now that he is eighty-one, the calls have expanded to mornings and several throughout the day. I am his personal television schedule. Dan has the TV guide app on his i Pad. I look up movies, soccer games, or anything I think he might be interested in. Sometimes he just wants to talk. He can’t walk much anymore, and it gets lonely for him. Those calls have begun to eat into my day. I’m not complaining. I have repeated the same thing to everyone that comments, and that is that I would kill to talk to my Mother for a single moment, he is here. I won’t regret any of it.

My point, and there always is one, is that I am having trouble getting to my projects these days. It is true what I said the other night about putting myself last, I could reorganize my days to better suit what I need to do for myself, I just need to take the time to do it. Of course I also spent part of the day in a fruitless search for a sweater for the wedding we are attending on Saturday, you know something to deflect from the small planet-sized cold sores which have decided to make my lower lip their home. I told Dan to take a good look today, it’s what I might look like if I got collagen. For tonight I have doodles. You know the kind of stuff you scribble when on the phone? I started one earlier today and just continued it tonight while on the phone with my Dad. It is the only piece of art that I could fit into my day. Of course my doodles tend to be a little extreme…10 10

Blustery Day

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There’s an old song with a line that states, “It never rains in Southern California.” For the most part that’s true, but every now and then we have a day like today, a rainy, overcast, windy, and wet day, and I couldn’t be happier. That might sound strange to some, but for someone like me who grew up in Chicago, it’s a little taste of home. I’ve been in California long enough to be considered a Californian, but I’ll always be a Chicagoan at heart. I love the beautiful weather here in Temecula, but I really miss the change of seasons. There is something so magical about the first Spring day when it is warm enough to crack open a window. In Chicago that could be at forty degrees. Trust me, when it has been near freezing for months on end, forty is practically tropical. There is also that first day of Fall when the wind is just crisp enough to call for a sweater, or the quiet pristine beauty of freshly fallen Winter snow. I miss all of it. Yes, it is wonderful to not have to scrape the ice off my windshield, or to dig out a parking space, but there is something about the cycle of the seasons that appeals to me. Maybe because in a way we all live our lives in a cycle of seasons. I love the rebirth of Spring, and the maturity of Fall. There is an anticipation of the seasons that is lacking here. A few years ago when we were back visiting my parents, my kids were enthralled by a good old-fashioned thunder and lightning storm. I have memories from my childhood of standing in the garden during a Summer rain, when the air was warm and the rain water was cool on my skin. When I was a little girl there was a blizzard in Chicago, twenty-three inches of snow fell. I remember the snow over my head, and the games we played. My sisters and I built a house in the snow. We made a couch, a table, and I think even a television. I remember the thrill of running across the fence that had been covered by snow into the neighbor’s yard. Mrs. Hackel wasn’t very nice to us, and we thought we were so daring to run into that garden. Brian, my son, was devastated to discover upon moving to California that he was losing his “Snow Days”, bad weather free days built into the school calendar. Maybe it’s because I’ve been here in California for ten years that I can wax so poetic about those bad weather days. All I know is that when I have a day like today,  a day when you want to cuddle up inside with something warm to drink, and a good book or a movie, I feel nostalgic.

I had company tonight, and a rather busy day. As always looking through photos from something to paint, I came across a photo from my phone of one of my cats. I was trying to photograph Riley, and she became very curious. She put her face right up to the phone. Riley in watercolor and pencil. Riley is a Chicagoan too.IMG_1669

 

Finished Work

Can anyone tell me why when I have an event coming up where I want to look my best, a cold sore of epic proportions appears? This thing is so big that it could be an extra in the movie Gravity. (Which we saw today, most excellent.) It could seriously have its own solar system. I started with the cold sore medicine this morning, but I swear it made it bigger, and I believe it is developing a Siamese twin. Can’t wait to see how it looks in the morning. More than likely caused by self-induced stress caused by my life and the thought of squeezing my hips into a dress on Saturday. I may just have to say an extra prayer tonight. Is there a patron saint of dermatology? Oh well…on to the important matters at hand.

