Top 3 Reasons I Resent Having To Leave My House

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Occasionally we find ourselves lolling about on a Sunday afternoon not really wanting to do anything other than enjoy ourselves and laze about on the carpet.

And why wouldn't we? I love my patio. So much do I love my patio.

Sidenote: Everything that yawns is cute. Everything. Look how cute he is:

Solstice already?!

Sheesh. I'm so not ready for the sun to start disappearing faster everyday. I resent the darkness of winter. (Okay okay, we would all be dressed like that in December anyway. It's not like I live in Canada.)

June is usually a very creative month for me, and not that this one isn't, but I think I'm noticing a slightly more defined "pattern" in my Junes than I have before. In the constant mental battle of cool colors vs. warm colors, I seem to bleed aqua and teal and turquoise this month every year. I hadn't thought of it before, but this is easily the 4th June in a row in which my biggest artsy obsession has been making a painting as Teal as I can make it. I'm not sure what it is about this time of year that causes it. Maybe it's just a regular cycle of color exploration that happens to fall in June, rather than the environment of June causing it.

If I haven't said so before, I blame my mother for this. When I was little, I used to regard her love of teal as "quirky" at best, and mostly an unfortunate influence of too many butterflies and too much 1980s.

NOW LOOK AT ME.

Crazy crazy shadowy crazy

That picture was actually taken indoors, but the sun was hitting it in such a way that it made these awesome shadows across the whole painting. This was only made possible by the sun FINALLYYYYY emerging after weeks of June gloom that was starting to exhaust me and break my soul. Phew.

Someday is one more in my series of Rainbow explorations. :o)

Old, but new.

I made these paintings for a small business location last year, but said business is no longer in, um, business, so now I'm listing them in my Etsy shop! :o)




(Those images were all taken in the evening, with a blacklight on.)

To be fair*

The paintings currently in progress on my workbench are, in fact, moon colored.




("Moon" being relative to whatever color I'm choosing it to be at any given time, of course.)

Well, when you put it that way...

I guess I do paint in warm colors.


The two on the right are spoken for, and will one day live in Virginia and Illinois, respectively. But in the meantime, I'm glad they helped illustrate a point. (To me.)

Staycation Weekend

We had an amazing anniversary weekend. :o) Very refreshing. We read a lot, drank Sangrias, went to Roy's, and had fun together.

Colin even took me on a romantic journey through all the local sights that played a role in our early relationship. :o) Like this neat spot overlooking Dana Point Harbor. If you stand in the middle of of the compass star, it makes your voice sound really weird. :o) Yay acoustics.




(if you look closely, you can see my reflection in one of Colin's eyes, and his hand and camera in the other!)

We had just come from Rancho Santa Margarita, maybe 15 miles inland, where I swear it was 100 degrees, but Dana Point was cool and breezy. This is why the ocean is always better than the desert. Always.


Hamming it up at Fashion Island after an incredible Hawaiian Fusion dinner at Roy's:


heh :o)

Special Day :o)

Today is our Anniversary. :o) It marks 4 years of marriage, and 8 years of being happily together. As Colin has been mentioning all week, this officially means we've been married more than we were not married! Yay! :oD

People kept telling us that our crazy "in love" feeling would go away after a couple years of knowing each other. We're still waiting for that to happen, and at this point, I have serious doubts that it will. Serious, serious doubts.

Take a memory trip with us:





If we haven't mentioned lately, extra special thanks to Best Man Joe for introducing us 8 years ago. We really appreciate it. ;o)

A couple more pictures here!

Sometimes I Forget What I Look Like

...and other times I wish I didn't remember.

[I once contemplated having dread-locks, but I was afraid my stylist would disown me. So instead, I dyed my hair punk-rock burgundy. My stylist almost disowned me. Well, he canceled all his appointments the day I finally grew tired of it.]

My personality tests always come up "extrovert," but you wouldn't know it from how often I go through cycles of wanting to hole up and hide. Lately I've both been wishing I was less involved in certain things, and more involved in others. The problem is figuring out what those things are.

[I was in a movie on the big screen once that went to all the festivals.]

The last 5 years have been so full of art and paint that I've lost myself within it. Not that there's anything wrong with that, in fact it's really helped me find myself. I just occasionally forget if there's anything else to me. I worry that because all I do is paint, all I am is a painter. But that can't be true, can it?

[♫ For a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself...♫♫]


[This is my Johnny Depp face. I'm not going to explain that further.]

There's a really beautiful light that pours into our home during the daytime because of this white, gossamer-like curtain that hangs in the window...

This is totally related to the fact that I turn 30 in January. Totally. I think the 29th year is supposed to be filled with self-reflection. I'm not at all depressed about reaching another decade, I'm just introspective about it.

[I can recognize physicist Dr. Michio Kaku's voice while flipping channels on the radio.]


So here's to more learning about who I am.

There will definitely be more art soon. Oh yes. I may not have been blogging about it much lately, but I've definitely been working on some stuff. I have ideas for new work that I think is so much more complex than I've done before that I'm scared to start working on it. It might eat my mind.

[if LOST doesn't first.]

Pretties

I really love my bathroom. It was the first thing I decorated after moving in.

So much light!



(p.s. you can find those lovely Kauai prints in Colin's Etsy shop.)






Yay. :o)

Science Geekdom

A collector and friend of mine, Madeleine, whom I've mentioned before, sent me word of her incredibly exciting news this week. She just had her first paper published in the April issue of Nature Biotechnology!! Woooo!! Congrats, Madeleine!!

And, just for icing on an already delicious cake, they used the artwork she submitted as the cover too! Check it out:


Isn't that awesome? :oD Hooray for science geeks pursuing science!! You make the world go round!! Well, okay, you help explain how and why it does, but that's incredibly important!!

:oD

Adventures in Sushi

So we went to Gen Kai again last weekend. :o) It started out simple enough.



But when you order Omakase, you never know what will happen. This would be mackerel sashimi:


Honestly, it was some of the best sashimi I've ever had. And what a [mildly alarming] presentation!

Here's Colin eating the fish head, after it was sent to the kitchen to be deep fried.
(P.S. I ate a fish eyeball. Yep.)

Sashimi Roll:



Then... Jun-san brought out the squid. The whole squid. A whole squid, I tell you:


I hadn't eaten a whole squid before. It was... squid-like. I also hadn't tried salmon roe either! (the orange stuff.) It's like inflated, balloon-like caviar.


And that's my story.

:o)

New ACEOs

I know, they look familiar.




I did my initial sketches for Nami in ACEO size, because... why not? Then I'd have more ACEOs.

I actually have another (similar) one that isn't finished yet. Same concept, but orange and pink. :o)

Both are in my shop.

New Color Studies

Now available in my Etsy shop.

this place is ducky

Please. Indulge me:






Yep, so that's pretty much what I've been doing since they hatched last weekend. This is just the duck family near our condo, there are numerous duck families all over the complex. It's insanity here. In a cute way. Cute insanity.

Egret Interlude:



On our eco-system exploration walk on Sunday, (meaning, we walked around the complex) we also discovered a gigantic orange koi and a good sized turtle. This place constantly amazes me. My landlord told me, "Just wait for summer!" but if it actually gets better than this, I'll be knocked over with majestic hysteria.

Love it here.

This won't be the last time I gush about this.

You are warned.