I bet many of my artist friends have had these moments. One of my most memorable ones was when I was sitting in the studio painting lizards. Who does that besides an artist? I recently had another one when I was painting myself. Not making a self portrait, but actually painting myself. Some of you may be aware that I enjoy print making with found objects. In trying to come up with an idea for a show called “About Face”, it was only naturally for me to think of printing myself. I’m not sure if I should describe that or just let the pictures speak for themselves. Well I am artist! What do you think I’m going to do?! I’ll wait to show you how they turned out until I finish the piece I’m doing for the show.

I’ve purchased and been given some art over the past couple of months. This is the first batch I’ll post (not in any particular order). There are times when I think I should stop purchasing art. The walls are quite full. However, they aren’t completely full and more importantly, I continue to fall in love with art pieces. Can’t stop this.

Luckily I had a nice “art stash” money wise when I went to “Brush with Nature” at the Arboretum this year. It had been a while since I’d gone to the event. I made up for it on this visit.

The first is by Gina Ledbetter, 2nd Abby Howard Murphy, Third and fourth by Carrie Keene, 4th by Jude T. Kruzicki, 5th Lori Taylor, and 6th Patrick Mahoney. I have an extremely varied collection both in media and style, but this is the first gouache I’ve purchased.

I’m not “required” to paint every day like during last months challenge, but I am trying to. That will probably last at least through July, since I need to have painted a total of at least 40 by Christmas. That’s the usual number I send. However, since I am making these, I will probably send more this year.

These are the latest paintings from my self imposed challenge of a painting a day for a month. Actually, I owe the month one painting.

I only managed one and didn’t even finish that. It needs work on the eyes and the background. Once again, I had some volunteer work to do before getting started painting.

I finished the two from yesterday. They almost kicked my butt. Before I did that I did a little commission for a friend. Next up something simpler than the last two Xmas cards. Naturally as I’m loading these I see little tweaks that need to be made. Good thing I have until Christmas to do them.

I didn’t finish my painting today. But I started two! I’m posting Phase 1 and 2 of each. I took license with a friend of mine’s photo from Rockefeller Square for the first. The other is from a photo of mine.

I wish I’d remembered that I planned to paint individual Xmas cards for friends and family this year when I started my 30 in 30 challenge. I’d be almost done with the cards by now. So here’s the first of many. It’s actually based on a digital Xmas card I made years ago. I’ve been making my own cards for 45 years. oops! I just noticed I forgot the carrot. When I send it out, it will be there, along with some real shells.

Phew. I had a busy day. I can’t stand it when I can’t find something in the studio. Today it was a painting I recently took off the wall because it was accepted into a show. I wanted to make sure it was properly framed. I looked for it all over the house! It was only a day or two ago. How could it go missing? Well I finally found it exactly where it should have been. Just tucked so far up the behind of another framed piece I didn’t see it. My studio looks a mess, but it’s actually very organized. After the mystery was solved I sat down to paint. And here’s 21:

These two pieces are like night and day. Mostly they show you what happens when you set aside a sufficient amount of time and what happens when you don’t. Also, I was just more inclined to paint yesterday than today, because of all the domestic stuff I had to do today. Certainly the second one leaves some thing to be desired. I actually plan on redoing this one in a more mature manner. I have to, because I love the title I came up for it : “My Inner Kitten”.