No big changes after last nights little rant. I still put way too many things in the way again today. I guess the realization is one thing, actually acting on it is something entirely different. On a positive note I did finish the book-plate that I began last night. It may not seem like much, but filling in all the negative space in that border took quite some time. I also enjoyed myself this evening designing a quirky little bookmark, which I might add I also finished. The paper Jessica gave me last night is gray. I really like the way that the pen and ink works with it. Both pieces bring to mind the work of both Aubrey Beardsley and Edward Gorey. Along with Maxfield Parrish, I would consider them my favorite illustrators. Beardsley and Gorey’s work was primarily in pen and ink, (as you know my new favorite) and I can’t even begin to say how much I love Maxfield Parrish. His incredible use of color, just amazing. We saw an exhibit several years ago and were blown away. There are nights when the sun has just set and there is just a hint of a bright blue, similar to the color Parrish achieved by glazing with layers of varnish in between, Dan and I call it a “Parrish” sky. I just had a spark of inspiration, and that’s always a good thing. I may just have to begin to try that technique tomorrow.Book plate final

bee mark

Finding Meaning In The Words Of Others

I started a new piece of upcycling the cabinet doors tonight. I decided to turn one into a table. There are recessed panels in the doors, which call to be filled. So far there has been the child’s chalkboard, the cheese tray, the menu board, and the piece of art I made for Dan with the business card from our anniversary dinner in Paris. It occurred to me today as I looked at one that the surface could easily be used as a table if I cut a piece of glass to set into the recess. I began to tinker with the idea of creating a piece of art to put under the glass and turned to my new-found love of pen and ink. I decided to draw an open book, but then decided the book needed to be written in. I have mentioned my love of quotes. I went in search of one pertaining to books and found this one by Cicero, “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” I feel that way. I consider myself very lucky to have what I have in my life. Things are not perfect, Dan is still looking for a job, my Dad is getting older, and more frail, my knees like to remind me daily that they are not happy, but I am.  We are readers, we love books, there are people who think we own too many books, though I strongly disagree, one can never have too many books. From our living room/library windows there is a view of our beautiful garden. One of the pleasures of Southern California is that there is always something in bloom. I can sit in that room with the person I love, surrounded by the books I love, and gaze out at the beauty in the garden, my own little heaven on earth.

In my search for a quote I also came across another that really spoke to me:

“Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.” Issac Asimov

I mentioned my knees, I have often said that I will take all the pain that my knees have to offer, but I can never lose my hands. Mr. Asimov’s quote is the perfect explanation of my blog, and a perfect explanation of my creativity. I spoke last night of the disconnect between what is in my head and what I hope to put on canvas. I may not get exactly what I want, but all that I am comes through these hands.  I struggle daily to think of what it is I want to do artistically, but every night I sit here in front of this computer and think, and then I type. I never plan on what to write, I simply sit here and it flows out of me. I have always loved to write. I have many short stories in notebooks, and pages of poetry. I don’t share most of it with anyone. Dan of course has been the recipient of more than a few poems. Now I’m wondering if its time for those other pieces to see the light of day as well. Something to think about.

More work to be done on this piece. A last-minute addition of a trompe l’oeil pencil. I also think the addition of some color around the edges is called for, but that will have to wait until morning.10 6

