Monday, February 28, 2011

Home


I grew up in New Hampshire, aka the Granite State, famous for no sales or income tax, home of the nations first primary, maple syrup, and what used to be the Old Man of the Mountain. Every Fall my family would make the trek up to Franconia to see the Old Man.....as kids we were bored and fidgety during the 2 hour car ride, but we were usually rewarded with treats if we behaved. As an adult, and living in the Midwest, the image of the Old Man represents my youth and home to me. A few years back, the Old Man just fell off the mountain....many people actually mourned at the loss of the states iconic mascot. I'm not ashamed to say that I was one of them.

February's End Looms


As February ends, I look back at my second month of daily painting with just a wee bit of pride that I've kept (almost) to my commitment of a painting a day....With few exceptions, I have been able to paint most of the day. When I looked at all the paintings at the end of January, I didn't really see an "artist" emerging as far as personal style, but I see a bit of it emerging, perhaps by the end of March.....Initially I was just going to paint to get through the winter blues, but I'm hooked now, and I look at every day as a fresh challenge.....

Thursday, February 24, 2011

Sledding is like Life


You have to trudge up a really long difficult hill, and all you get is a short exciting ride.....but it's so worth it!........

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

ARRRGh....where's my brain


Forgot to post the accompanying photo..........

Lost in Perrysburg and New Friends...

Perysburg is not a big town. It is also arranged in the typical Midwestern grid pattern and parcel so it should be fairly simple to navigate. Perrysburg is not like Boston, with its maze of diagonal one way streets that make you wonder where all the urban planners of colonial times were..... To get lost for 30 minutes in Perrysburg, Ohio is simply silly....I suppose it comes from my artistic scattered brain, and of not completely listening to proper instructions....sigh....story of my life....

I just had lunch with the Director of the Perrysburg Arts Council to discuss an upcoming show of my self-inflicted " A Painting Every Day" challenge....Of course I took the wrong exit and was 15 minutes late...and after a wonderful lunch of french onion soup, coffee, and conversation, I headed over to the Courthouse and Municipal Building to see the current Black and White Exhibition...(which by the way was OUTSTANDING....I was very surprised by the quality and intricacy of all the works. Somewhere along the course of my wayward art career, one of my art teachers taught me that black paint was BAD, VERY BAD...and never to use it, even for dulling colors...so I have a very limited use for black in my pallete...However, after seeing the works on display, I'm very tempted to break out my full tube of black paint)

Here is a painting of a cow I painted yesterday....White Mountains New Hampshire, a group I "liked" on Facebook gave me permission to use their photo posts for inspiration. New Hampshire is my home state, so whenever I'm feeling homesick, I paint something from their site...

Monday, February 21, 2011

Sigh....I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up!


ok, so I'm going to try very very hard to keep up my blog....I find it so much easier to just do it on Facebook, but alas, people want blogs, not sure why...I'm getting ready for an unexpected solo show for daily paintings...I'll just post what i'm currently working on, and try to catch up on "missing blogs" later......