Another One Done!!

More time for music and artwork is pouring into my life!  I still have to find comfy niches around the house in which to draw but at least I have the small guest room to store things and do the messier painting.  The studio floor is closer to being done - thank you Joseph!  It looks so beautiful!!  It makes the room have so much more light in it, too.  The carpet just sucked up all the light coming in from the windows but the satin finish wood floor reflects the light and even seems to add a warm glow.  Fantastic.  Another really happy thing is that I am recording my piano playing (original songs) with the piano's drum rhythms and creating some very cool sounds.  Still need more practice to perfect the songs enough for release to the public.  I'm used to playing solo and definitely not used to playing with a steady rhythm.  But I'll get it, sooner than later.

Today I finished a self portrait that has been in the works for awhile.  The nebula is based on a picture of a Hubble telescope photo of the Tarantula Nebula.  I changed it quite a bit.  As the human figure appeared in the painting the person was at first just gazing out, then painting while standing on scaffolding and then, it became me and there was no need for brushes or scaffolding!  What fun to hover and paint with light.  Actually two things I've been trying to do all my life.  Never say never. :)

Without further ado:

"Self Portrait"   26 x 30   

oil, acrylic, pastel, colored pencil, marble dust on plywood

One Painting for Now

It's been so long since I put up a post with new paintings!  I've been trying to figure out why that is.  I guess it's because after the last post, in early August, there was suddenly a lot of gardening, harvesting, and preserving to work on, our grandson and his parents were just moving to Traverse City and needed help with all kinds of things, I had some major relational vicissitudes to work through and my studio room had the carpeting pulled up and oak flooring to be installed.

The oak flooring we bought needed (and still needs) a lot of time and energy to fix up before installation.  It is very low grade wood for a very good price and needs be sorted, filled, sanded, stained (to help hide all the imperfections) and, finally, varnished - four layers of polyurethane.  Then bit by bit it has been and will be installed.  I am the staining and varnishing lady.

All my other painting areas got usurped for one reason or another so I've been a gypsy painter within my own home, constantly searching for a place to hang a painting and work on it.  Even with all these things going on I've managed to gesso several canvases and start five or six paintings, all of which are being worked on here and there, now and then.  If I don't just go with the flow I go crazy.  Patience, calmness, hope, bringing light into the darkness, have all been good things to keep practicing.

Here is a photo of one larger painting that was finished about a month ago.

"Epiphany"  52 x 22   oil, acrylic, colored pencil, pastel and marble dust on canvas

At first the painting had names like "So Little Light in the Darkness" or "Darkness Takes the Light" but then I got a moment of happy, inspirational "knowing" shining through while working on the painting.  

Thank goodness for artwork, music, trees, Lake Michigan and especially the sweet, loving people and animals in my life.  Thank you so much for being there for me and with me.