i just took a walk outside inbetween cloudbursts, and this is what i saw...trees in the leaves

trees scattered among their leaves

last leaves

a raging river, swollen with raindrops 

very close to cresting it's bank in places

while our fingers stay crossed

we scurry back to the house ahead of the cloud burst and after an hour i see this out my studio window

a rainbow, i wanted to share with you.

and this artist i just discovered and am enjoying her newest cd very much, and i love this song about trees and this one.

I just tidied up the studio and thought it would be a good time to take some photos. See...I've kept it clean and organized for months now and it's so much more pleasant to work when I know where things are. i can't count on my memory so lots of things are labeled. I love my easel (thank you jim!) and use it a lot. The basket on the left is full of journals i work in, on the right is a pile of unfinished/work in progress (it's only the tip of the iceberg too).

Heather, Jeff and family came over on Sunday and she, Jeff, and Walter worked together to wrap me in duck tape - I finally got the dress form made that I've longed for. The old round metal stand in front is where I'm going to mount it. It will be finished by the weeked if all goes according to plan.

It's a funky space but it's big and feels like home. When Walter retires, in the next year or two, he has mentioned he'd like to build me a detached building for my studio, now that would be really nice!

okay, that's it for now. later alligator.

off to get a massage, my teeth cleaned, and other errands in town.  (I picked up a package in town with goodies created from my art - thank you, mysterious gift giver, it was a lovely surprise and it arrived on a day when I more than ever appreciated this kind gesture :-)

getting ideas for future art projects...they seem to hit me more than ever when I'm on this stretch of road.

back home again, a walk with the dogs at twilight.

some of the leaves on this black cottonwood are as big as a plate, see...?

the eagles have arrived just in time for the salmon run - i hope they find some.

i love the contrasting colors this time of year, the textures too are so vivid.

trees next to the river

tress.......

somebody's halloween pumkin

our house in the distance

this year there are no apples scattered on the ground, they disappear by morning, replaced by huge "piles" - evidence we have a bear roaming the fields. i like that they are still around...

I'm listening to this,  this and  this silly video tickled my funny bone and gave me a good chuckle over a cup of tea this morning.  

watching time pass

I'm feeling inspired to work in a series about time, aging, and the generations before and after me. It's so interesting  to reflect on how each time period in my life find brings me to new issues to explore more deeply, places that all of a sudden I can relate to in a new light. Ever since turning 50, with all the changes of body, mind, and energy entering this age brings, my focus is turned more directly towards the autumn of life, looking closely to see and appreciate the subtleties as well as engage with the obvious. Being a part of the movement and being a watcher of the movement.  Creating in general and painting in particular, has allowed me a voice to sing as well as an ear to listen to my song. I feel grateful.

Registration opens today at noon Pacific Time for the 3-day workshop I will be teaching at An Artful Journey in Los Gatos, CA, from July 18-22. The workshop is entitled Dream Narratives and during that time we will be exploring a variety of surface design techniques on fabric. These photos show examples of some of them.

If 3 days of painting and playing on fabric at a beautiful retreat center in the woods outside of Santa Cruz California sounds like something you'd enjoy, I hope you'll sign up and join me there.

this is the same large painting, still in progress, but it has now morphed into this.... this fluid process, watching everything change form in the swish of brush loaded with color is what brings me to painting each day with renewed curiosity and enthusiasm. I have no idea how it will end up, when i will know it is finished. (cross your fingers for me that I will know and stop in time, i think i'm getting close).

i spent much of the day putting together a journal, ala teesha moore. If you haven't seen the series of video tutorials she and tracy have put together, you must check them out on her blog. It's like sitting next to her and hearing her thought process as she creates - what could be better? 

Her video demonstrates how to make a 16 page journal out of one piece of 22" x 30" watercolor paper. I wanted more pages so I used 4 pieces of watercolor paper to make mine, 3 signatures of 4/3/4 pages.  I used two different colors of electrical tape for the trim, brown and black, and covered the back with clear packing tape. I learned that tape does not stick to paper that has been painted with clear gesso.  The tape kept coming up at the edges so I resorted to sewing everything down good with a zig zag stitch.

   
I sewed the flaps down on the inside edges so I'll have two places I can still little papers I want to keep loosely in my journal. Today I look forward to making my first entry.  Yay for new journals!

Beautiful foggy mornings here in the northwest seem to reflect my foggy thoughts of late. At 52 years old, you would think I should know myself well enough to remember that after ANY big event, anything that is far and away from my usual quiet routine here out in the country, it will take my brain - chock full of experience and sensation - a bit of time to catch up with myself and my plans upon my return. And during that "catch-up" time, no matter how much I tempt myself, encourage myself, or scold myself into hurrying up the process, it doesn't/won't happen. All I can do is be patient or impatient while I navel gaze, paint and draw rubbish, relax, and wait for the pace to pick up again, for my thinking to gain clarity once more,  for the slowness to meld into a quicker pace. Why then I continue to agree to an arm wrestling match of sorts with this part of me, knowing full well that I will lose again,  baffles me. Maybe I've learned it this time, I think, maybe next time I will choose to just relax and not struggle, to let it be okay for me to do the backfloat and look up at the sky while everyone around passes me by doing the american crawl at top speed. Maybe I get it now...

look at the crisp winter apples, juicy and sweet after the frosts, ready for picking and eating

I have bunch of photos to share. I'll start with those images of places just outside my door, a diary of beautiful windy days, of trees letting go of leaves, one by one, and dozen by dozen, and carpets of golden yellow and orange carpeting tufts of green field grass.

