Oh the possibilities!!! When Joke first proposed this brilliant theme for our drawing challenge I just had so many ideas that I didn’t know where to turn first. Can you imagine the art which can come from THE UNEXPECTED? Oh I can, and I think I love it!

So, here in Rain City, we got a bit of unexpected sunshine. It came streaming into the bedroom this morning and lit up my butterflies and made sparkly prism stars thru my collection of hat pins on the little window ledge in my closet.

And as I sat there glorying in the sun and having my tea, I thought of all the new beginnings this year. I thought about all the art I made last year, and all the new art to come. and I planned and sipped my tea. And then I had a second cup…

…and then it hit me. A new New Year is almost upon us. A Chinese Lunar year completely chock-a-block with the unexpected. New surprises, new challenges and new happiness to look forward to. Last year, the year of the horse, I painted myself those three horses symbolising so much to me. And this year is the year of the green, wood sheep.

Green wood sheep…hmm…that to me sounded like a bighorn sheep, running wild and free thru the forests and mountains, not a penned up lamb on a farm. A big majestic bighorn.

And so I picked up my oils, chose a piece of driftwood…which, to me, symbolises my Pacific West Coast, and I painted that bad boy right there on it.

And there we have it. The unexpected…bring it on.

And when the Lunar New Year dawns on February 4th, I’ll be ready.

Thank you so much Joke. Can’t wait to see everyone’s unexpected works. You all know by now that you can pop by Joke’s this weekend to visit everyone, don’t you? Sure you do. You’re drawing challenge savvy like that.

Welcome to my drawing challenge with Toast.

I’m so very happy that so many people could come toast something this week.

We artists, writers, friends and strangers are: Katrin, Barbara, Marian, Kristen, Roberto, Renee, Nadine, Patrice, Lucia, Anneke, Eric, Joke, Linda, Sabine, Tammie, Mano, Stefanie, Carole, Renilde, Susan, Kelly, Dawn, Becca, Jennifer, Melodye, and Catherine and Dot 

I hope everyone can manage to swing by the blogs, FB pages etc. Such wonderful people as we are should really all know each other.

When I was five years old my father put his cup of coffee down on the breakfast table, reached into his pocket and handed me a small test tube full of fossilised sea shells. I shook it like a rattle.
“Gently”, he said, “these have been dead a long time. Little things, little things are fragile.” He said.
“Remember”, he said, “time kills everything”, he said, “time kills everything.”
Those were the last words I remember him saying.
From time to time, I spill the seashells into my palm and count them. There are 146 sea shells in that test tube spiralling perfectly in simple geometry, according to the golden mean, by the law of nature.
I tip them from one hand to the other listening to them click against each other. They leave traces of prehistoric sand in my palms.
I close my eyes and I see the test tube on the breakfast table, I see my father’s tired eyes. I hear him speak.
Time kills everything, he said that day at the breakfast table while I sat beside him holding the test tube in my hand.
And the dead world inside the test tube remains exactly as before.
And he said nothing more and looked at the sky through the open window. On the table, an uneaten slice of toast, a half empty bowl of cereal, a cold cup of coffee, crumbs.

A little story, half fiction, half real

A little collage half fiction, half real: a page made from various bits of pages, on an old ledger, directions for a swift chess win (not quite fool’s mate), a bit of music, a bit of a toast recipe, charcoal, a stamp, gold crumbs.

The page and the little story were inspired by this little test tube of prehistoric sea shells. It used to belong to my birth father and he gave it to me when I was very little. It’s about the only thing I remember of him.

After yesterday’s hard time with the silver I decided to paint!

My studio looks like a tornado’s gone thru it! I’m almost embarrassed to show you. I really have to spend a day cleaning up in there. But today, I decided to spend several hours getting some art done and ignored the mess.

Robert told me this morning that I should describe some steps in my painting process. The trouble is I’m never sure how the painting’s going to evolve. But here’s a little of how I went about painting today.

I toned a wooden panel with some stuff called sludge. It’s brilliant stuff! Inexpensive and high viscosity; nice and buttery. I used a violet hue rather than the green hue and I mixed it with black and unbleached titanium acrylic. Then I collaged a sheet of note paper on it and painted another blended layer of acrylics smudged with my fingers and a bit of paper towel.

The piece of note paper is a 1915 Chopin study Nocturne and this set the feeling of the painting for me.

Next I got my pencil and sketched a moon, an idea of some stones and trees, and decided to sketch a barn owl.

I drew the moon shape by tracing one of the large ceramic bowls holding some tubes of paint, then used a couple of blue and a white pastel to smudge some colour around. I used some acrylic paint and some ink and some more pastels…a black one…to put in the idea of a ground. I also dusted a bit of gold powder here and there and smudged it in.

Then I painted the owl in unbleached titanium and some burnt umber acrylics just blocking in bits of colour for the shading.

Next I got out my oils and began bending the owl’s body, toning down the colours, bring it to life.

Well, that’s as far as I got. You can see the body part of the owl has the beautiful blended oil while the wings are still blocked in acrylics.

Here is the not finished “Nocturne Owl” beside a finished “Night Music” painting. I’m planning to have six or so paintings along this idea, a few big oils and some watercolours done for the show at the end of this month.

But that’s enough for today. Time to close the door on the studio and wash up the brushes.

Hope you all have a fantastic evening and happy mother’s day to everyone who celebrates mother’s day tomorrow.