Musings for a day in January...

It is my son's birthday. We already celebrated on Thursday with a dinner in a somewhat central location south of here, and though he was traveling with the commute, and his father, stepmother and I in the reverse commute, he got there first, and waited a long time for us, me in particular, as I couldn't find a parking place for the longest time. Important, you know, to honor those special days, and he is my precious boy, even at 43 years of age. I have been musing on the magic karma that brings souls together, to learn and grow with one another. Particularly, I am wondering why I cannot love Pickle in the same way I loved Boo. She is certainly adorable, with those huge limpid eyes, and she now lays in the exact spot Boo used to on the bed, and gives me the same stinkeye when I accidentally (or on purpose) wake her, usually to say good night. But, try as I may, it is not the same. Was it that wonderful dusty toasty smell? Or the little noises he made? Or that long, long pink tongue that could lick his eyebrows? Whatever, Pickle cannot stir the ashes and revive that flaming love. Oh, I can love her. It's just different. Loss. It's no day at the beach. And here are my newest beasts, still in embryo, and the most challenging yet, because they are so simple and really need the exact right definition, and it's just not there yet. Bringing in the big guns, the Senneliers, that should perk things up. And I could use some of that, too, some perking up. Soul is dragging on the ground behind me. Missing my baby boy, all grown up and gone, and my Boo, gone forever. Changes. Bleh!

Pin a rose on my nose!

No, not talking about the new horse, though he is rather nice, n'est-ce pas? I woke up today and thought, oh, hell, DENTIST. Well, it was just a cleaning, and gee, I had other errands to do, anyway, so off I went, just a little frazzled around the edges. I have conquered my fear with this very sweet dental office, where they know not to make any sudden moves. This was for my cleaning, and my experiences have been something like that scene in Marathon Man, where an evil Laurence Olivier tortures Dustin Hoffman. And, wow, they used this handy dandy ultrasound thingy to clean under the gumline, then had just a minimal amount of scaling after, and not even a twinge of pain did I feel. A little polishing, and I was done. Even better, I got an atta-girl for my exemplary dental hygiene, definitely a first for this old gal. So, YAY. Done for six months, unless I sell a bunch of paintings and get enough for a couple more root canals and crowns. Slowly, but surely, getting all done here. And the painting, well, it has come a long way, and will probably stay this way till I see something that needs major adjustment. At the moment, nothing is popping out at me. I did this on orange paper, and it seems to have worked pretty well. Very excited about the subject. Actually, this was one thing I thought I couldn't do, not by the hair on my chinny chin chin, and then just did it anyway. Awesome! Thank you, Universe!

Feeling like I am free floating here...

So many big life-changing events, and way out of my familiar routines. Hopefully, that will now settle down. It seemed like a good time to make a deliberate change, and dump Comcast, again. In my seven years in the little yellow house, I have had three different cable/internet/phone providers, two of them more than once. Now back to my favorite, Direct TV, who has set me up with the DVR in my bedroom, where I watch most of what I watch. Just forgot that now I have a new pantheon of channels to negotiate, and many are on east coast feed, so my familiar shows now come on three hours earlier. Strange, but true. Now I am even more disoriented in my own tidy little abode. And then there was the trip to the Comcast command central to return my equipment, which I polished up for them. Comcast is like the DMV. You take a number based on your business there (pay bill, equipment issues, new service, etc.) then sink into one of their cushy couches and wait. I think Bozo the Clown decorated for them, in gray and chartreuse, with little bubbles in the carpet. Really enough to cause an acid flashback. I had my spiel all memorized, excuses why I didn't want their godawful service any more, like I lost all my DVRd shows beaucoup times, and had to stand on my head to get my email entering my password every single time to get an email overview before actually getting to my messages, what was that all about, anyway? And, of course, they raised me $40 a month, almost right away, and I didn't even have ALL the premium channels in the back room, and NONE in the bedroom, and setting up a recording to repeat every day so I could see my soap opera at my convenience was just nutso, pushing buttons and praying. So, of course, no one wanted to hear my sob story. In fact, most of the customers in the funny farm lobby had equipment in their laps, too. I paid my bill, gave them back most of their equipment with a promise to bring back this strange black box with the blinky lights at my earliest convenience, and voila, all set up with my favorite provider. I think. Phone is a little strange, and where are all those additional PBS channels, anyway? I took a little vacation from fiddling with the new guide and started my third horse painting. This is what a beginning looks like. In this medium, it never gets all that fine tuned, and I like to keep a record of the process, just in case I go too far, and have to backtrack to a fresher point. Painting is the only thing that feels grounded these days. So happy to be back in the saddle, so to speak.

Horse, again.

