Happy Easter!

It's actually been raining here on and off this weekend, so I decided to give my sore body a break (see previous post.  And an update, I'm starting to care about my sore wrist!) and spend some time painting.  And in honor of Easter I decided to paint a rabbit. I've saved a postcard with a wonderful old rabbit on it and decided to use it as my inspiration. 

I hope everyone out there is having (or had) a wonderful Easter!

Spring Distraction

My art habit has been in serious decline since the Spring weather hit, which it has done with a vengeance. With the longer days, and this being our first Spring in this house and lots of projects in mind I've become pretty focused on outdoor projects (actually my husband used the word "relentless" last weekend, lovingly I'm sure).  I'm covered in cuts and bruises, and have managed to injure my shoulder and wrist, but I don't even care. 

In the meantime I've done just a few things, a couple of sketches in my little Kraft paper journal. I love the clown below, I drew it from a picture of an actual clown doll. And the one below it is the face detail of an old Punch marionette.

I did some spray stencils on a page from one of my journals ages ago and ran across it and decided I needed to finish it.  I hadn't collaged in a while, it was quick and fun.

In my last post I showed the below pastel I'd done on an old French paper, and mentioned that I'd reworked it some afterwards. Someone mentioned they'd like to see the "after", which is below. I have to say that when I was doing it the changes seemed much more dramatic than they appear here. But I was happier with it so that's what counts!

Before

After

Mixed Bag

My sister had requested that I make her an owl painting for her birthday (well, actually, she asked for it for Christmas, but she got it for her birthday).  I've now given it to her so I can post it  - this was bigger than what I usually do, 18 X 24 I think, and was a lot of fun.  Lots of layers...

This is an assemblage piece I also had a lot of fun with.  I haven't done much of this kind of thing in a long time - I tend to accumulate too many pieces that I then have to figure out what to do with (and god forbid maybe actually try and sell), so I've been focusing on other things for a while.  But I have quite a collection of misc vintage treasure (to me they're treasure anyway)  and had fun going through them to put this together.

I imagine that these were all belongings of the girl in the tintype, that her name began with M and that these were all beloved items of hers.  I love this little broken remnant of a tiny old doll

This is a pastel I did on a page from a very old French book - the paper is so delicate I didn't want to use any water at all so I did it in pastels.  After I downloaded the picture I actually re-worked it since I didn't like her expression, it's amazing how changing her eyebrows completely changed her.  But I forgot to take another picture!

These are a few sketches I've done in my little kraft paper sketchbook, 

I feel a Marionette phase coming on....These are sketches of amazing real Marionettes I found online.

So far so good

In my last post I talked about a commitment I made to spend time during the evenings after work in my studio, no matter what I was doing in there, to try and create a better, more productive art habit.  I haven't been perfect, but there's been a large improvement.  Some of my art time I admit has been on the couch instead of in the studio, doing some sketching, but I figure that mostly counts. I've been working on a present for someone that I can't show yet, and I've spent some time just catching up on videos from online classes but I do have a few smaller things to show for my time.

I have a small journal made from Kraft paper that has a section of unlined paper, and I've been making some small quick sketches in them, for practice and maybe future ideas.  This is one of them.

I later did a version of it in pastels - a medium that I have a love/hate relationship with. I actually like my little sketch better than this version, often the case for me as I really do love the delicacy and detail of graphite sketches.

This one was painted, trying for a loose more impressionistic feel.

And this one is just because it was in with the other pictures I downloaded! Love his big tuna can feet!

Studio Time

I've been struggling to get myself motivated to spend time in my studio, for a while now, I find it so easy to let life derail my good art intentions. But now the holidays are over, things are settling down so I have no excuses, yet I was still struggling.  So I decided to commit to myself that I would spend a minimum of time, by a certain time, in my studio in the evenings after work. From approx. 6:30 til at least 8 I plan to be in my studio - whether or not I'm actually creating art, but I will be in there.  And so far so good - I've created some, and spent some time just catching up on videos from my long-neglected Gillian Lee Smith online class, but at least I've been in there.  And I'm feeling better.

