Hello Mr. Rabbit

"Four You, Mr. Rabbit"
6" x 7" acrylic and collage on canvas
purchase at my Etsy Store

Considering our evening last night...I think I needed a little fun-time release today with my painting. Our very dear friend, Steve landed in the hospital with some problems related to medication he's taking for renal cancer. Send him some healthy juju when you have a moment, ok?

So...back to childhood memories of Alice in Wonderland and Mr. Rabbit and little Elf People to help the world make some sense again! As before, some of the collage bits were taken from my old piano sheet music.

My adorable art critic, Mr. James O'Neill came up with the title for it in his outstanding review...

"It's a vision of fanciful games from childhood make believe...Four You, Mr. Rabbit."

I'm working on another painting that will be a pair to this one. The cat painting is coming along too...almost finished!

Bright Green Limes

"Limes"
6" x 6" acrylic and paper on canvas

This painting (I just finished today) makes me want a mondo margarita...Especially since the temperature in Boulder, Colorado is close to 100 degrees. Yikes!

Since the theme today is green (yes, I just made that up)...here's another beauty from Joyce Rupp, taken from "Rest Your Dreams on a Little Twig". Enjoy...

Green sings
like no other
color.

Green rings
my heart round
with the starlight
of laughter,
the dance
of enthusiasm.

Green brings
vibrant shoots
of energy
laced with passion.

Green flings
bouquets of dreams
meant to come true.
~Joyce Rupp

Pig Power!

"Pandora"
13" x 16" acrylic on canvas

Well here she is...Miss Pandora in all her pig finery! Isn't she the cutest?! Painting her has really made me want a piggy. How could you look at that snout and not want a pig I say? My deepest thanks go out to Donna...Pandora's mom...for having me paint her wonderful kids. Remember Frankie, the blue eyed Boxer?...that was Donna's boy too.

And in honor of piggies everywhere, here's a great little poem I came across...

IN PRAISE OF A PIG

A pig is a jolly companion,

Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!

~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity's Rainbow

Have a great weekend everyone!

Back in the saddle

"Ridgecrest" by Kathleen Lipinski, 48" x 48" oil on linen

First of all, the painting above is by one of my favorite Bay Area Artists, Kathleen Lipinksi. When I think of Marin County, where I grew up...I think of her gorgeous landscape paintings that capture the beauty of the area. There's nothing quite like seeing the fog rolling in over the golden summertime hills.

Now on to the main course...wow what a trip! I have been so exhausted today that lifting a pinky finger seems hard. HA! Our trips to the Bay Area are always that way. We have so much family and many friends to see there so the days are packed full without a moment to spare. It's always a whirlwind and hard sometimes but seeing all of those dear, special people make it all worthwhile. Usually after we get back...I need a day or two to regroup and take it all in.

I wanted to post some photos for you but the dang camera went blitzo on this trip. Somehow my card got corrupted so I lost most all of the photos I took. This was a particular bummer because Sunday was a very special day to remember. I had a reunion with a girlfriend I hadn't seen in almost 27 years. We had been best friends way back when we were both going to Sacramento State University. We lost touch over the years but were reunited about two years ago by the magic of Google. You see...there were three of us...myself, Sue and Maria. The picture below is of us when we were all about 22-23 years old. Anyway...we all went our separate ways shortly after that picture was taken and unfortunately didn't stay in touch. Maria googled me a couple of years ago though so now we have all been reunited. I have since seen sweet Maria...but had yet to see Sue again. Long story short (too late I know)...Sue and I finally met up on Sunday. It was a wonderful reunion. It was like we had seen each other yesterday. I love you girls!

left to right ~ Sue, Maria, Linda (hippy chicks)- 1980'ish

So tomorrow I will be back to painting and hopefully will have Pandora the Pig to show you soon...among other work. Back in the studio...back in the saddle. It's a good place to be. It's always good to come home!

New painting & stuff

"The Rider" 5" x 6"
acrylic and collage on paper

This is one of those "ya do one painting, then another one on top of that, then the final one of top of THAT before it finally comes together" paintings. It started out as something so completely different than the way it ended up...but I'm very happy with the final results. My art critic husband, James...describes the painting like this, "The object that his spear points toward gives it/him focus and the coolito circle mobius thingie in the sky unites horse and rider in the spirit of symbiosis". I love that!...especially the serious critical terms he uses like coolito and thingie.

