Water & ... water.

Have I ever mentioned that my apartment tilts? All in one direction, down towards the balcony.



For someone who works in puddles of wet paint, this can get tricky.

I have come up with some very inventive ways to mitigate this, namely the use of river rocks and twigs placed underneath my paintings to balance. This works for the most part, although when you include the chaos factor of weird texture and canvas size, I have to keep an extra careful eye as to which direction the paint wants to flow off the sides of the painting.

An added benefit/problem is, not only does Meat appreciate art, he also loves to play with river rocks. He bats them around all over the place. He doesn't touch the cute little fuzzy catnip filled mice we buy him. RIVER ROCKS, however, provide endless entertainment for a cat. [??]

Also: Yay, pink paint!!

Today I will finish a (non-pink) smaller painting, and list it (fingers crossed) tomorrow.

hello trees

The trees that surround my apartment are back. They do this every year.

I didn't particularly want to live this far away from everything, but as soon as we walked into this place during our rental tour, I was confident about living here. The trees cover every window of the apartment. During those few months when the tree is completely full, our apartment is very private and serene. You can't see anything from the windows but the trees. The whole apartment is bathed in a soft green light all day. It's REALLY amazing in June.

I love those trees.

Now it's up!

(shown in glow)

Awaken, 12x9 inches, now available on Etsy.

Drying Out

Sometimes, it's good to have (or do) less than more.

For instance, a beer diet isn't going to benefit my muscles that are actually starting to tone up. Neither is Los Primos, the most delicious and addictive Mexican food I've ever had. (Authentico!) Unfortunately, we just recently discovered the mini tacos. D'oh.

Having internet issues (because of a possibly faulty wireless card in my otherwise smooth running Macbook) is a problem of a different kind. I'm not ready to accept less computer time. So, it's being forced upon me. I understand conceptually why it's a good thing, but I'm not quite ready to accept defeat and walk into the Apple store to hand over my trusty laptop friend. (Okay, fine, I guess I can use Colin's computer in the meantime...)

But, alas, it will force me into doing other things, things away from the computer. ::gasp::

Oh right, like painting!! (For instance...)


I'm gonna finish this one up today. If all goes well, I'll list it in my shop tonight.

Metablogging

I find people's interactions with their own blogs very interesting. Some people prefer the personal, friend's only, "livejournal" type blogging, of which I don't really understand myself, but that's mostly because I don't have any desire to pour my soul out to my friends via the internet (or bore them with the mundane details of what I did hour by hour last Saturday.) Others only post images of their step by step processes of making art, which *I* might happen to find interesting, depending on the art, but it doesn't tell much at all about the person writing.

Mostly what I find interesting is the type of metablogging that I see, where people discuss their blogging philosophies on their blogs.

Some people like to announce their renewed commitments to blogging on their blogs, while others are weighted down by the pressures of consistent blogging and feel the need to officially "sign-off" or post lengthy goodbye letters to their readers about the lack of time they have to blog (which inevitably only lasts for the amount of time they're too busy and ends again when they feel inspired to write something.)

I think blogs should really be more like a stream of consciousness that happens when it happens, depending on what you're doing and what you want to share, according to your purposes for blogging in the first place. If you don't have anything to blog about for months at a time, then don't blog about anything. If you do, then do. Easy.

No announcements. No semi-emotional goodbyes. No apologies. No pressure. No commitments. No guilt. No discussing your blogs on your blogs.

Er...


dammit.

Crushed Sea Shells

New ingredient. :o) I'm not sure why it took me this long, since I've been using beach sand forever.

I'm trying to finish a painting that I intended to finish and list tomorrow, but the painting is having ideas of its own that I didn't anticipate, so my goals for the weekend might be somewhat different than originally planned.

I might just abandon the wayward art in favor of mind-expanding relaxation with my husband. If I'm not inspired and balanced, then smart-alec paintings are the least of my problems.

Of course today would be the first cloudy, cold looking day all week. Phooey.

Hot tea on a warm day

I guess it was more like lukewarm tea, but it still reminded me why I love my job and my life right now.

"If man has no tea in him, he is incapable of understanding truth and beauty." - Japanese Proverb

Eco-mindedness

Colin's FAT NINJA postcards were featured today on Crafting A Green World. Honor, much!


Check out the full article here.

You see, he uses 100% recycled, brown kraft envelopes. It's not that they look cooler (although they do) but using recycled materials is one of Colin's main goals for the future, especially in his Etsy shop.

He also sells 6 packs of each variety of Fat Ninja, and even better: Variety Packs! Woooooo

Tipping the Spherical Cow

One of my collectors, Madeleine Price Ball, writes a comic.

It's quite brilliant. It's sort of a geeky, science-related comic, which is right up my alley. Madeleine is a Biophysics graduate student at Harvard University.

