Happy Hanukkah!

OMG! I woke this morning to the first snowfall of the winter. OMG what a great title for a song. I was so thrilled, as I came down stairs and put my weight down in our weight log, that I had taken care of the gifts for the grandkids yesterday. Then I realized how apropos the first snow falling on day of the first night of Hanukkah. The holiday is awfully early this year--too early for me. I like Hanukkah, Christmas and Kwanzaa all at the same time making everybody happy at once. Happy Hanukkah! Merry Christmas! Joyous Kwanzaa! And a Happy New Year. But what do I know? With snow on the roads,as light a dusting as it is,today will be another great day in the studio playing with my horde of mischief of mice.


November 30th,AM: Lying on the floor doing my leg lifts, I glanced over at my bike. I loved the look of it--and that I had extended the use of it all year round by buying the trainer. I took an exercise time out to snap a shot.

Photograph that which pleases you.

Mechanical things like my bike are as beautiful to me as the pastries in the case at the bakery. Finding my way as a painter, the photos I've shot over the past year have been invaluable. What I chose to shoot showed me, me. Then,if I chose one to use as a reference photo for painting--my path was even more clearly defined. The chosen photo could only be something I felt was meaningful enough to me to take the effort to paint it. The photos also provided technical guidance. Photographs of paintings in progress illuminated my successes as well as my shortcomings--attaboys and shame-on-yous were precisely recorded tutorials--this is good, this needs fixing. It's no surprise I'm thinking of upgrading my camera. I highly recommend taking up photography to any artist seeking their artistic voice.

PM:


Warmed up finishing up my crushable beach hat. Mixed the mediums--colored pencil, markers and water color. Markers and watercolor might have been enough? But the hat does look more like itself--battered. I brought all my beach hats down to the studio. A series of drawings might be fun--maybe even magical? The drawings could help to get me to a real beach sometime soon?

Then I did it. I stepped right into the mouse trap. It was painful. I knew I was going to have to use glazes, a technique I have little experience with, and the little work I did today absolutely confirmed that thought. Little spots of color are too spotty. I'm going to have to lay on glaze over glaze, GHM. The best I did in the studio session was to get into the rodents and determine the palette.