Moving Update

Scene from out my backdoor in my new house in Colorado.

Update - we are in the dark area of tossing, organizing, packing, you know the drill maybe.

It's going to be some time to get a studio space up and running.

In the meantime, maybe some sketching is on the agenda..have to remember that one, 

as I pack up the studio.  I expect to have a place about 1/2 the size of my current

750 square feet that is jam packed, so lots of tossing will possibly happen.

BLOG ON HOLD

Time out, while we make a life change and move back to where we belong - Colorado.
Slow move - but most adventurous and important..art on hold, studio on hold, sort of - life on hold..big undertaking but it's now or never.  Visit back often, I will be back.

Happy Blogiversary

Yep - 10 years old today.  I started this blog as a way to keep family and friends

aware and up-to-date of what life had become as we moved from our beloved lifespace

in Colorado, retired from our jobs and took the chance of living in farm country

'middle of nowhere' Kansas. Not what it used to be, but still there and

still alive at times.

I remember a time waking up each day in those first few years and being excited 

about what to write or share.  That excitement

has waned...still WE look at this spot on the globe as 'home'..but see it more now

as a place where we can gather our sense of safety and sanity from

the rest of the world.

We are restlessly always looking for a place like it, in another climate..but

haven't found it yet, don't know if we ever will.

There is definitely something to that old saying -

"BLOOM WHERE YOU ARE PLANTED'...and I think I have,

I try to bloom.  Each season is different from the one a year before.  At times it's hard to believe

it's been 10 years.  Time goes by, so fast.  In the meantime, life goes on.

If you visit here once in awhile, thanks.  At best, I share my art.

If you have been with me since those 10 years ago, you know how this blog has changed -

but me, I am the same person.  Busy, loving life and always creating.

T H A N K   Y O U

More Practice

"Peaceful Feeling"

9" x 12"

watercolor texture with pastel

on Art Spectrum Colourfix

Just some practice...having to focus extra hard

having a new lid put on studio building, metal roof, oh so noisy.

Great Horned Owl in Pastel and Watercolor

"Nightwatch"

pastel and watercolor on

Art Spectrum Colourfix sanded paper

mounted on gatorboard

9" x 13.5"

Had to force myself to stop before I covered up

all the great texture I created on the underpainting

with watercolor.  Sometimes I DON'T stop

and take it too far and then it is

impossible to return to that spot 

where I jumped in with too much zeal!

Calling it done. 

It will be framed and entered into the

ANAC Annual Traveling Show,

hopefully.  I'll let you know.

Work in Progress

Getting a start on a merged watercolor/pastel in my online class with Tonja Sell today.  I saw it right away yesterday, when the surface finally dried.  Had to get back to the studio today to get it going.  I get so caught up in art at times, it is all I think about.  Now that I've got it going, I can focus on other pressing things.  

Here is the start. Do you see the owl?

I saw other things too, but owl has been speaking to me lately. It is sometimes the last outdoor sound I hear when I let the dogs out for the last time..and then I can be awakened by that sound, through the bedroom walls in the middle of the night.  He penetrates my dreamworlds at times.  Would love it if it were a 'she'.  However, there are already two HOOTS in the night.

Stay tuned for more progress.

SIDE NOTE:  I try to use all my own source photos or borrow them from friends

or relatives,, the source for this one is from a stock photo company called Alamy.

I purchased the use of the photo from them.  

I would never copy an image from someone's photo without permission

these days.  It's only fair.  Photographers are artists too.

Working with Textures

Just off the easel..needing to be rephotographed..but this is my

iPhone photo.  I usually take my final photos with my Nikon,

it always gives me a better starting place when 

expecting to post a final piece.

Titled "Pacification" - pastel worked over watercolor 

texture on Art Spectrum 140 lb. natural Colourfix paper

(love that stuff)

adhered to gatorboard - 8.5" x 11".

Continuing to just love the outcomes

of these hidden subjects..getting really excited 

for the next one. 

Stay tuned.