Spoon doodles. Look ma, no pencil - I cut loose and used nothing but paint for this. No erasing!

I've known people like this.

With assistance from Angela and Sophia. I really like how this one came out.

I have no idea what this one means. You tell me.

The lovely Miss Sophia.

There are two because Sophie is HARD to paint. She refuses to look into the camera, always flitting and twirling around, and the fact that she had surgery on her right eyelid makes it hard to capture her look and her wonderful, lovely spirit.

My boy Petey-pop. He makes my heart go giddyup.

Had a lovely mother's day. No breakfast in bed; but Chinese take-out, a fun trip to the library, a hugely needed nap, lots of 5-way family hugs and kisses, and flowers from both my husband and my babysitter made this day super-special.

I began the morning with a rosary for all mothers, and for those trying to become one.
Happy Mother's day to every one of you.

My Angela, contemplating some devilish mischief. (Seriously, how many horns and halos can you look at?)

i. am. so. tired.

I have to admit that I was slightly inspired for this one... if you've never seen Passions, the worst soap opera in the world, I urge you to check it out. It's over the top, delightfully tacky, and now, has a mermaid as one of the characters. She spends lots of time in the bathtub. (That clip is pretty darn typical of the style of the show.)

The kids and I had a painting party this afternoon. They LOVE to paint! I've resisted giving any more input other than "Good colors! Nice swishes!" and encouraging stuff like that, but I felt it was finally time to do some art instruction. I put an apple and a pear in the center of the dining room table and asked them to paint a picture of them. We talked about their shapes, how the fruits weren't only red and green but so many other colors as well. I pointed out textures, speckles, stripes, light. I showed them how I did it, and painted right along with them. I didn't have to worry they'd copy me or overthink it; they each did their own thing and had a blast.

When we taught them their colors, we also taught them:

There are so many colors in the rainbow
So many colors in the morning sun
So many colors in a flower
And I see every one.

And here's their gorgeous artwork!


Apples and Pears by Sophia, age 3 (we ask them to title all their pictures. She had another one called "Pears and Apples".)


Words by Angela, age 2


Apples by Peter, age 2

While waiting for this to dry, I did my final project in my CSS class. Can I say I completely understand CSS in all its greatness? Heck no. But I do have a few more tricks up my sleeve for when I redesign the site.

This one, I like.

I've decided that I'm way more of a skirts girl than shorts. Swishy, decorative, pretty skirts. They're dressier, and much more romantic and fun than shorts, any day.

Did I mention they swish?

Still doing a painting every day. Some days it's amazing to do, and other days it's really hard. Check out what everyone's been creating here.

ps ~ If you haven't seen the new iFri site, GO! It's gorgeous!

Well, I originally had this long post about creativity, cooking, growth and adaptation, and what to use as a substitute when you run out of baking powder, but my computer took the last train to crashville. Eat a pumpkin muffin and pretend I said something witty and sparkling and inspirational instead. :)

There's a story that goes with this, I swear. I'm just too tired to tell it right now. Off to paint!

I started a Flickr group here: Every Day In May. Go! Share your stuff!

Painted directly from an record cover from the 70s that my brother and I played like crazy. And speaking of my brother, I am not the only one to interpret "sea" a little differently.

For those coming from iFri, I need to explain that I'm doing a new painting very single day in May. Feel free to join in! You can read more about the challenge here.

Self-portrait while working on Illustration Friday pic (which is #2 and will be posted soon).


Yes, my hair really was behaving. The mirror was at an angle, leaning up against the window right in front of my drafting table. I suppose I was leaning over to see myself in the mirror, which is why I look sorta skewed. And distant. I'm concentrating, okay?

So here's my brand-new idea: I am committing myself to do a painting for every day in the month of May.

They can be tiny.

They can be crap. :)

They can be about anything I want.

At the end of the month, a month that has a solid week of recitals and hours of driving time and packing up the kids to bring to my parents so the house can be perfectly quiet, I will have done 31 paintings. I may hate them all! I may have one I love, or I may think all of them are my best work yet. But I do know that I function better painting than when I'm NOT painting. And hopefully after 31 paintings I will learn something new.