A Storm Of Color

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As always, unsure of what I would create today, I decided to revisit my fourteen year old self. Back before I knew there were rules that applied to painting. Back to a time when I painted for the sheer joy of putting paint on a canvas. No subject matter in mind I simply began to layer the paint on, thickly at first, then dissatisfied, scraping away the paint frustrated at my inability to know what it was I looking for. Aside from my struggles with perspective, my greatest failing as an artist is my inability to transmit what is in my head onto a canvas. There are times when I see a shadow of an idea, but lack of completion of the thought. I don’t believe it is something that can be taught, its instinctive. I truly believe that it comes from the daily practice of brush to canvas. It is what I intended those many months ago when I began to transform this project from its original platform of simply using up what I had on hand, to a transformation of my artistic self. To become a fully developed artist, to understand who I am as an artist, and to find that elusive confidence that I have lacked for so long. I have without a doubt seen signs of what I can achieve, I have discovered new ways of creating art that I truly love, but I still find myself searching for my artistic identity. I am capable of incredible likeness in portrait drawings and paintings, and six months ago that perfectionism was what I thought I wanted and needed, that is no longer the case. I believe there is more to me than that. My Dad has on occasion volunteered my talents. I have done the portraits of children I’ve never met, and even after a printer failed to come through on an order, replicated the logos and business ads for and entire booklet for a fundraiser. (Needless to say, not happy about that one!) I would complain and say, “I’m not a copy machine.” Yet here I was months ago bemoaning my want for perfection. No longer. Photography has it place. It produces the exact image of its subject. What I have failed to understand is that art is more than a representation, it is an emotion. I want to feel about my subject, and I want you to feel when you view it. What happened tonight was a scraped canvas that caused a reaction, a feeling in me. Colors that jumped off a canvas begging to be repainted. It’s a solitary work, I am a solitary woman, you can see that in much of what I do with a brush and a camera. It was very windy here today, I’ve also been hearing much about hurricane Karen. I didn’t think tonight, I painted. Troubled skies, and uncertain seas, maybe my mind is on the canvas after all.IMG_1646

A Startling Awakening

Dear Wrong Number, I myself have made calls to the incorrect number, but I usually don’t make them at 4:30 in the morning. I also, once realizing my mistake, will stay on the line long enough to say, “I’m sorry.” It’s the only polite thing to do….especially at 4:30 in the morning. The thing is Wrong Number, I happen to be one of those unfortunate people who don’t sleep well, and once jarred from a sound sleep by the shrill ring of the phone, I am unable to return to sleep. There is also the minor stress on my heart thanks to you scaring me awake, and thinking that it might be about my elderly father. You have no idea what effect your little error has had on my life. To begin with I spend my day looking like an extra from The Walking Dead. My face has this incredible ability to absorb makeup when I’m tired, as though I am SpongeBob’s mother, it’s really quite amazing. Then there is the voice in my head that tells me, “Hey, it’s OK, eat whatever you want, you’re tired.”  Managing to break through the Great Wall of Dieting that took years to construct. And finally Wrong Number, I pride myself on being a productive person. The only productivity that goes on when I’m this tired is the relationship between me and my refrigerator. I realize that you know none of this when you call…at 4:30 in the morning, but I thought maybe since you have had such an intimate relationship with my day, and if that perhaps my number is close to the one you meant to call, and by chance it happens again, you might wait and say, “I’m sorry”, or “hello”, before you bang the phone down on my ear. I hope you had a nice day.

On to more pleasant subjects, like art, recycling, and my little friend Emily.  Years ago the manger for our very old Nativity set began to fall apart. My Dad decided to build a new one, which was fine had Mary and Joseph booked a room at a Swiss chalet. The frame of the old one was still usable, so I, being the artist in the family, was given the job of recreating new sides and a back for it. I did a fine job, and it’s still around these many years later. As for the Bethlehem Swiss Inn? We turned it into a doll house for my daughter. Now it will become a doll house for Emily. It needs a little work, which I am thrilled to do. As anyone who reads my blog knows by now, I am just a little crazy when it comes to recycling. Two years ago I began my own private mission to prove how much paper was thrown away at my local Starbucks in the form of coffee sleeves. I decided that I would save our sleeves for a year and shame them into recycling. We are avid coffee drinkers, but not in my wildest imagination did I think I’d end up with the amount of sleeves that I collected. My plan was to collect them , make something artistic out of them, and then write Starbucks corporate office with my complaint and fabulous art project. By the time my year was up, I heard rumors of recycling bins being placed in the stores, and that has since happened. Meanwhile, I have more than one hundred sleeves. Not one to waste the paper, I held on to it, knowing a project would present itself. Last week I went looking for doll house roof tiles for Emily’s house. They were way too expensive, and then…a brainstorm! Corrugated cardboard roof tiles courtesy of Starbucks. I started tonight by deciding on a size, and proceeded to begin the painstaking effort of cutting out these tiles. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the process. When I was a little girl my Mother once said there was something wrong with me because I was always cutting paper. I think I was just connecting with an inner Martha before there was Martha. When I had cut a few out I decided to go a step further and use the technique I wrote about last week. I applied glue to a few and burnt them over a candle. I love them! Much sturdier than plain cardboard, and I believe much more paint-able, however having only finished thirty tiles I decided that I was insane. I am obviously still under the spell of Wrong Number. Emily would be attending college by the time I finished. I decided instead to try painting them with a coat of Modge Podge to seal them instead. Much easier. I am also painting the roof in the same color as the dresser that it will sit upon. You can thank “Wrong Number” because I’ve barely started and need to quit, but this is going to be really special when it’s finished. I can’t wait to finish the doll house, and to get some sleep, and I’m turning the phone off.IMG_1624  IMG_1626  IMG_1627IMG_1628  IMG_1631