(hahahhaha...)

Go to Tipping the Spherical Cow to read more. (The above image is part of one comic, called Live free and die.)

Yay, science humor. :o) heh.

New this week!

These are Mad World and Forgotten, both shown in natural light. Forgotten is one of my "artifact" paintings, which I realized this week is how I refer to them.

We had an insane heat wave last weekend and I was able to work double-time for days. Sometimes the paint dried faster than I could paint it.

Unfortunately, the temperature has dropped 30 degrees in 2 days.

::sigh::

More on the way soon!

The Steampunk Movement?

I've been seeing this everywhere for months, and you know what? It's AWESOME.


Check out these goggles:
I didn't realize it was an actual style trend until recently. I think it's super crazy rad.

I'm gonna add buckles and compasses and pleather to everything I own.

Retro-Futuristic? I'm in.

Prismatic Light

Neat.

The sun was so bright today and came through the windows so strongly that I was able to take a fantastic image of this new painting. It was particularly fantastic because I also used a new toy I found recently: a super high-gloss varnish that is oh so liquid-y and shiny. Apparently it's extremely reflective in natural light.

I was really obsessed with using bright, primary colors on this painting, like I was taking each one out of a box of crayons.

It's called Prismatic. (Check out my Etsy shop to see it in under UV light.)

Totally unrelated, although I'm tripping on it at the moment: We have a crystal hanging in the window that our friend Alice gave to us before she died. (She made them for everybody, and I think everyone who knew her now associates rainbows with Alice.) Every year, when the angle of the sun is just right, the crystal shoots out rainbow streaks across all the walls of our apartment. It's been happening lately, and I just realized this year that it always starts in April, which happens to be the month that Alice died, 3 years ago.

I'm tripping because, although I hadn't intended the painting to coincide, I have felt an overwhelming urge to paint a rainbow lately. It just needed to be those colors. Bright, primary, rainbowy colors.

Hey Alice.

Roses for no reason!

My husband rocks.

The end is in sight for at least 2 new paintings. The plan is to finish them this weekend.

There's also a book in the future. (June, to be precise.) Yep.

If I'm going to have cool little business cards to easily communicate my information to people who ask for it, why do I not carry them on me ever? EVER?!

Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville

My most favorite photograph taken of anything, by anyone, ever:

By Robert Doisneau, titled "Le Baiser de l'Hotel de Ville," or "Kiss at City Hall." (Paris, 1950)

Incredibly romantic. I especially like the way he pulled the cigarette down and held it away from her as he kissed her. It seems like he stopped her in the middle of walking. I love how much "motion" you can see all around the focal point of their kiss. The cars, the other people, even the couple themselves turning toward each other. But the kiss is still. The kiss is silent.

Perhaps my participation in (and love for) acting makes it so I don't mind whatsoever that the picture was posed. The moment was real and spontaneous for what it was created to be, and I'm mesmerized by each person's role in making this photograph possible. It's a well written love story.

Extra Spicy

Ah, wind. Blowing around and throwing bits of earth into my art. It's fitting, really. I love to use elements of what exists around me in my paintings. Candle wax, beach sand.... etc. Obviously in Spring, when I'm painting outside, this would include seeds and pollen and probably a few bee footprints.

I don't mind so much. My friend and mentor Ray Friesz had bits of life in his art as well. It's a hazard of painting outside, I guess, but it's really only a hazard depending on how you look at it. I like that little tiny parts of the tree outside get forever commemorated in any of my various paintings. The tree lives here, so it's a perfect reflection of my life at any given moment.



In a way, it's beautiful. I want my art to be affected by the changing of the light, the seasons, the environment, the chaos of life that cannot be controlled or predicted. It's supposed to be that way. It's my fingerprint.

Featured somewhere else

One of the things I love most about Etsy is the way independent artists support other independent artists. I know that I have already switched over to buying many things that I would normally buy elsewhere on Etsy instead. I much prefer to buy products through self-employed artists/designers/crafters than through someplace like.... Walmart, for instance.

Anyway, I digress...

This nice Etsyian featured me on her blog!! It's a great little feature, I'm so flattered. :o)

Go here to read it.

*

We interrupt this blog to bring you an important sidenote from spaceweather.com:

SOLAR MAX RESCHEDULED: Impatient with the quiet sun, NASA researchers have rescheduled solar maximum. The peak was originally slated for 2012, but now it's going to happen this month. "We've launched millions of dollars worth of spacecraft to study solar activity, and what are we getting? Puny little A-flares and feeble old sunspots," complained a high-ranking source at NASA headquarters. "We need some real explosions! Rescheduling Solar Max should solve the problem." News of the shift was announced on April 1st.