Wednesday, March 18, 2009




Here are some works by my friend Gerri Govert...she works in all mediums but mostly I think pastels.

I love the strokes in the picture of the gentleman with the beard.

Another page added to the Journal of my journey.

I've lengthened the legs and feet on my mural as they were out of proportion. Tonight when my friend Gerri comes by to pick me up for our Life Drawing session I'll get her feed back as she is more accomplished than I at this. I'll post some of her work. She is an awesome artist! I have to thank her for steering me to these Life Drawing Sessions. I REALLY love them!!!

We are getting ready for a show at the Cornerstone Gallery in Whiting. It'll run from April to May.

This Saturday we are leaving for Little Cayman to go scuba diving for a week with our good friends in Richmond, Va. and our son in Memphis who will finish his certification on the island. This will be my last hurray before my surgery. After that there will be no more posts for quite awhile as it's two weeks in bed, then two months not putting my foot down, then therapy for 6 weeks. So I figure it'll be while. If I'm lucky???? I'd love to get an Apple lap top to use in bed while down for the count. Then I could surf and post!! Oh Santa Clause...where are you??? But with the E-Crunch we'll have to see. Dream, dream, dream.

The picture is me in Roaton Honduras taken by my side kick Sheri last year. We both went through the advanced certification course and we were doing underwater photography. Now just to own a camera to get all those awesome sights!!! Let's dream of a robust economy , maybe all those positive thoughts will help.

Thursday, March 12, 2009




I'm going slowly thinking about what to add, where to add...Now I'm playing with flowers, putting them in lightly until I know for sure it's working.

Went to my Life Drawing session last night. I felt like I was doing a little better, but still need to work on it.

It's actually snowing here this morning! Big fluffy flakes. I tried to take a picture for all those out west and down south who have constant sunshine!@$%^

You can't see those fluffy things falling in the pictures. The view is from my studio. The brown looking picture is the corner of my shade walk through garden that is totally asleep in the ground. Oh so you can feel good about your weather....this morning it was like 18 degrees!!!!!! You have to love it or you'll go insane like me!!!

Wednesday, March 11, 2009


I'm still working on the mural...trying to make decisions.

I went to a Life Drawing class with a friend who is a well accomplished artist (Gerrie Govert) at the Art Barn. I had not drawn in YEARS from a live model. Usually it's from photo's as it's cheaper! It felt so good to be drawing from life again, but made me realize how rusty and off I've become, which is good because now I can work on it. Get back in the saddle as they say. I have always loved drawing from life because it's a form of meditation for me.


The longer you look at an object, the more abstract it becomes, and, ironically, the more real.
Lucian Freud

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Quotes



"A picture is an artificial work - something apart from nature, which requires as much wiliness as the perpetration of a crime."
~ Edward Degas





"Construction. That is the real basis of the picture, its scaffolding, its skeleton, its physical body."
~ Paul Klee


Yes, it has been awhile since I was able to just paint. It felt wonderful. I know I'm moving slow on this piece but I'm not sure exactly how to execute this. i don't know where I'm going until I get there. I am going to change directions as I've already done several times. I took colored chalk pencil and played with the bottom. First starting out trying to put plants and vines as I knew them in my head. I kept wiping them off. It just was not working. I did this SEVERAL times. Our inspiration comes at odd times. Like when I was walking into the guest bathroom, I looked at a rug I bought from Anthropology a shop in Chicago I just LOVE. Well, I LOVE this rug. It had exotic birds and a plant that was done just with design with different colored branches and different flowers growing on it. I thought" well, if I love this rug, and that vine isn't real, why can't I make my own plant based on design as well". So I did. Now I have to put the foliage on it. That color more than likely is not going to stay.

Her hair looks thick, but I have to keep telling myself that this is my painting and I like the idea of design, not executing this piece to look real life. It's make believe from my head. My other world.
I am thinking I will make that sun smaller. It is too over-powering. It has too much importance, but that's easily changeable.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Quote



The artist is a receptacle for emotions that come from all over the place; from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider’s web.
Pablo Picasso


The picture was taken a couple years ago while at our cabin in Colorado. We drove to Taos and on the way took this picture because it reminded me of the Georgia O'Keefe painting "clouds". You understood why she was inspired.