Besides figuring out what to paint, which is an enormous undertaking, the next biggest challenge is, besides covering the entire canvas with paint that resembles the vision I have in my head, cleaning my paintbrushes. Last week, because I was trying to work through several paintings, cleaning paint brushes got to be very cumbersome, and the painting that I did on Thursday, the Tree in Landscape, was done entirely with a palette knife, which, of course, made cleaning the brushes that day super easy, as there were none to clean.

Today, I started out with the palette knives just putting colors where I wanted them to be. Then I worked for a while with a few round tip paint brushes. I usually love using the round tip brushes because they so easily swirl and twirl the paint, which is what I like to see in my work. However, today it all seemed so tedious. So I started painting with my fingertips. It immediately reminded me of being four years old and in kindergarten again. The control achieved with my fingertips was pretty much exactly what I wanted to accomplish with this painting. There are a few tweaks here and there that will likely be made, and clean up is easily done.

This painting is 20″ x 24″ oil on linen.

One of my biggest challenges as an artist is trying, for the life of me, to figure out what to paint. Especially with my newish self imposed painting a day challenge (I didn’t paint yesterday), today was no exception. I searched the house and yard (in between all the rain) for a considerable amount of time, just looking. The best idea I had was to paint a still life — too shloshy to paint outdoors. (Is shloshy a word?) Often, with a still life, I rearrange some furniture and arrange the items just so to get the composition and lighting correct. But the day was getting away from me, so I grabbed this estate sale vase from a shelf, and placed it on this particular window sill in the art studio directly in front of the easel that looks out to the neighbor’s brick wall. Without a ruler as a guide because that would have entailed another search and rescue mission to who knows what corner of the house to find it, this is eyeballing the angles. This is 12″ x 14 1/2″ oil on canvas.

On another note, with all of this shloshy weather (there’s that word again), poor, sweet, adorable pet Tilly didn’t get a walk. She’s a little (a lot) on the wiggly side.

Well, I’m not quite finished with this one — still have a lot of details to suss out — but the gist of the image is done. It’s a sketch I started over a year ago — just haven’t been inclined to work on it until now. It’s 16″ x 20″ oil on linen, but remember, it’s not finished….I don’t think. We’ll see.

12″ x 14″ oil on board – Tree in Landscape

As a family plus one Spaniard, the only time we made the journey to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico was in 2006. All seven of us piled into the Suburban and drove for two days to get there. We rented a little house on the hill and immersed ourselves in all things Mexico. We shopped in the local market everyday. We walked everywhere. We ate the best, real, authentic Mexican food I’ve ever eaten in my entire life. By the end of our week, I was even dreaming in Spanish. I loved it!

Window in San Miguel is very typical of the type of architecture that is all over the town. This painting is from a photo that I took on one of our many walks. Maybe we’ll go back there some day. I hope so. It’s an absolutely charming place.

Window in San Miguel is 11″x 23 1/2, oil on wood.

While I’m not promising to paint every day for the next 21 days, I’m not saying that I won’t. This is what I painted yesterday. It is a 10 1/2 x 11, oil on board — Camellia.

Sad to say, it’s been two and a half months since I’ve painted an actual painting. Yes, I’ve been busy with other things, but that seems like a weak excuse for not pursuing this artistic life. I’d like to make a promise to paint for X number of days in a row, or something, just to kick start an actual, legitimate painting regimen. It’s something I did back in 2008 — 21 days of painting in a row — the idea being to start a healthy habit. To think of it now, though, it seems like too much of a commitment to add painting everyday to an already full life. But if I don’t do something, well, I’ll do nothing, which is not good. So, even though I’m not promising to paint for 21 days in a row, I am deciding to do more than nothing, which is something, even if it’s as still yet undefined. So, here goes something.  This landscape is 11″ x 28″ oil on board.

Much to the delight of everyone in attendance, Lawndale Art Center‘s Hair Ball was a hair raising success last Saturday night. It was a privilege to be a part of the host committee for the evening — my “job” was made easy by a wonderful group of friends who volunteered to help, and by the kind-hearted Emily Link who did the lion’s share of coordinating said volunteers.

Reese and I arrived early — he rocked his cornrows while I sported the blue feather boa hair-do so recently created.  Our picture was included in two Houston publications (which was fun to see) — Culture Map (photo 15) and the Houston Chronicle (photo 11).

My dear, sweet friend Diane was there and looked like a diva in her gold lame jumpsuit and red hair wig. Isn’t she cute?

And this:  I can’t tell you how many times over the last 29 years I have seen the Amazing Reese bust this move on the dance floor. It is, however, to the best of my knowledge, the only time this move has been captured on camera for generations to enjoy. He’s still got the moves….and my heart.

Lawndale Art Center‘s Hair Ball is tomorrow night. For weeks I’ve been trying to figure out how to fix my hair for this event, but for some reason have been in a creative mind slump, and consequently, have had no idea what to do with my do.

After visiting a gazillion stores looking for inspiration, yesterday, at the suggestion of a friend, I wandered through the aisles at a local craft store…..

where I found pipe cleaners,

feather boas, yarn….

and a couple of hours later — voila! It’s certainly not perfect. As I was starting to take it all apart to completely re-do it last night, a friend invited me over for a glass of wine. It’s funny how quickly I decided that it was indeed finished. We’ll see if this is what I go with or not tomorrow night. Stay tuned!

Yes. I’m still here. It seems that I’ve temporarily forgotten how to say things. Or perhaps didn’t feel as if I’ve had anything to say. Either way, life is a little emptier when I don’t write. I love writing. Why did I stop for so long?

Liberty Kitchen on a Wednesday — that’s where one can find the best fried chicken in Houston. Trust me. I’ve been on a quest for a while and eaten fried chicken all over town and this place knocks it out of the park. But they only serve it on Wednesday. And when they run out, they run out. I’d love to meet for an early lunch at Liberty Kitchen on any given Wednesday. Call me. Or text. Texting is good.

Art — consists mostly of a few (two?) visits to the MFAH, Houston Center for Contemporary Craft, and Lawndale Art Center. I haven’t
painted creatively since my self portrait on my 50th birthday. That’s
just sad.

Lawndale Art Center — community volunteer coordinator for the Hair Ball, which means that my name gets put on the host committee list, while sweet Emily actually does all the work. She should get the credit, not me. Well, I am grateful to be helping Emily a little bit. She really is a sweetheart. Now, to figure out what my hair do will be next weekend — or hair don’t.

Tilly — still a Wonder dog, but we took a few weeks off from our hospital pet therapy visits due to the holidays. We’ll get back in the full swing of things in February.

Chores —  been working on a lot of chores around the house — stuff that’s been left undone for years and for myriads of reasons is now getting done. It takes loads of time to do these chores and none of it is very exciting, so I just haven’t written about it. I’ve been painting (rooms), organizing, rearranging furniture, deep cleaning (closets/garage/drawers/baseboards/etc.), throwing junk away, caulking, and just a bunch of other mundane boring chores.

See? The Amazing Reese, Tilly, and I are making sure the bed we just moved into the downstairs bedroom is stable enough for guests. It is.