Blending Flavors

I failed to get back to my watercolor portrait today, but not without very good cause. I was very busy pursuing my other great passion, cooking. As an artist I enjoy using all kinds of medium, and for me cooking is another medium. Ingredients are like paint, blending together to create a work of art on a plate. I created a new recipe today. We were watching an episode of Anthony Bourdain in Spain the other night, and by the time it was over I was in a Spanish frame of mind. I love tapas, and unfortunately for us our favorite tapas restaurant in San Diego closed down. We loved going down to the Gaslamp Quarter and sitting at a sidewalk cafe, enjoying some small plates and a pitcher of Sangria while watching the world go by. Of course as most couples do, we would comment on the people walking past. (All in good fun, because we of course are perfect….back to the food…) I created a shrimp dish with Mexican chorizo for lunch. A lovely, rich, smokey sauce, and succulent shrimp dusted in smoked paprika, topped with a little fresh guacamole and chipotle mayo.  Dan gave me a lovely compliment, he said, ” When we watch Anthony Bourdain’s show and watch him eat in these great little restaurants, I always think, “I wish I could eat there.”, and today I did.” Brian loved the base of the dish, but isn’t terribly fond of shrimp. He suggested that he might like chicken instead. So off to the store with my friend Theresa, for a very fun afternoon of ingredient shopping. By four fifteen I was back at the stove and created a different version of the same recipe for dinner. This time a gumbo of sorts with chicken, Mexican chorizo and Spanish chorizo, with some chopped cilantro and green onion. My guys loved it, cleaned their plates and went back for seconds, actually Brian cleaned the pan as well. Now I just have to remember everything I put in there. I’ve made some great dinners over the years, telling my family to enjoy because they will never have it again. Some of the meals in this house are made from what’s in the fridge and a little kitchen wizardry. I get a great deal of personal satisfaction from painting, but cooking for the people I care about is good for the soul. There are honestly days when I think if I could go back in time and choose a career path to follow, I’m not sure if it would be cooking or art. I guess I’ll just have to continue doing both.

Lunch….

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Dinner….IMG_1582

Not the portrait for tonight, but a watercolor. Just something pretty to look at.

Art…

 

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Life Changes

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I started a project for tonight, a watercolor of the daughter of a friend, but didn’t manage to finish, and I’ll be saving it until tomorrow because its actually a surprise. I’m not sure if this particular person reads my blog, so I am hanging onto it until it is finished. In the meantime, my friend Emily is getting a new bedroom design, (she is four for those of you who might be unfamiliar. We recently played a fabulous game of Barbie’s.) Emily loves mermaids, and so I decided at the last-minute to do a little something for her. I have contributed a few things for her room, but her Mom is my friend Theresa, who is a very creative soul, and the room is adorable. I miss decorating my kids bedrooms, and so much more. My kids are much older, actually my youngest will be moving out soon. I guess I’ll soon be an “Empty Nester”. You hear these terms as you are aging and it seems so far away, like it’s for “old” people. I don’t feel old, and neither does Dan. It is strange to be at an age where much of the world begins to become dismissive of you. I saw a movie recently with Michelle Pfeiffer in it. She is a year older than me. I wasn’t crazy about the movie, but very pleased to see that she is aging like a normal human being. So many women on television and in the movies are looking scary plastic. I’d like to remain as human as possible. In so many ways because of this project in particular, I feel reborn. It truly is the first time in my life where I wasn’t so busy being daughter/sister/wife/mother, that I am just being myself. I of course still have children, still worry like a lunatic about them, and have my husband, and couldn’t love him more, but have come to understand that this is my time. Dan has been more than incredibly supportive of my artistic endeavors. There are days when I fall into the old ways and bury myself in the stuff of life, and it is he who is asking if I did my project yet. The days ahead seem a little strange. I’m so accustomed to Brian being around that I think I may be a little lost for a few weeks. I don’t worry too much about the growing older aspect of life, I’m just really grateful that I learned to love myself and to think about myself while I’m young enough to enjoy the time. And as I liked to remind my daughter Jessica when she was a kid, “Madonna is older than Mommy”. I’ll always have that.