Attending JournalFest was just exactly what I needed, in every way. I was there as a student, invisible if i wanted to be, running late if I needed to be, being spontaneous with my time and my schedule. What a wonderful freedom that is - to soak up everything, to not talk if i didn't want to, to give back through  my often quiet but sometimes bubbly energy merging with the collective creative energy of the group.

time to walk the beach

to soak in the sounds and smell and colors of the water and sky

to draw and paint and write in my journal in the company of friends. Here is dear Alex who was my instructor for a an experimental water color class, just the kind of learn-about-the-tools-break-the-rules-kind-of-class i love. she is a fabulous painter - one of my very favorite in the world artists, and i would love to be a fly on the wall somewhere (except flies annoy me - i don't like flies at all, maybe i'll be a  spider) and just watch her work.  i don't have much to show from the class  i'm sorry to say, as I was so busy and happy experimenting with this new-to-me-medium with all it's variations of application/papers/and mediums that i just never got around to pulling "shapes out of the clouds" from my paintings. But I am the kind of person that enjoys drawing out and savoring a surprise, so even though I haven't done it yet, I do know they are all in there playing, and lollygagging, and that in itself brings me continuous delight. The photo of the one piece I finished is towards the bottom of this post. It got taped into a very very special journal .... (curious?keep reading)

to take fabulous classes - all three - from gifted teachers. Judy and I got someone to take our picture with Theo Ellsworth, one of the instructors we both took a class from. He draws, and draws, and draws, and draws...and then draws some more and adds some words when he has them. This is what he shared with us, how he does this. 

 It was wonderful, I had a blast. I also didn't follow the directions exactly (he didn't demand it, thankfully) and I added some color after a few hours of strictly pen (whew, what a relief!). My tree hangers aren't nearly finished of course, but i'm sure they'll be happy to hang here till I get back to work on them.

The third class I took was from Anahata Katkin, one that I'd always wanted to take and felt lucky to get the chance. She gave us several exercises to do, experiments, loved that. Of course I didn't always follow the directions (as if i could even remember them half the time) but i did try lots of techniques she suggested in some variation, and plan to incorporate things I learned and new ways to work into my own art experiments. Here is some of what i did there:

working with a strong focal point and lots of empty space

a strong anahata influence here - i followed directions :-)

anahata said i had a graffitti style, i think that is pretty accurate

i incorporated a blue drawing by violet into this journal spread

this piece i drew the night of the journal party, the music was awesome and really influenced the "how" and "what" of my images. words still coming on many of these. i carry thoughts of my pregnant daughter Marissa with me everywhere I go, and baby Jackson...yes, he's in there. and no, she doesn't wear dreads :-)

And one of the most MOST exciting things to transpire was: I got to work in one of the 1000 Journals

 journal # 381 to be precise. having this opportunity was really a dream come true for me, i was so thrilled!!!

this spread is my contribution; the person on the right was created in Alex's class, the one thing i finishes, and I added collage images and words on the left.

Well, I think I've caught you up on the big stuff anyway. I'm working on proposals for classes, as well as a special-secret-something i'm working on that I'll announce here within the next week.

Thank you for stopping by and coming back. I appreciate your presence and your comments when you leave them. Until next time, enjoy the weekend and may all good things come your way. 

It's been awhile since I've shared my art so I though I'd show you what I've been working on lately. This piece is a painting I did using Shiva Oil Stiks on fabric. I love oil stiks on fabric coupled with thread painting and fabric piecing. I did the detail work on the face with a black micron pen, some of the face shading with prismacolor pencils, and the bright red letters with a paint pen. I heat set everything with my iron after drying 24 hours (alright, I was impatient and pushed that part) and once heat set, did some thread painting on my sewing machine. I am just loving this whole medium and can't wait to do more, more, more! If this process sounds intriguing, I will be sharing these techniques and several others in a 3 day workshop I'll be teaching at An Artful Journey on July 18-22, 2010.

These paintings  were created in my class Spontaneous Haiku Painting. We started the class writing several haiku then moved into the painting exercises. The end product is a booklet made with 8 of the paintings mounted on matboard, each with an accompanying haiku, bound into a small book. Everyone made several paintings and wrote several haiku and still had lots to do to actually finish the project so many of the photos here are works in progress. I apologize in advance for the blurry photos and poor color - I had a really hard time getting good photos with the lighting - the shadows and reflections were a constant problem.

