Click for a bigger pic.
More of that lovey-dovey stuff here.

I've been doing lots of reading lately... and one book that's resonated deeply with me is the Dance of the Dissident Daughter (thank you, Jill!) There will be lots more about this later...

I absolutely loved the parts about being connected to nature, and the whole world, which I suppose is part of why I'm so interested in organic/sustainable living - I have been crying/feeling deeply and passionately about so many things lately, and I would blow it off by thinking, gee, I'm being awfully hormonal today. And now I think, NO! I'm not hormonal: I'm being a woman. I'm feeling and caring that children in NJ need foster homes (a commercial that makes me cry regularly), or that the sun shining through the trees took my breath away on my morning walk, or that a family member or friend is going through a hard time and I would do anything to help them. That's not weakness, to feel so deeply about things like that. That's strength.

I wondered why I've felt such a need to go for a walk every day, even if it was freezing and I did a quick jog around the block with my hands jammed in my pockets and tears streaming down my face from the bitter cold. Why I felt compelled to pick up stones, acorns, leaves - not even pretty ones sometimes! - and carry them around with me or put them on my desk to look at all morning. That's being in touch with myself, and with God, through nature. And I never had a name for that before.

I learned on my last mother's retreat that spending time in nature/noticing it/painting it is a prayer. Taking a walk once a week, or painting once a week, isn't enough for me any more. I have to do it every single day now to fill myself up as a barrier against the stuff I deal with in the rest of my day, or something's lacking. And I love knowing that about myself too. Living that feels right and true to me.

A couple of weekends ago I actually left my house (gasp!) and went to a concert (gasp!) with Snowflake and Lucky. It was for one of my all-time faves, Christine Lavin. When I heard she had an opening act, I thought, eh, who can be as cool as her? But he was fantastic - David Ippolito, who makes a living playing the guitar in Central Park.

He had a great song that keeps running through my head, about how one day you may be down, and I'm here for you, or you may get inspiration from something I say. And when I need help/a vote of confidence, you're there for me. It's a good way to be.

And so here's my official thanks, to anyone who reads this blog and has ever gotten anything out of it, or written back. Thanks, angel.



We take turns being angels for one another
'Cause there's never been a day when we both wanna stay
Under the covers.
I guess we're both just lucky that it works that way.
And, thank heaven we're not all crazy on the same day.

Listen to the song here.

I was asked recently by David after reading The Mermaid Chair, how I would illustrate it.

So here are three sketches, because no matter how much I read over the book (I went to the bookstore just to look it up since I had returned my copy to the library), I couldn't get a clear image of exactly WHERE the mermaids are on the chair. So: based on the fact that I felt the chair would be very very old and carved out of wood, the largest one on the left is how I felt the chair would appear. Or how I felt MY chair would appear. I would want to be sitting between the two mermaids.

So if you've read the book (and even if you haven't) which one speaks to you? Which one would you want to sit in and pray in?

Those kiddos have now been sick for going on three weeks (flu, then colds, now hacking coughs), and I have been making myself paint through it all. I say "making myself" do it because I know that the only way to be a better artist is to work through the crappy paintings. What I need to do is show up and let whatever happens, happens.

So, when I paint things I feel less than fantastic about, I try to find pieces I like about it. So here's what I like:

* I like the eyes.
* I like the color of the butterfly (which was not the color it started out as).
* I like the way that I resisted being anal-retentive about the details on the flower and just sploshed the paint around.

I don't think the whole thing hangs together, but there are certain parts I do like. Click here to see the whole thing. For some reason, this reminds me of George Harrison. Or something hippie-ish from the 70s. Or the paintings of where the eyes follow you around.

And for some odd reason, I really like all my paintings upside down. What the heck does that mean?

This is about as glamorous as it gets around my house. (I didn't realize till I was finished painting that I had channeled Really Rosie!)

lots of watercolor, in about an hour or so, last night.

I've been feeling lately like nothing I do matters to anyone. Like nobody cares about my artwork and I'm basically unnoticeable, unremarkable. I got a very strange rejection for an illustration job that made me question my work. I've also been feeling REALLY jealous about creative successes good friends are having - I'm thrilled for them and at the same time, thinking, "Hello! What about me? When will it be my turn?" I didn't doubt I was good enough, I wondered how long I wanted to keep throwing things out there and hearing nothing in return.