Oh, it is soooooo wonderful to be back to creating instead of packing them away into frames. Okay, still some to be done there, but I have some time, like a month, to get it up to snuff. Meanwhile, a new opus has begun here in the little yellow house. Not unhappy with either one, actually. It really is a matter of discerning light and dark, and being judicious about measuring, so things do not wind up too long or too short or too fat, etc. And this was done on black paper, my favorite way to work in pastels, so I will be ordering a big bunch of it soon, as none of our local art supply stores carry Fabriano Tiziano in black. Didn't know I was so discerning, did you. Learned this at one of the many demos I have attended, learning what the manufacturers of art materials have up their sleeves. I put the first horse pic up on my Facebook page, because friends have complained lately that there is not any new art. Like, I can just push out a piece a day or something. Oh, wait. I did TWO today. Well, that should make everyone happy. I know it worked for me.

Doing a little regressing here...

Once upon a time, when the cowwoman was a teeny bopper, her favorite books were My Friend Flicka and Thunderhead, and they had all these amazing illustrations of the horses, and she would copy them in pencil, tongue tucked between teeth. And some of those drawings were kind of awesome, but she never showed them to anyone, so no one said, gee, you're an artist! Well, gee, now I am an artist, and I can get all excited when I get a pretty good drawing on the page, even in it embryonic stage. Wow. That's all I can say at the moment. Don't know why this has emerged so dynamic. Attention? Like, look at the negative spaces? See into the colors? Practice? It's a mystery. At this weekend's demo, of Gamblin products, really interesting stuff, actually, I sat next to an older woman (older than I, and that's hella-old), who complained her drawing skills were less than stellar. And I thought, me, too. Now I see that, with some attention, patience, and more than a little luck, I can do THIS. Lucky. Grateful.

Help! Send in the painting fairy!

Haven't picked up a pastel in many days here and now, don't seem to have much going on in the inspiration department. Little bird with great hairdo. All messy and kind of diffused and kind of a mess, if you ask me. Well, it will come back. I will just keep slapping away. After all, the paper has two sides. Do you suppose they set it up that way just for folks like me? Just happy to be back at it, after long hiatus. Maybe I'll lay an oil palette, after all.

Well, it was a good idea, I thought...

Did I mention that I sold two paintings, right off my kitchen wall? Well, one was from the series of four, and I liked the grouping, so I figured I would just diddle up another one to fit into that slot. Except. The four were all done on colored paper, and that is currently backordered from Blick, and has not come yet. Therefore, this little ditty was done on yellow paper, much lighter than the black and the red, so it is very pastel in comparison. Also, the mat has a larger opening. So, it won't do. Not at all. Well, not as one of THAT four. Now I will have to make three more of these to match this one. Gosh darn it. I will have to PAINT. Nuts. How sweet it is, really.

Well, EXCUSE me...

I was busy this morning doing 9 things at once, like, if one is worth doing, well, nine must be ever so much more productive, so, of course, Pickle flew the coup. It is always MY fault, you know. I had left the gate ajar in my haste. So I threw on some shoes and off we went, on our merry chase through the neighborhood. At one time, I got ahead of her and had her herded toward home, then she veered back and went around behind a neighbor's house, where I trapped her. Meanwhile, the neighbor woman was yelling at me to get out of her yard. Gee, if that were me, I would have said "can I help you?" in my best passive-aggressive snotty voice, so that when I found out the interloper was actually retrieving a beloved pet, I could backtrack, and even come out to help. This poor woman just snorted that she had not seen the dog, and, despite my groveling apologies, continued to glare at me. Now, I feel sorry for folks like that, who are so uptight they cannot back down once up there on their high horse. And part of me got all ashamed that I cannot control my animal, or watch after her well enough to keep her out of danger, and gee, what a screwup I am, etc. etc. etc. Then I decided that I would just be human today, and admit that I am not anywhere near perfect most of the time. And especially not when it comes to devious little Pekinese Pickles.

All I want is a wall somewhere...

...any wall that is not my own, that is. Now have 17 little paintings framed. This is a huge accomplishment, considering that the wheels fell off my life recently and I have been totally without any poop in my engine. As usual, this was an adventure for me. I used the Beverly's craft frames first, they were really simple, followed by the Village Arts frames, ditto. Then I opened the boxes from Blick, and scratched my head. These were deeper than the others, deep enough to hold a canvas, but they had a lip front and back. How does one get anything inside? And it appeared there was no glass! Hell! I had 10 of these and it looked like I couldn't use any of them! So I did what I usually do. I went to a meeting. On my way, I remembered that Blick told me that they shipped with plexiglass. Okay, so maybe that surface really wasn't shiny posterboard. And there were these flange thingies in the corners that screwed in. Maybe I was supposed to take the frame apart? You think? I came home and did just that, and lo and behold, they worked just fine. Diddled up some dandy little cards for the prices, and a couple of friends came by and I have now sold two of them! $300.00! Maybe they are underpriced? Whatever. Hope they fly off that wall, when I find it.