So...who wants to join me?

. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Graphics to link back and use for your own "Every Day" journey:


NEW! I started a Flickr group here: Every Day In May. Go! Share your stuff!

While the babies were having a nap, I snuck out and painted up a storm.

On Palm Sunday weekend, I went on an amazing retreat, for moms, by moms. This was my second year going and I plan to do it every year from now on... it was that great.

What speaks to me most is that we are all a sisterhood - a wonderful tribe of women who are mothers who can all share their knowledge with one another. I felt like I had so much to learn from the wisdom of the "seasoned moms", and that I, amazingly, have some wisdom of my own to share. Moms need to support and nurture each other. I would wear it on a shirt, broadcast it on the news if I could.

While last year I felt the focus on Motherhood speaking to me, this year what jumped out at me again and again was the focus on the relationship between me and my husband. It's very easy to concentrate on the kids and their needs - they're in your face all the time! I came away from this retreat with a renewed plan for Paul and I to schedule more dates together, time to talk together each night, and most importantly, to pray together and for each other.

So... some ideas I really liked from this weekend:

• motherhood is holy by nature. We tend to think of ourselves as inadequate or not a good enough mother, when in fact we're blessed by being a mother.
• the idea that you have seeds of faith (like my necklace!)
• I have this written in my notebook - I don't know who said it but I love it: God has loved us into being. and: All true prayer leads to love. and: All prayer is good.
• that you can pray "in the chapel of your car"
• scripture can be very powerful - we talked about posting favorite verses around the house where they can catch your eye and inspire you. Some ones I really liked this weekend: Fear is useless, what is needed is trust.
• It says in Paul's first letter to Timothy, You will be saved by having children. That got a round of applause!
• A priest on the retreat told me to look at Lent as a time of thankfulness and gratitude and hope, instead of sacrifice. Revolutionary for me.
• That you can fast from negativity, from gossip, from fear.

The weather was wretched, but I did feel called to be outside and sit with the flowers that were just starting to come up. When I feel called, I go! So when there was some free time, I wrapped myself up in my coat and sat outside and wrote in my journal in a pen the color the sky should have been that day.

And the best part - my mom was my roomie! :) We didn't stay up TOO late.

ps: For those of you who asked - I did make a clean version of the quote from the poster I made! Click here to get it: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (in watercolour, of course) Print it out and post it, or carry it in your wallet.

I try to go for a walk every morning to clear my head and prepare myself for a creative day. (My three-part plan, which is beautiful when it actually happens, is journaling first thing in the morning, a walk before work, and painting at night.)

Yesterday during my morning walk, a thought was nagging at the back of my brain; that sometimes friends, no matter how well-meaning, disappoint you. I was feeling annoyed and let down, when this little bottlecap caught my eye. As I leaned down to pick it up, I realized that I've let down friends myself; and if I have hope they can forgive me, I need to do the same for them.

I kept the bottlecap to remind me...

A little understanding.

A little forgiveness.

note: I've started contributing to The Drawing Club, a super-inspiring collaborative site brought to you by the wonderful Michael Nobbs. Dive in and read lots of good stuff! New posts from me every Tuesday.

I saw the Nature special "Tall Blondes" and was so enchanted by the tales of gorgeous giraffes, that I ripped off a piece of paper bag and started sketching right away. While I was painting away, I learned that giraffes actually do make noise! Amazing... I heart PBS!

Watercolour, marker, paper bag. 30 minutes.

This weekend, I'm going once again on the Mother's retreat. I don't feel like I can get away right now, but for me that's a sign that taking that time is exactly what I must do.

Here's the poster for the theme of the retreat - who knew you could watercolour on shiny posterboard? I have a small business card with this quote on it that I used to have taped up on my desk where I could look at while I worked. (I should do that again.) If you want to print this out and tape it up on your desk or stick it in your wallet, feel free.



More when I get back...