But you know what? I'm truly okay with it now.

One night after crying about it to Paul, I went upstairs to my studio and started messing around with my digital version of the Owl and the Pussycat picture. I changed the drop shadows on the owl's wing - and saw a setting I'd never touched before that made the wing look like I'd outlined it in charcoal, which was exactly what I wanted to do. And then I got such a rush of what can only be described as creative joy that totally eclipsed the feeling of invisibility I'd been battling. The feeling was so strong that I had to run downstairs to tell Paul what I'd realized: That it honestly didn't matter if I never got another comment, email, request for work/whatever again, because they will not change how I work or what I do. That I was painting and illustrating for myself. I'm painting to be better at it, to learn new things. To explore. Not to seek approval. Don't get me wrong, approval is nice, but in the end, I will paint because I need to, because it's a hunger inside me. And the successes will come in time, if they're meant to.

And... along those lines, I have to question how much pushing of myself I really do. Not just pushing artwise, but pushing marketing-wise. Charlie Brown looked into an empty mailbox and was depressed nobody invited him to anything, but how many cards did he send out? I think I've been (sort of) content to wait and see what came my way.

I think it's time to get off my butt.

Sometimes I paint better when I'm exhausted. I can't seem to get a break this week, so I drag my sorry self up the stairs to my studio once the kids are in bed so I can paint. When I'm good and tired, I don't care as much as making it perfect. Perfection? Bah! Who needs it? Overrated.

In the past week, we've all had stomach bugs, a trip to the emergency room (Paul, diagnosed with kidney stones), and many, many sleepless nights. People have said to me, "Lucky you weren't sick!" but I was, and it didn't matter. I still am drained, but at least I'm back at work. Yay.

The one thing that kept me from hyperventilating at the hospital, waiting for Paul's results and operating on 3 hours of sleep, was the thought that no matter what happens, God will watch over us, and not to be consumed by worry (easier said than done). This song's refrain, in particular, was a great comfort.

The universe is vast beyond the stars
But You are mindful when the sparrow falls,
And mindful of the anxious thoughts
That find me, surround me, and bind me...


I have been bound by my anxiety... the painting is what gets me through it. I'm going to try to post more paintings and sketches - as I can't seem to stop painting, I may as well share them.

Sketch of the amazing Spackle the Wonder Cat, who lives next door to us but will come over and meow at the door for Paul to come out and pet him.

Every week when I make the shopping list, Sophie insists that I make her a "Sophia is Great" list. The same elements must be present each week: the letters in block type; the cat at the bottom; and lately, the cat must be holding his finger up with Little Cat Z (who is so small you can't see him) on it, who is taking off his hat and releasing VOOM! into the atmosphere. (Sorry if you haven't read the book, I just ruined the ending.)

The cat also must be singing the Kitty Cat Dance song, which is a huge favorite at our house. Go figure.

Our kids like to look at the mail. A while ago, Sophie picked up the Victoria's Secret sales catalog and started reading it like it was the great American novel.

"Look at all the mamas!" (Mama is her word for any woman older than her babysitters, but younger than the librarian or checkout person at the supermarket. Those are "ladies".)

"Here they are all out in the snow." She turned a few pages. "Ooh! Here they all are at the beach! They went to the shore for the day." Flip, flip, flip. She gets to the underwear section. "Now they are having a slumber party!"

She then looked up at me and said, "Wow, that's a lot of mamas!"

My friends, if that wasn't ever a reason to always have the video camera on hand, I don't know what is. Sadly, I missed that one, but now I know better.

and an update from last week.... Here's more of the digital version of the Owl and Pussycat picture. You can get great effects just by messing around with the drop shadow settings in photoshop... all the charcoal-y looking effects are from making the drop shadow grainy.

(Click to see it bigger - don't go blind trying to read that teeny type!)

Giving a little insight into how I work (on three things at once, on the floor) and what the thought process is.

