This is what it looks like all finished and it's already been listed in my Etsy shop.

I'm posting this photo so you can see the effects of what working from home can do to a persons sense of what's okay to wear when no one is around. I happened to be washing my hands in the bathroom, before heading out to the garage to paint, when I glanced up and realized just what I was wearing. 

I am so glad that UPS, FedEx or any of my neighbors didn't come to the door today. They would have dubbed our house the weirdo house and wondered how many cats I had living with me.

Anyway, I got a new watercolor painting completed today! I'll be listing it in my Etsy shop tomorrow, hopefully. I always love spotting these weird little rock islands when we're at the Oregon coast. I imagine living in a tiny house on one or something. Not that you could really ever live on one, just how cute it would be to see a little house, maybe one on stilts, sitting on top.

I also worked on a new oil painting, one that I am not very happy with, so I will probably paint over it. That is one of the more aggregating things about painting. Spending hours at a time on something that, in the end, you really aren't happy with. 

I guess that goes along with one of the best things about painting. When you spend hours on something and it turns out really great.

Anyway, it's Thursday, hope your week is going well! 

Hi! I'm back! So much has happened since I last blogged!

I ran a marathon and killed it! As you can see from the photo it rained that day. It actually poured the entire time I ran, but that didn't stop me! I beat my last marathon time by 45 minutes, technically. They didn't have people at the right corner telling my group where to turn, so we added an additional .30 miles to the marathon route. I finished at 4:42 minutes, but if we hadn't taken the wrong turn, I would have finished in 4:32 minutes according to my watch. I ended up breaking my PR for time AND distance that day!

I also finished this painting! The woman who commissioned it loved it. She wrote me an e-mail telling me her two sons felt like rock stars when she gave it to them. That totally made my day! She lives in Florida and I somehow managed to time my shipping of the painting with Hurricane Matthew. Luckily it did make it to her, but it was delayed for a few days. Those few delayed days were a little stressful! Thankfully she and her family were fine and the painting arrived undamaged.

We also had a huge election since I last blogged. Unfortunately, for me and for a lot of people I know, the candidate I voted for lost. I'm still not over the loss. I'm not sure I ever really will be. The president elect scares and angers me. His ideas on women's health, immigration, health insurance and basic civil rights are the complete opposite of what I feel is good for the country. Knowing that so many people voted for him, and from what I've been reading, why they voted for him, is beyond all my comprehension. 

Honestly,  I've been kind of in a dark place since the election. I've just had an overwhelming feeling of fear and sadness. I've been trying to make art and trying to stay away from social media. I don't want to ignore what's going on in the world, but being exposed to it all day wears on me mentally. By the end of the day I feel emotionally exhausted. I also know that I can't get away from it completely. I rely on social media to promote my work and this website. I think right now, limiting exposure to it is the only thing that will help.

I've been trying to help out organizations that I feel strongly about, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, BARK, and even a little Boston Terrier Rescue in Southern California (which probably won't have any impact from our president elect, but I'm for helping BTs). I'm hoping to get out and do some volunteer work when Crafty Wonderland is over, and I have some more time to dedicate to that. I'm looking into volunteering at 350PDX, a local environmental organization.

I know it's important to be involved and I want to try to get out there and help if I can. It's also hard to do when you're an introvert like me. It's hard for me to get out of my comfort zone. In my mind I know that I will feel better to get out and be proactive, but there's also part of my mind that just wants to donate money instead of my time... Which is fine, but I feel that being actively involved would help too.

Anyway, maybe you feel the same way. Maybe you don't and that's okay too. It feels good to be working on this blog again. Hopefully it will provide a nice space for me to voice my opinions and share my work with you!

Opps! It's been awhile. We went camping Friday and Saturday for Nate's 40th Birthday and it's taken me awhile to get caught up on everything this week. 

It was a great weekend. The weather was beautiful. We went with a couple of friends and did a little swimming and a little fishing. We ate hot dogs and had a birthday pie. Of course we also had s'mores and some drinks too. It was really great to be in the woods for a couple of days, away from phones and computers.

 I ran 10 miles around Timothy Lake. My third time running around it! My legs and ankles feel great. I had a little back pain today, but it's manageable. I can't believe I'm up to 10 miles. I really wasn't sure if I'd ever run that distance again. I'm so happy that things are going well in that department.

