Good Buddy

September 17th, 2007

Here is a new painting, a commission. This is Buddy, a sweet canine soul who passed away several months ago and is dearly missed by his family. I could tell by looking at his photo that he was indeed a great “buddy.”

Buddy 16″ x 12″ Acrylic on Canvas

buddy

It’s a sad fact of life that dogs don’t live as long as people…they are such good friends to us and it is so hard to lose them when they die. But for the time that we have them with us, they make things better in so many ways.

On a recent trip to WNC (Western North Carolina) to drop off new artwork at my gallery in Waynesville, my husband and I took my little brother and sister and some of their friends camping for a night. My husband took this photo of my youngest brother (16 years my junior) with our dog, Clara.

buddies

How could I not be a dog person?

I want to share one more picture with you. I worked for a jewelry company for many years before I went full-time with my painting, and I still design a lot of my own jewelry. Here is a necklace I designed for my friend Leann, to wear on her wedding day. It’s made of freshwater pearls, garnet, black onyx, swarovski crystal, and sterling silver. (Her dress is going to be white with black and red accents.)

leann necklace

September 20th will be the 10-year anniversary of the day I met my husband, Kevan!
And the 23rd is the autumnal equinox!

It is really starting to feel like autumn now, where I live. The air has been cool and clear, the sun and the blue sky have taken on that crisp, intensely bright quality, and more and more trees are starting to change color. There’s been a cool breeze, and I’ve been listening to my wind chimes. Change is literally in the air.

In anticipation of colder weather, I did a little research and discovered a new & superior way of making hot chocolate. You won’t see me using any of those silly cocoa mixes this winter. I’ll be getting bricks of high-quality dark chocolate, grating them, and melting them in a pot of milk (or soymilk) with cinnamon and a dash of cayenne for that Aztec punch.

Sorry for the lack of updates lately…I’ve been seriously neglecting my blog. The combination of a business trip, automotive woes, home improvement projects, re-evaluation of finances, and hosting of a party on top of all my usual work & home responsibilites has put “updating my website” on the back-burner these past weeks. But it’s temporary. (I think.)

Artwork, Ideas, Contests, Kitchens, Dogs!

April 10th, 2007

Lots and lots of things are going on in my life right now. If you are one of the lucky people subscribed to my blog, you’ll have maybe noticed this. Here are a few of the things happening this week:

Finished another portrait commission: a beautiful red-headed lass by the name of Zoe Baumgartner Brown.

Zoe
16 x 12″ Acrylic on Canvas

zoe

We are making huge progress on our kitchen remodeling! The countertops were installed yesterday. We still have to hook up the plumbing, install new electric sockets, do all the tiling, baseboards, and other trim work, install a few more components on the cabinets, put shelves in the pantry, and other minor cosmetic things. Then we can set up the fridge and the range and start moving our dishes, food, small appliances, etc. back in! So there are still a few more weeks till we’re back to normal, but the end is in sight.
Click here to see photos!

We are throwing away our old sofa! It’s ancient, has been through a lot, and is really quite disgusting if you look closely. But I’m not one to waste, so I decided to take some of the old cushions and build a tiny dog sofa out of them for Clara. She loves it!

dog sofa

I know everyone thinks their own pets are cuter than everybody else’s, but come on, really. Clara’s cuteness can just be too much sometimes.

cute clara

Just one more thing I want to share with you today. If you’re not an artist, this may help you understand some of what goes on inside us. I recently posed this question to some of my artist friends:

It seems to me that most of the time, getting to the point where I decide to paint and actually making myself START something is like, SO much harder than the actual painting part. Painting is easy once I start.

The exception to this rule would be when I’m in a creative frenzy and completely excited and inspired, in which case it’s easy to start painting….this does happen to me, but only occasionally.

It seems like I generally put as much or more effort into thinking/dreaming about what I’ll paint, and analyzing the possibilities, than I put into the part where I’m actually applying paint to the canvas.

Any of my painter friends ever feel this way too?

Here are a few of the responses I received:

Figuring out what to do, planning/sketching, takes just as long as really completing it! A lot of planning, time, and energy goes into the composition and details so it comes out looking polished in the end.

I sometimes find myself spending more time looking at what inspires me to paint than the actual process of painting. I have to kind of kick myself in the butt and tell myself to just get down to my studio and paint and stop thinking about everything I want to paint.
When I do get in the mode of painting though, everything is good and usually amazing things are happening. I just need to stay focused more on bodies of work and not jump around so much between so many mediums and things that interest me. I sometimes feel that I’m a young boy again and the world is my candy store. Completely overwhelming, in a good way though.

I keep a large file box of inspirational/reference pictures…magazine pictures, greeting cards, wrapping paper, old calendars, my own photos. When I am stuck I browse through my box and can usually find some element that will spark my interest. Most often I will find an element in several pictures that come together as a new concept. I am convinced the act of daily painting will ultimately bring out “our best” in painting. So, I have recently committed to the act of daily painting or drawing. (Most of which nobody will ever see.) The more I paint the easier it is to get started on the next …then LIFE throws me an interruption and I get all rusty and have to START again. I think that is the way it is supposed to be.

I spend hours and days stressing and beating myself up over starting a painting. For some reason it feels like the most difficult thing ever to just begin the damn painting. And it seems like at the most inconvenient times (like when I’m at work) is when I actually feel motivated enough to create something. It truly kills me, especially when I have nothing else to do and I feel like I should be spending all of my time creating art.

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