Work in progress for "The Owl and The Pussycat".


latest iteration, flat color in photoshop. watch this space for updates of texture and shading and such... (and I may do it in watercolour as well, just because.)

original sketch

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
The Owl looked up to the stars above,
And sang to a small guitar,
'O lovely Pussy! O Pussy my love,
What a beautiful Pussy you are,
You are,
You are!
What a beautiful Pussy you are!'

Read the whole poem - which we sing a lot at my house - here!

ps ~ 2 more days of Bloggies... nominate me for "Best Tagline" and "Best-Kept-Secret" if you feel so inspired!

It's time for the 2006 Bloggies ! If you feel so inclined, I'd love it if you wanted to nominate this one. (hee!) So far I think my best bet is "Best Undiscovered Blog" and "Best Tagline" but hey, who knows? :) And don't forget to vote for your other favorites as well!

ps ~ Thanks for all the butt-kicking, please keep it coming! I hope to have a fresh illustration up this weekend. In the meantime, I finally compiled all my Illustration Friday paintings into one gallery... check 'em out!

I have artist's block.

I am slooooowly working through it (as you can see by the fact that I did a new sketch, something that would have been nigh impossible a few days ago) with journaling, doodling, and a walk every morning. But darnit, I need a kick in the butt to get me moving.

Jill and I talked last night about ways you can be blocked - how sometimes it takes the form of overplanning ("I can't start this painting without getting new supplies and pricing out frames and seeing what other artists are doing...") or, we identified for me, pressure to perform: the kids are in bed, here's your only time of the day to paint, GO! Be fantastically creative! "The problem," I said to Jill, "Is that that pressure has always worked well for me before." Hmmmmm.

I had a week off for the holidays, and planned to paint every night, redesign my whole site, go for long walks... and instead every afternoon I had to take a nap, and every night I fell into bed at 8 because I was so exhausted. My body hijacked me! So once I was caught up on sleep (um, around Jan. 2) I was staring at blank paper, actually arguing with myself because I was afraid to put anything down on the paper because I might mess it up. Phooey.

So here's where you come in, if you're still reading this far: please, for goodness' sake, give me a kick in the pants to get me going. If you have a tip for getting through a block, please share it. The only way I know how to do it is to paint and give myself permission to throw it in the fireplace if it stinks.

Any words of wisdom?

UPDATE: I have been a creating fool... this weekend I cooked and baked up a storm, and am working on three pictures at the same time. It's working! I'm working! Will post pics soon.

Imagine all the people living life in peace...

Wishing everyone a blessed Christmas and Hannukah, and a joyous New Year filled with abundant peace. (Hey, you may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.)

This is why you have to always have the camera ready... you can't script stuff like this! Of course, if I had PLANNED to make a movie, the dishwasher would have been closed and the living room wouldn't have looked like the toy box threw up. But what can I say, this is real life! Sophie, by the way, will be 3 at the end of February.

Click here to see the movie. UPDATE: Link's fixed! Watch it right on the screen.

I got the biggest surprise of my life on a morning in September about two years ago.

I was songleading again at church for the first time since Sophie was born. One minute, I was standing in front of the congregation, singing; the next, I passed out cold and took the podium down with me. After several tiny cups of orange juice and "I'm not diabetic, I think I'm pregnant"s later, the EMTs decided to take me to the emergency room since my blood pressure was amazingly low. The only way out is up the aisle during the next mass. "We're NOT." I beg. "Close your eyes." I'm told. The hush that comes over the church as I'm carried out on a stretcher, oxygen mask on face, makes me squinch my eyes shut even tighter.

Paul and Sophie follow us the hospital and my parents are phoned. Nobody will let me eat on the off chance the pregnancy is ectopic and they have to operate, which makes me want to throw up just thinking about it. Starvation and nausea duke it out. Starvation wins. While they're getting someone to do an ultrasound, we urge Paul to go eat something at the cafeteria; they'll page him, maybe he can smuggle me back a burger or something. Anyway, I just went through a year of ultrasounds, so this is old hat. So when they tell me 15 minutes later to go in, I figure we'll start without him.