I'm this close to kissing Blogger goodbye for its inability to be able to tag posts into categories. I've tried patches and workarounds, and am considering completely moving to something else. I'm spending hours trying to learn code instead of painting.

I'm looking for someone to code a template for me using WordPress or TypePad (or if you have another suggestion, please let me know!). All I would need is the template, I would do all the design/CSS work.

Need to:
* tag my entries in categories
* carry over four years of Blogger posts
* back up files to my own server
* customize it with my own banner and navigation
* have pages show up properly in Technorati and RSS feeds
* learn enough so that I don't have to bug you if I need to change it


Will barter for a painting or artwork for your site, and chocolate-chip cookies. Interested? Contact me (take the text in all caps out of the address) or leave a comment below.

Acrylic and watercolour.

I'm completely wiped out. My house has been filled with the screaming and fights that can only be had from three children under three who are testing their limits, teething, have had their naptimes changed, and who are coming to the sad realization that they have to actually SHARE Mama and Daddy and are fighting it tooth and nail. I have been frazzled and anxious to the point of almost throwing up. Thinking of painting anything, or being creative, is a joke.

I feel like I want to give in to the glorious weather - I want to wear all spring-y clothes, but everything needs to be washed (don't even get me started about the kids' laundry). I want to rip apart old tshirts and make halter tops for the summer, but my sewing machine needs attending to. I have lots and lots of ideas for things I want to do and paint, and after I've put the kids to be and the screaming dies down, and I'm done going in over and over and over again, I have lost the will to do anything for myself. All I want to do is veg and eat potato chips. Or sleep. Sunday night - the sacred Art Night - I went to bed at 8pm, practically crying over the wasted time but too exhausted to do anything but crawl up the stairs.

On top of it all: an art show I desperately want to be a part of but am afraid I have nothing decent to show in it, and major health problems for two family members that make my piddly concerns seem, well, piddly.

Exhaustedly yours,
me.

Back in the day, I talked about respect for artists and their work, and how it looked like I wasn't going to have an Electric Company tshirt.

Well, children, good things come to those who wait, and what goes around, comes around, and all that other stuff about being rewarded for being nice.

I couldn't be more excited to see that The Electric Company's brand-spankin' new official site has IRON-ONS!!!! I will possibly be making all 6, and extra "I am cute very" shirts for the kiddos.

There are lots of audio and video clips on the site as well... when you click on the video clips, you can see "I am cute very" (That's Mel Brooks), "Letterman" (starring Joan Rivers, Zero Mostel, and Gene Wilder as Letterman), the ever popular "It's the Plumber! I've come to fix the sink!", and the sinister but catchy "Golly, a Lollipop is Following Me" song.

What are you waiting for? Go make yourself an Easy Reader shirt!

ps ~I have had major email issues this past week, and have lost ALL new mail. So if you sent me anything since last Friday, I didn't get it, and please try again. (Unless it's junk, spam, or has an attachment that was 17MB. Thank you.)

A watercolour doodle inspired by the book Medicine Road by urban fantasy writer Charles deLint (one of my all-time favorite authors). There were deer girls and crow girls and even a jackalope in the book - but my mind wandered to imagine what these shape-shifting characters' "cousins" might look like from another continent. (and yes, again, on a paper bag.)

Back cover I did for the CD, "Fine Whine." A concept that involved lots of grapes, and feet squashing them.

(Note: I was running out of room on the server, so I had to take down all the CD art that I had posted previously. You can check out the cover and hear the music here.)

A post from Penelope (3/10) recently echoed something I've been thinking lately - it's time to be nice to myself and stop being so super-critical. Among other things this past weekend, I needed a new photo for my work's new website. I'm not photogenic, and I've written before about how disappointed I've been when I get pictures back from an event I thought I looked pretty nice at only to see how goofy I look in the pictures. So. To start out with a proper attitude of self-forgiveness, I gave myself permission to take lots of pictures, and to retouch the photos if I wanted to. HA! Let the airbrushing begin!

