Back Then

This is a photo of me when I was a college student. I was taking a photography course and we had to develop our own film. I had a friend take the shot while I was sitting in my dorm room window. It is still one of my favorite photos of myself. I especially like how it captured my freckles.

Lazy Pears

We had a wonderful American thanksgiving complete with turkey dinner and Bruce's brother and sister-in-law. Afterwards we drank Bailey's and played Tabu. It was mint!

Heart Dance

Another quick acrylic. These are fun to do!

Play

Another messy, quick little floral. I do like the looseness of these, but I keep going back and tweaking them. Now that I see this one up on the screen, I see little areas that I would go back and doctor.
One of my aims this winter is to concentrate on composition. I keep falling prey to subject matter without thinking out the design really well. This is how painting wraps around you like a boa constrictor. It's quite merciless really.

On guard

I ran off a bunch of these in the last day or two and will keep posting them until I get something more serious done.

I have company arriving, my brother and sister-in-law. That means I need to do some housecleaning...ugh. We will be celebrating American Thanksgiving. I have lived in the north 30 years now and Thanksgiving in October still feels, wrong, wrong, wrong!

Bird Goddess

I found Nancy Standlee's blog and I am appreciating many things from it. One, I found the link to theradio.com so now I can listen to tunes while I blog. Currently listening to " Have a beer with Duncan" on the Aussie bush band channel. Now a little dijeridu solo.
Two, Nancy has taken workshops with all my fav's, people I want to take workshops with...Robert Burridge, Stephen Quiller and Carla O'Connor.
Three she has all kinds of good links. Oh heck, it's just a good blog.

Here is my attempt at Burridge-like freestyle painting

I'm a Star!

I was invited to do an interview with our local Shaw cable. Shadow Mountain, a local developer donated money to Shaw to do a 13 episode series on local artists. I think this is a terrific idea. It is so hard to get recognition in the valley, every little bit helps and this is big. Thank you, Shadow Mountain, very much. I now have three minutes of fame. I look forward to seeing the other episodes.
I like the fact that the painting based on my brother is peeking over my shoulder.

It's Good to be Mayor!

Bruce won his election and is thrilled that he has a supportive council. He is already making plans for what he wants to accomplish. Please note the royal wave.

COLD! WET! DARK ! GREY!

The photo shows my grim reality. It is miserable out. You should be able to see mountains behind the trees. Bruce just informed me that a slushy snow is beginning to come down. It is dark until 8 am. It gets dark at 5 pm and it will get worse before it gets better. I can hardly wait to become a snowbird.

Jinx was overseeing my typing and bugging me, so he gets to be on todays blog too.

One hour later:

Running for Mayor

Yes, it's true. Bruce is running for mayor in our municipal elections being held this Saturday. After stepping down from his municipal administration job, I never thought he would ever darken the door of a council meeting again (2 council meetings a week for 24 years!). But, he has been so dismayed at the direction the village has taken that he has thrown his hat in the ring.

When we were driving in the southwest this spring we saw this big campaign poster for one of the delegates there. Of course, we had to stop and take a picture. I especially like the fellow's eye just over Bruce's shoulder.

I look forward to pestering him about dog control, unsightly vehicles (we have collectors in town), green alternatives bylaws ( I hope to visit the forward thinking Okotoks, Alberta and bring back ideas for consideration) and Smartgrowth (sustainable) development.

Lest We Forget

Young B. Cravens, Union Army, American Civil War




Charles Cox, grandfather, WW1


Paul Cravens, father, WW2


Michael Cravens, brother, Vietnam War


Ray Woodbury, stepson, Canadian Peacekeeper, Bosnia
Ben Woodbury, stepson, Civilian support, Afghanistan

Thanks for serving and thanks for surviving.

The problem with green!

I had to go back and revisit this painting. It just wasn't working in the original colors. Green just never seems sucessful for me. I'm still not sure that it works that well as a painting. There are two lessons here. One, don't get rapped up in your resource photo. It is just there to get you started. Two, watch out for emotional attachments. I love this painting because it is a silly moment in the lives of my daughters more so than it is a good painting. But, I can live with that!

Crossing

I have been watching Karin Jurick's new site "Different Strokes from different Folks" for the last couple of weeks. I have wanted to make a painting to contribute to the site. This week, the photo was inspiring for me and I have submitted.

I was struggling with painter's block. I hadn't painted for a month and I was having a terrible time overcoming the inertia and all the little screaming demons in my head that tell me there is no use in painting. I forced myself to just sit down, ignore the little voices and paint. Today, I feel better.

Muses

I am finding that after taking a month off from painting, it is hard to get started again. I had all kinds of wonderful excuses; having to enjoy the last of the beautiful weather, putting my garden to sleep, enjoying my birthday and Halloween, etc. But now, like having to start excercises again, I am pretty creaky.

I decided to try a text on texture painting just to get the brush moving and because I actually like these paintings. I chose to incorporate the names of the nine muses. I was shocked to discover that all the muses control written arts or music.... there is no muse for visual art! I'm not sure this is finished yet so I will just hang it for inspiration.

YES WE CAN!

I am very proud to be an American and from Illinois this morning. I realize that Obama cannot possibly achieve all the things that are expected from him but I am so encouraged by the thought that the American people are open to a new approach.
Listening to his acceptance speech last night reminded me of the hope and eagerness of the Kennedy era.

VOTE!

Please Vote. I did! Thank goodness ex-pats have absentee ballots!!