Chloe is also doing really well. She threw up when we first arrived at the camp site, and I was really worried the first night we were there. I think it was just the car ride because she was fine all weekend and she's been great all week. I think we're finally out of the woods with her health. For now anyway, and I'm totally embracing that.

It's been a good week. I've been painting, prepping panels for paintings and putting wholesale orders together. Life is really great right now and I'm embracing that as well.

I'm hoping to get more blogging done next week! 

Done! I'm done with 2 new holiday card designs. Whoohoo!

This one is of downtown Portland during Christmas. I love downtown Portland during the holidays. I always get Silver Bells stuck in my head when I head down there that time of year. 

I started this painting in November.

I watched the film Beautiful Losers last night. It's on Netflix. I really enjoyed it. Every minute of it. 

Watching films about other artists, especially underground artists, always inspires me and makes me feel like I didn't make a bad life choice when I decided to get my degree in art.

I've admired many of these artists for many years. Seeing their studios (many were in their garage, just like me!), hearing their stories and learning more about their work was incredibly inspiring. 

Watching this movie makes me want to keep working. Everyday. 

Sometimes I work on a painting for a long time only to realize that I am not happy with it. I spent a really long time on this painting and in the end I completely over worked it. I didn't like the color palette that I chose and I really wasn't happy with the background image.

I sanded it down and painted over it last week.

This is the newer version.

I am much happier with it. The colors look great and I didn't work on the face for hours on end. I feel like when it comes to painting, it should never feel laborious. If I find myself repainting something over and over again, it probably just isn't going to work. 

This second painting came really easily. I painted the face within just an hour or so and the colors feel better to me too. Some people in my inner circle were giving me so grief about painting over the first painting, but sometimes it's just necessary. 

This second one isn't close to being done, but I feel like it's getting there!

Well, it's been a bit of a tough week. Chloe is having some health issues and it always makes life a little stressful and filled with anxiety.

She has an ulcer on her eye and it's become infected. I've been giving her some very expensive eye drops and I think they're working. It's kind of hard to tell, but I'm trying to be optimistic about it.

About a month ago I found a lump on her back. I thought maybe it was a bug bite, so I kept my eye on it, and it went away. It came back last week and my heart sank. Disappearing and reappearing is a common characteristic of a mast cell tumor. I know because she's already had two of them.

So I brought her in on Thursday to have it tested and sure enough, it's a mast cell tumor. Le sigh. I'm trying my best to not freak out. I'm trying my best to see the positives of this situation. The fact that I caught it fairly early, that it's in a place in which it's east to remove, that the vet who is going to remove it has done the last two with excellent results. That she's otherwise healthy and happy and still relatively young. That she'll also be getting her teeth cleaned, something I've been kind of putting off in the off chance that she'd have to go under for this same exact thing.

These are all positives. 

But naturally there is a lot of worry and a lot of stress on the bank account. So, because I have quite a bit of 8x10" print inventory, I thought I'd have a sale! I've marked all the 8x10" prints in my Etsy shop at $15. I'll keep that price up through tomorrow. 

Thanks for reading and if you'd like to send Chloe some good vibes, I'm sure she'd appreciate it! Happy weekend :)

I love reading about other artists studio practice. What makes them work everyday? What do their studios look like? What is a typical day for them? 

It's not often you get to read about the everyday practice of an artist. I came across an interview with Chuck Close a few weeks ago and I am still thinking about it. In it he answered a lot of questions that I think about when I think about highly successful artists. 

He talks about the importance of making art. That working everyday can open doors to new possibilities for your work. He also talks about that it shouldn't matter what your studio space is like. You should just get as much work done in the space that you have and make the very best of it. He knows many artists who search for the perfect space, remodel it until it's perfect and then turn around and sell it without ever working in it. This made me feel a lot better about the dark garage I work in that's either freezing in the winter, or hotter than hell in the summer. It's not the greatest space but I can paint there!

He also talked about his daily routine which made me a bit jealous. He paints 8 hours every day with an hour for lunch. At first I felt a little guilty for not painting that much but then I realized he probably has at least 3 assistants who help him do things like laundry, grocery shopping, walking the dog and cleaning the house...

Anyway, I liked the interview and if you like peeking into a day in the life of a successful artist you might like it too. You can read the interview here:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2012/12/27/chuck-close-on-creativity/

Happy Wednesday!