I'm working hard on two other paintings right now...a potbelly piggy and a cat. Hopefully I will be able to show them to you next week. They're both pretty complicated though so are taking me longer than usual to complete. It's fun to stretch and do other animal tribes and I'm a total pig nut so painting her is a real piggy pleasure.

James and I are heading to San Francisco tomorrow for four days of whirlwind family and friend visits. It'll be great though...especially to see our beautiful city by the bay. I'll be back in touch next Tuesday. Have a great weekend! xoxo

New Pepper Painting

"Pepper"
6" x 12" acrylic on canvas

I saw a bunch of these peppers in the store last week and just had to buy one. They almost looked alive...like little pepper people...so I had to bring one home to paint.

Hope you all had a nice weekend. It was good here...although a little warm for my taste (90 degrees) yesterday. I'm a Bay Area (San Francisco) girl at heart...so I love the fog and cooler weather. James and I are heading there this Friday to visit family and friends for a few days so I will hopefully get my foggy fix then!

Speaking of the Bay Area...you should check out this Artist, Inez Storer. She is one of my very favorites...I really love her work. I think this is a fairly new website for Inez and I just read in her Bio that she received her B.A. degree at Dominican University which is where I received my B.F.A. How cool!

Have a good Monday everyone! xo

Circus Bear Painting

"Circus Bear"

4" x 5" acrylic and collage on paper

Well, this was fun! I just let myself go with the flow in the studio today and this is one of the things I came up with. It's available for sale in my Etsy shop.

It reminded me of one of my favorite childhood books called, "I went to the Animal Fair" by William Cole and Colette Rosselli. This is a very sweet children's book with 35 different animal poems by different authors. I lost my precious copy many years ago in a flooded out basement. James knew it was one of my very favorite things so he tracked down a copy and bought it for me one Christmas. It was very hard to find then...but now it looks like used copies are readily available. You should get one!

Here is the first poem of the book...

Animal Fair

"I went to the animal fair,
The birds and beasts were there.
The big baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair.

The monkey he got drunk.
He stepped on the elephant's trunk.
The elephant sneezed
And fell on his knees,
And that was the end of the munk,
the munk, the munk.
And that was the end of the munk."

Bulldog welcomes new member to the family

This is my favorite commercial right now. It's a sweet way to start your day! I love Bulldogs!

Rose for you

Now don't faint...but I actully GREW this rose! For those of you who don't know me...I have a rather blue thumb. I can't seem to grow many things very well...but I can grow some decent roses . I probably have it in my blood because my dad had the most beautiful rose garden at our house in California. He had at least 25 rose bushes that he cared for...and the sweetest part is that he usually gave them away to people in the neighborhood because they loved them so much. Now mind you...I only have two rose bushes going at the moment but I do plan to have more in the future. They remind me of my dad so I like to have them around. My dad still grows them too...and he hasn't lost his touch. They will always be one of my favorite flowers.

New Retro Painting

"Family"
5" x 6" acrylic and collage on paper

Isn't it fun when your art goes in a completely whacko direction once in awhile and you come up with something very different from your regular style? This is one of those times for me. This little painting just sort of came out of the blue, probably because I've been missing Abby so much. I like the retro 50's look to it. I just listed it in my Etsy shop.

And another little diddie...I've been reading Ann Lamott's new book, "Grace (Eventually) Thoughts on Faith". I've always enjoyed her books...she is so down to earth and real and talks about life that is both comical and poignant. There was a poem before one of her chapters that I just love and it reminded me of my baby girl dog.

"Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color."
~W.S. Merwin

So it's back to the Periodontist today for a post-op check. I get the icky silly putty bandages taken out of my mouth which is a big YAY. And I'm back to eating some real food now. How exciting is that!?

And thank you, Another Shade of Grey (one of my very favorite blogs) for showcasing my Etsy artwork today in your "Friday is Art Day" post!

Have a great weekend.