I say hello to the technician in the darkened room and get ready to be told the worst. Or at least, the usual. "Is everything okay?" I ask as she starts poking around.

"Fine. Everything's fine."

"Oh, good." I breathe, finally. "As long as it's not twins," I joke.

She doesn't say anything.

She has the screen turned slightly away from me but I know enough to know that what I can see definitely does not look like Sophie's sonograms did. There are two sacs. Two little dots.

"It's not twins, RIGHT?"

"Let's just wait until your husband gets here, and we'll go over things, okay?"

"It's TWINS, ISN'T IT?! Oh, my God!"

I continue along in this vein for about 60 more seconds when blessedly, Paul walks in the room, eyes adjusting to the darkness, 7-month-old Sophie on one arm, her backpack on the other. The poor man immediately gets hit with, "Look at that screen! LOOK AT IT! DO YOU SEE WHAT'S ON THAT SCREEN? TWO! TWO! TWINS! WE! ARE! HAVING! TWINS!" And I can see the look of absolute terrified shock that comes over his face that I know must be on my own. The poor technician takes this opportunity to point out the nicer points of the ultrasound; they're probably fraternal, they don't share a sac or a placenta, and all I can think is THERE ARE TWO OF THEM IN THERE OH DEAR LORD.

It took me a looooooong time to get used to the thought. Peter and Angela were a surprise, as defined on Roseanne back in the 90's. Her son asks if he was a mistake. "No! You're a surprise. A surprise," she tells him, "is something you didn't even know you wanted until you got it."

Surprise. Their sticky kisses, the way they yell "Mama!" when I walk into the room like I am the greatest thing EVER, their belly laughs, the way they shake their little butts and dance when we play "Linus and Lucy" for them and Angela yells out "Chaba-Shoopy! Chaba-Shoopy!" (Charlie Brown and Snoopy), the way they worship the ground their big sister walks on - nobody is more surprised than I am at the way my heart is so amazingly wide open to overflowing with enormous amounts of love. They've multiplied my capacity for loving and caring and feeling, exponentially. It's been a long, hard, exhausting road to get here, filled with surgeries (mine and the kids'), months in the NICU, monitors, medications, and therapy, but I can actually say it's all been worth it.

Surprise.

My mom photocopied this article and gave it to me. Reading this along with my new find (How She Really Does It: The Secrets of Success from Stay-at-work Moms) convinces me that things in society need to change, and soon.

Did anyone see Desperate Housewives last night? Lynette said "I'm a good mother" and the other mom said, "But that's not good enough for me, I want to be a GREAT mother" (so she won't put her child in daycare or let anyone else touch her.)

Why do we buy into this crap? Why do I have to APOLOGIZE for needing to work so we have health insurance? Why is it that a man can have three kids, work, and travel, and be considered a good father because he's such a good provider, but if a woman does it, she's an awful mother for neglecting her children, even if her husband stays home to be with the children full time?

Why is there such a divide between mothers? Mothers who work, mothers who quit their jobs and stay home. Mothers who make everything from scratch, mothers who order a pizza so they can spend another hour having one on one time with their kids. Mothers who nurse, mothers who can't or won't. (There's nothing that makes you feel worse than having another mother say to you, "Well, as long as you know that formula isn't the best thing for your baby." I was so tempted to say, "Formula is better for them than a mother in a mental institution right now." but I held my tongue.)

Listen up:

Mothers need to stop letting others dictate what being a good mother means. Not Martha Stewart, not that horrible nazi-esque What To Expect series of books, not the super-mom at the park or playgroup, not anyone you see on TV. This is seriously one of the most important things I've learned about being a mom. What works for me may very well not work at all for you. We've been blessed to have hours where one of us can be with the kids all the time, in our house. Not everyone is so lucky. I work, not only because I need to, but because I want to, and the fact that I have my family's and employer's support is wonderful. I try to cook as much from scratch and organically as possible. If you open a can of Beefaroni in front of me, I will say absolutely nothing about it, because obviously this works for you. That doesn't mean I won't try new things, or ever stop learning, because Lord knows these kids are growing and changing and hopefully, so am I. But can we please stop being so critical of each other, and maybe join forces to make this world a better place for our kids?