When I finally had all the new photos up on the screen, I could barely look at them - it felt so odd to me to be staring at myself. When I get ready to go out somewhere, I usually only have 5 minutes, I put on a little makeup, and it usually ends with me sighing at my reflection and saying, "It'll have to do" and running out to the car because we're late. So scrutinizing my features was very, very uncomfortable to me, and I tried to work through it because, sheesh, you should feel comfortable looking at a picture of yourself. And maybe even liking the person you see there.

So I tweaked levels and airbrushed out some molding from the wall... and realized that I didn't actually have a whole heck of a lot to do to the actual picture. So here's what I changed - and what struck me most was that these are all such TINY things, all things I can do something about regardless.


Recognize the necklace?

1. Got rid of the dark circles under my eyes from no sleep. I thought, HELLO, there's actually makeup for that! I should get some! Also added in a little eyeliner, because what I had on was from the dollar bin at Drug Fair (God forbid I should spend money on anything for myself) and wasn't showing up in the photo at all.

2. I realized that most of the time we take pics with a flash. A bright light shining in my face is not my friend, and thankfully, most of my life I am viewed in natural light. There's a reason they call it that. Natural. Natural is good. So here's to more pics sans flash.

3. Brightened my teeth - also fixable in real life. I was completely tempted to go get someone else's smile and stick it on there - someone with perfectly straight teeth and not so much gum, but I bravely resisted. And actually, "perfectly straight teeth" is possible, once I win the lottery. So, not beating myself up over that one.

All in all, not such a horrible experience. Now, if I could just learn what to do with my hair and actually have time to do it, we'd be in business.

Watercolour on paper bag.

What better way to celebrate Michelangelo's birthday on Monday than by some good old-fashioned driveway chalking?










The note we left for others (Paul's students coming for their lessons) to draw too.

Today, March 6th, is Michelangelo's birthday! To celebrate the birthday of one of the world's most inspiring artists (and my personal favorite!), I invite you to participate in this project.



What you do:
1. Do something creative today. It can be something you love to do, something you've forgotten how to do, something you've never done and always secretly wanted to try. Here's your excuse! Some ideas are:
- paint/draw/collage
- sculpt (like the master)
- write a poem, a short story
- take a photo
- visit a museum or art gallery
- sew
- cook something exciting you've never made before
- see an art film, foreign film, or movie about an artist


2. Come back here and share your experience!
Post a link to your creation, write about your trip or creative process - share your creative story with others. How creative can we get?

3. Link back with the above graphic if you've written about it on your site.

4. Have fun, for goodness' sake! This is not about being perfect or creating the best piece of art. It's about embracing your creative side in whatever form it happens to take.

Extreme closeup of a butterfly.

ps~ Today is Michelangelo's birthday. If you're coming here from Illustration Friday, click to see how you can get extra-creative today.

Petey and Angela from waaaaaaaaaay back in the day.

Peter and Angela turned two today! (For those of you who are new to all this, Sophie and the twins are one year and 5 days apart.) They are tremendously fun and endlessly entertaining. I love 'em like crazy. I will have a full Petey and Angela report soon, but for right now...

I have been spending every spare moment on projects for them - painting, glueing, wrapping, writing, staining a rocking horse for the three of them - many tales of angst go along with that, including me putting a final coat of paint on yesterday afternoon, in the basement, during a blackout, holding a flashlight. If that ain't love, I don't know what is.

I have also been painting for ME, although they're too big to scan, and we're still having the can't-get-them-on-the-computer issue, which better be resolved this weekend so I can put up a gazillion party pictures. (Three kids. One party.) Anyway, I'm loving the paintings; I have them propped up around the house so I can keep sneaking fresh glimpses at them and deciding what to do next.

Besides napping, that is.


ah, memories:
Peter and Angela's early photos: they're 76 days old, but considering they were preemies, by the time they got home they were just the right size. :) "I asked you for a PONY!" is one of my all-time favorites.

Daddy's report on what happened that night...and what a long, strange (and wonderful) trip it's been.