This was an exercise from my class, in acrylics, working on tones, without worrying about actual color.  So we took a photo and exaggerated the contrast and worked from that.  I enjoyed it, and am okay with how it turned out, so that's given me some confidence to want to keep going.  I feel like confidence is a muscle I need to keep exercising, because I seem to lose it so easily. I imagine I'm not alone in that.

Tis the Season

I haven't been doing much in the way of art but I did want to share something I did - I'm pretty proud of it because it was pretty darn difficult, in a fun way. There's a magical little store in Berkeley California called Castle in the Air and they managed to get hold of a huge collection of old French Pellerin paper models, theaters and "Grand Constructions" as they call them.  They sell beautiful reprints for only $15 that you can cut up and construct in good conscience - my Mom bought me an original for Christmas last year and it's safely framed - no scissors are coming near it. I bought the reprint of this one below (they're all 16"x 20"):

And after hours of pondering, and thinking and pondering some more and wishing I could read 1800's French (or that Google could translate it) it now looks like this (please ignore the magnets, it's on my fridge):

There's a long central piece of paper that goes down the back that his head is attached to, and every little moving piece is interconnected and had to be attached together with brads in exactly the right order so that when you move that center piece back and forth, all the other little pieces move as well - I should have taken a little movie of me moving it.  I just love it, and it was so fun to put together.  I started looking through their website at the others they have to do another one and got overwhelmed there are so many and they're all so wonderful,  The link is here if you're interested.

Since what little creative effort I've made recently has primarily been in the decorating department, I thought I'd share a few pictures.  These are chosen basically due to their being the least embarrassing quality photos - I clearly need a better camera if I want to take good indoor photos.

My village:

The center of my dining table

 My little silver tree with vintage ornaments

My mantel

This will be my last post before Christmas as I'm leaving town Friday - I hope you all have a wonderful, safe and magical holiday season.

Avila Beach and SF

This is going to be another picture-heavy and art-light post!  

A few weekends ago I went with a group of 8 women for a girls weekend to Avila Beach, which is on the Central California coast.  This was a much needed escape for my friend who has had a very rough couple of years, and I was so happy that her sisters, a cousin and friends (one of whom flew over from New York) were able to all get together for this long weekend. Someone had a really nice camera and took most of the pictures, but I haven't seen those yet so here are just a few I took with my phone.

We were staying about a block away from this pier.

The coast is beautiful here. I know I said that in my last post about the Northern California coast, but the California Coast overall really is pretty hard to beat. 

Some of us frolicking on the beach and in the tide pools.

This little town famously has a population of 18 and is a tiny hippie artist colony where they make pottery and blown glass.  

There is also a wonderful tiny cafe owned by an Italian man who looked utterly shocked when someone tried to order a decaf. There is the cutest tiny little room across from it to sit and eat and drink that looks to me like a tiny little artists room/studio in 18th century France, crumbling plaster and all ( I know, I have a colorful imagination).  It had a tiny wood stove in the corner and old records were playing on an old turntable.

This is the dining room of the famous Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, not known for it's restraint in any way!  I texted this picture to my husband and said this is why I never drag him there when we're in the area and his response was "Oh My Gaudy!".   It's fun though, and something everyone should experience once if they're in the area.

The condo we rented had a big blackboard where we wrote our list of things we wanted to do, - Cal Poly which is nearby is where 5 of us went to college, so there was lots of going down memory lane on our to-do list.

Last weekend I took my Mom to San Francisco to see a stage production of "A Christmas Carol" which was wonderful.  I took just a few pictures:

This is the front of the ACT - American Conservatory Theater where we saw the production. It's just beautiful,

I took this picture of the boxes inside before they told us no pictures inside.

Macy's on Union Square with a huge wreath in every window.

The Christmas tree and famous statue in Union Square next to the ice rink.

From the ground floor looking up the 3 story high Christmas Tree and glass ceiling at Neiman Marcus.