 

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Sophie

No long rambling tonight. I think I did enough of that last night. I spent the day working on some furniture refinishing, and because of that, and not one, but two long walks today, I’m running late. Dan and I are going to a wedding in less than two weeks, so it’s crunch time. There are two dresses, the one I want to wear and the one that fits. I need an early Christmas miracle! We managed between the two walks to get in about an hour and twenty minutes of exercise, hopefully between that and a lot of prayer (and less cheese), I’ll get into what I want.

I was a little tired for art tonight, I did a lot of sanding by hand today and my hands were feeling it. One of our cats, Sophie, was kind enough to pose for a quick sketch. I was searching for a project and there she was. A little charcoal sketch, something I think I need to more of. 10 1

Do You Really “Like” Me?

My husband writes a blog, its nothing like mine, he wouldn’t consider himself an artist, but I think he is wonderfully creative in many ways. One of which is that he is a good writer. We had a conversation the other day about our respective blogs. I write every day, he writes when the mood strikes. We are both very curious about something. When we write about something serious, something that we feel is important in our little part of the world, we get maybe one, maybe two “likes”. When we write something that we feel isn’t up to par, our “likes” go through the roof. ??????  We are puzzled. If it happened to one of us then we might reason that what we feel is our better writing is crap, and in this apparently alternate universe we reside in, our not so good stuff is stellar. However, it is happening to both of us, and our blogs couldn’t be more different, in content, in writing style, and quite frankly, mine has more pretty pictures than his. (He occasionally posts a photo.) I wrote a post the other evening about hearing my couch call to me. It is one of the highest amount of “likes” I’ve received. I was a little delirious with pain at the time, and I think my writing reflected that. Now my brain hurts. Do I write better when in pain? Will you “like” me if I stub my toe before I blog?  I know it can’t have been the artwork from that night. It wasn’t my best, and actually since this started out as a blog about my art as well as my life, I’d be horrified if you thought that was my best. I believe that I have produced some really nice pieces in the last few months with not a lot of feedback. My son said something last week (in his superior “I’m younger and smarter than you” best), he said that he thinks people who write blogs are self-serving. (He has his moments as a compassionate and understanding human being, this was obviously not one of them.) I think he’s just pissed that I started one first. (Just like the tattoo story…another time.) I explained to him that I started this blog because of the 365 project. I was hoping it would change my life, and it has. I also knew that I never do anything for myself, and would continue to ignore myself, and to feed my “not good enough self” that lives in the recesses of my brain unless I made it impossible to quit. The blog was born. As I explained the other night, I’d feel too guilty if I didn’t follow through. (Thank you Sr. Rose Vincent, Sr. Therese Angela, Sr. Aloysius, and all the other nuns who participated in my “guilt” education, and of course an honorable mention to my parents.) I wasn’t looking for accolades when I started this, I was looking for pressure. I succeeded beyond my wildest imagination.  I feel like I’m back in high school and I want people to like me, gross. When I was in high school I never cared if anyone liked me. So I find myself at odds with myself. I have to admit it, I want you to like the art, it means a lot to me, and I hope you enjoy my ramblings, as for me personally….

For tonight another piece of pen and ink for my upcoming endeavor.

P.S. The couch says “Hello”.9 30