Fall Sweaters

10 x 10 Oil on Canvas

"Dog" gone it, I'm behind. This is painting number five in my quest to paint 100. My start date was September 1st so by October 1st I should have at least 8 done, I'm not worried though, the 100 will get done.  When I started I was all worried about commiting to the commitment, well, silly me.   I've been asked why 100 paintings in a year as a goal, I've read and I've heard that when you do that much painting something magical happens with your painting abilities. I'm sure this is similiar to when you practice anything, you get better at it.  But I was also curious what would happen to me, my psyche. So I'm happy to report that there is more giddey-up in my step and more giddey-up in my go. Amazing what happens when I allowed myself to do the thing that I love to do. I'll let you know further developments in my psyche experiment, but as of now I highly recommend this commitment thing.

Dreamland

8 x 10 Oil of Canvas

Painting must really be on my mind.  As I was waking this morning I was having a really funny dream, my husband called it strange,weird and he thinks I'm totally wacked.  It goes like this:  I was at a birthday party at a really abundant person's house ( like the level of a Donald Trump) and after all the guests  gathered and it was time to open gifts the hostess of the party started saying how difficult good gifts are to come by (I didn't quite understand this since she could afford to buy any gift she wanted) she asks us all to take a handful of pine nuts and then she hands each one of us a ho ho on a beautiful napkin ( which I quickly tell myself not to eat because it will make me fat).  Next she hands everyone a canvas (it's not what your thinking).  She instructs everyone to grind the ho ho and the pine nuts and then glue them onto the canvas, she explains that when you're traveling you can use this as a dummy or decoy so people will think the masterpiece has been stolen, but the real canvas is safely rolled up and packed in your luggage.  The combination ho ho and pine nuts is to look like glue when the theif ripped off the painting.  I know it makes no sense, okay, maybe I am a little weird. Are there any dream experts in the group?

Then There Was Light

8 x 10 Oil on Canvas

You're really not going to believe what I just discovered.  For a long time I have had chronic back pain as a result of having twisted hips, you know those big paddle like bones.  Because of the twisted hip my back is all wacky-jawed, starting at the lower back and going all the way up to my neck and boy does it hurt. I have tried just about everything I could think of to eliminate this issue. I've done the chiropractor, major exercise to strenghten my core, arch support in my shoes, yogo stretches daily, lots of advil, accupuncture etc etc...Then

Tea Anyone?

16 x 20 Oil on Canvas

So now I bought the book Julie & Julia and is quite funny and only 9 bucks at Costco. In the part I just read she is making Oeufs a la Bourguignonne which is red wine poached eggs on top of toast and sauteed in butter and wine, doesn't that sound delicious? She goes through almost a dozen eggs to get four or something like that... anyway as I am painting this painting yesterday I heard voices, you know those voices that are just so darn annoying.  They were saying, yes "they" ("they" travel in packs, packs of Gremlins)

My First Finished Painting

10 x 10 Oil on Canvas

1 done and 99 more to go, whew! just a few more...but one thing I discovered is that once I decided to do the 100 the selection process got way easier. I used to stew and ponder over what I was going to paint so worried that I may not like my subject matter, knowing that I am going to paint a million more took all the pressure of the selection process and the selection happened in a matter of minutes not hours. Let that be a lesson to my little commitment phobic self.

My First Day

So I am pretty excited about doing my paintings, which is a switch for me, because even though I love to paint I don't. Weird, I know... I thought it was something like having writers block but it is more like I'm saving my the dessert until after I've eaten my dinner or when I was little saving the new dress to wear to church on Sunday.  So anyway it's my first day and I have a painting started, but it takes me several days to finish a painting so I decided to paint over all my unloved paintings, the ones that sit in the corner that are so bad that make me feel bad. 

This was, oh, so liberting! It is akin to when you clean out your closet and get rid of all those clothes that are too small and reminds you that you are no longer that small and then you just feel bad about yourself. Anyway it felt so good and didn't take as long as I kept imagining.  Funny how those things work.

My little kitty Sophie always has to help with everything I do, so today she wanted to help paint over the ole' duds.  My deck now has permanent white Sophie paws

Something New and Magical

I saw the movie Julie and Julia the other day and while watching the movie I thought to myself what could I do that would be a commitment similiar to what Julie choose to do. There was something about the daily doing of something that really appealed and spoke to me. It did not come to me that day but popped into my head while driving down the road several days later. It was plainer than the nose on my face, but sometimes things that should be so obvious to me just are not!

My commitment will be to paint 100 paintings in a year. I have always heard there is something magical about painting 100 paintings in a year, I don't quite know what the magic part is, but I'm excited to find out. The other magical part for me will be keeping the commitment, since I'm a bit of a commitment phobic, don't quite know why that is either but maybe this process will give some insight on that too. I'm excited and a little scared, scared of what ?not sure...