more of frog in the forest!

Tonight, I'm resting my achy self, and the tv came through beautifully: I got to watch Great Perfomances' Peter & the Wolf stop-motion animation. Fantastic!

Following are some sketches from Wednesday & Thursday. I'm starting to get a bit better at trees. Real trees have So! Many! Branches! But I'm loving my simple little #2 pencil, it has worked it's little heart out. All the fancy pencils are grumbling in disgust.

what, it's spring already? Been hibernating...

Starting the morning off at 18 deg.F, this afternoon's 30 deg.F feels positively balmy. Maybe it's really warmer than that. Either way, there are small signs of spring, including robins all over the place, and a flock of geese headed back north today.

Here's some sketchbook stuff from the last few weeks:

1.) Our giant housemates, Darius & Filbert, in a quick sketch for a painting I want to do, and a reference photo from today.


2.) Going through a sketchbook from last year and drawing on one of the painted-over pages inspired this next series of sketches (I plan on doing this one fairly big which will be a challenge for me... so many trees!)


3.) A late-night sketch of our dining room (from memory as I was on the couch.) I liked how it turned out so I took the walnut ink to it, and now I like it even more.


4.) Last but not least: This is the oldest page of sketches, done while house-sitting for Mom. The colors are a bit overworked, but there are some good parts. Colored pencil & walnut ink. Done while on the phone and/or watching tv so I was sort of paying attention re: accuracy.

It's ALIVE

Oh tis the season of over-eating. So very many sweets around the house, yet the supply is disappearing quicker than it should...

The new portfolio site is up, thanks to lots of hours put in by (a very patient) Rick! A few of the paintings are only represented by snapshots for the time being (better files are in the works) so you may see some odd colors, but the home-scanned work and the professionally shot images turned out well.

Click on the link to the right (to those poor souls on dial-up, fair warning: it will be image heavy)

There are still many get-togethers and family things occurring over the next few days, but I've managed to sneak in a bit of work on my "Mode de Monstre" series.

(Monster fashion, the alternate title being Living dresses.)

Those will be added to the site soon. Enjoy the rest for now.

Art sold at art sale

Despite the frigid temperature and impending storm, there was a great turnout yesterday for the Pine Street Holiday Open Studio Sale. I had previously written that it was "off the beaten path of Burlington shoppers," but how wrong I was! The number of studios in the vicinity drew a good number of people throughout the day.

The studio I was invited to is shared between three women: Marie Davis (polymer clay), Ginny O'Reilly (watercolor) and Carol Norton (oils and watercolor.) In addition to Ginny, Carol and myself, two other artists were there for the day: Ann Linde (cards and small plaster figures) and Melinda (twig/bark/wool creations) It's a wonderful space with great light and creative atmosphere.

I had a total of 28 pieces between the small matted paintings and the framed work on the wall. Several matted pieces sold, which was a great treat.

Many thanks to Ginny & Carol for inviting me in the first place, to Rick for helping tremendously, and thank you to everyone who came through and stopped to check out the work and have a chat.

(And a quick note about the portfolio link: Rick is working on a new style design for it, and I will soon have some new images up as well.)

socializing

Last night Carol & Andre made it over for a late dinner, and with a spot of wine with apple crisp and the ice cream they brought for dessert, it was a nice mellow ending to a busy day. Carol finally got to meet Filbert as well. Rick missed the perfect photo opportunity of Carol sporting Filbert's head as her own.

Today we met Seth & Kai for coffee in Burlington on their whirlwind New England tour. After a long search for Radio Bean we finally found it. Rick had thought it was on Church Street, I was certain it was down the west end of Pearl Street, but we were both wrong. With the temperature dropping and dropping it was a relief to finally be directed there by a kind lady.
During our search, we had run into another friend of theirs from the ice (antarctic!) and we soon sat around drinking and chatting and had a good time catching up.

On the way home, we stopped in to Diane Shullenburger's gallery in Jericho for the first time. Saw a few folks I knew from the store of course, and some really nice paintings & photos.
Now we're hunkering in with the wood stove going, awaiting the snow storm that's on its way. Listening to World Tales by Jennings & Ponder. We'll see what the morning brings... wish I could telecommute like Rick will be doing!

Latest Music

The studio sound system is getting a workout. This means two things: new music and I'm getting work done.

Forty-three pirate ballads, sea songs and chanteys; that is what we have both been listening to this week! All sorts from Nick Cave to Baby Gramps participated in the making of it, and it's quite the fantastic mix, rough & crude and sweet & smooth. Of course it's mostly the coarser lyrics that tend to stick in my head.

I also now have Dolly Parton's Little Sparrow album (I first heard this when I borrowed it from the library. I borrowed it so often that Rick finally took the hint...) She has an amazing voice, and I do like her personality quite a bit, I mean, look at how long she's been in the business, and she still kicks ass! I tried singing in her range though, and that hurts without proper warm-up.
Here's a sweet little synopsis from a 2004 interview she did with CBS. The bit at the end about her "features" is precious.

I could not help myself.

moarfunny pictures