The third day I taught a painting/collage class called The Enchanting Place, the students in there were so mellow and laid back, and I'm SO dissapointed I was unable to take any photos during that class due to a dead camera battery. So sorry to all the attendees to that class - feel free to email me any photos of your artwork and I'll post them.

I gave in to my muse who is excited to start designing some "upcycled" clothing and i made my first felted sweater hat. it fits me well, feels good on, and i love wearing it. i may add a few subtle embellishments into face ruffle, haven't decided. Project Runway is one of my favorite shows - i just love watching the designers work.  okay, now back to my "do list" - feeling content:-)

who knows why certain images surface, this is an example of this curiosity. i'm not depressed or distressed in any way, just the opposite as a matter of fact, but this is what came out when i painted last night - i'm calling it "a scuffle in the dark".   

beautiful warm sunshiney day, walking on fallen crunchy leaves. one dragonfly made an appearance, reminding me of glimmering vibrating beauty on transparent wings, illusions.

i hope you're enjoying your day too. more art and soul photos coming...

i watched this video with my first cup of coffee this morning, a delightful way to spend 15 minutes if you haven't seen it.

It's been not quite a week since the event and I still feel full with processing all of it. And in the midst of processing it all, I find it hard to report of the experience of it, I guess that will have to wait until it all settles. But I can say this much the time was full and rich and layered with meaning and silliness and love and I come back to the comfort of the familiar changed and in awe of the mystery behind it all.

I'm going to break it up into parts, talk a little with each part and show lots of photos. These photos are student work from the class I taught on Wednesday called Tales from the Land of Odd. We used images we were attracted to, from paintings and illustrators, to discover what elements moved us and to transfer those elements into our own artwork. Options ranged from combining elements of several works and our own imagination to sticking with one painting and painting our own version of that. I encouraged them to work on 3 paintings simultaneously and many of them did just that. What you see here are paintings in all stages from completed to still-in-progress.

I apologize for the blurriness in some of them and the colors not being exact - it's challenging to get good photos with the lighting and the shadows it cast but I did my best. I am so very proud of each of these women - they did amazing work! I will be creating a photo album on my sidebar in the next couple days to put them all into. Part II coming soon....

i won't be surprised if you don't - i'm having a hard time remembering me as well, the me i was a few months ago all chatty and outgoing. this me is very quiet and reflective. when it comes to communicating via blog, facebook, phone, letter, she wishes she could communicate by ESP, not have to use words at all, but still no luck on that front. why it feels so hard to make contact with the outside world sometimes, i don't understand. i just observe it in myself, especially in the autumn. fighting it doesn't help either, i just go, go, go with the flow. 

what have I been up to you might wonder? well i've been busy preparing for teaching my three classes at Portland Art and Soul - I leave tomorrow and aside from packing clothes and some incidental am ready. Of course I could spend another month getting ready, trying to get everything perfect, more and better of everything, but that mode is no fun at all and makes my head spin. so, it's good enough, as my dear walter would say, i can relax.

My friend made me the most beautiful easel and delivered it a couple weeks ago. We bartered: an easel for a painting. I'm starting on that when i get back from Portland. He is a talented artist and fine woodworker.

notice the beautiful wooden knob...all the knobs are like that. i promised him that he would remain anonymous as he doesn't want any more requests for his handmade easels - he made 3 last month for us friends who either heard or saw what he made and wanted one too. he doesn't say no well. I'm also going to start painting bigger now that i have the easel. neck pain be gone!

other places i've been, things i've seen:

the most beautiful night time sky

the last fragrant blooms of the season

I will try to be better in keeping in touch when i get back - wishing you the joy of autumn breezes and harvest moons. thank you for stopping by...

The forest has a particular silence about it this time of year and like these trees I wander through year round, I notice I do as well; I have a sense that we share a lot this time of year, the trees and I. Just as their sap flows out of the once lovely green leaves and back home to the center,  I feel myself pulling away from activity that is no longer appealing,  and toward that core within which sustains me. 

I did a week long studio clean-up, moving rearranging, and deep cleaning my area. It is calming to have the space where I spend most of my time organized, clean, and tidy - like someone cares. I want to spread more of that around to the other neglected rooms and spaces in my house, to get to know the spaces again. The transformation begins.

I'm finding joy in the simple things and feeling reflective.

I've made decisions to cut back drastically teaching next year; 2010 has me comitted for only 4 venues, leaving more time for family, gardening, and personal artmaking eplorations. I'll be posting my 2010 teaching schedule in the next few weeks. Maybe we'll even get baby chicks next spring...it's been a long time since we raised our own, too busy in the outside world.

I never tire of exploring my own backyard.

Learning new dance steps with my shadow.

More time to experience the joy and curiosity of creating.

And best of all, to celebrate a new grandchild into the family! Yes - Marissa is pregnant and they are both thrilled, we all are, and she is due in March, just about the time of ArtFest. It worked out so perfectly that this year I wasn't chosen to teach as you see, I would have had to withdraw anyways. I believe things work out perfectly, even when i don't understand the reason at the time I can trust that all is just as it should be.