It"s All About the Journey

Creativity Overflowing

 Or Something Like That

With three little girls in the house today, the paint brushes, watercolor palettes, acrylics ETC. were a big draw.  Using the long classroom tables, we had room to paint pictures, roll out clay dough, paint rocks, make coffee filter leaves (a fabulous shade of blue!) .  .  .  Not a lot was finished.  In fact, maybe nothing was finished, but I guess that wasn't the point.  It's all about the journey, isn't it?  I needed this today  -  a day to just be.  We weren't trying to get anything finished, we were just being.  I've been fretting a lot lately about how my time is spent, and worrying more about what doesn't get done, instead of enjoying what I am doing.
Listening tonight to Jeff Talmadge's "Wrong Train"  -   "It (time) isn't lost, it's only spent another way."
Tomorrow I'll spend a little time cleaning up these tables and think about how much fun it was to make this mess..

Peppers

Peppers

  The market is full of beautiful, colorful peppers this time of year, and I always get some just to watch their color change.  I really don't know how to cook with these  -  I don't even know what they are, but I just love the way they sit there on the kitchen counter for a few days changing from dark green, to orange, to brilliant red.    I think they cost something like 6 for $1.  That's pretty darn cheap entertainment.

Apples

Apples

I know I said I was going to be painting fall vegetables during the month of October, and yes, I know these are not vegetables, but it's this or nothing.  I have been trying to catch up on paper work and get my classes scheduled for next summer. and get out an email promoting my November classes.  So what's so hard about squeezing in a little painting time?

I'm not practicing what I preach  -  just paint!  Carry your sketchbook around and just paint.

We have lost a lot of leaves and gained our seasonal view of the Bay.  It's beautiful.  I'm going to work on very simple trees with my class this morning.  It is always a challenge to keep things simple when we have bare branches, yellows, oranges, and greens all on one tree.  I'm hung up on simplicity lately - on every level of my life  -  and I am not a "simplicity-kind" of person.  Gonna give it a try.

Squash

Autumn Vegetables

Here we are half way into my autumn-vegetable-series-for-the-month-of-October, and this is the first I have painted.  I guess I shouldn't point out my shortcomings, should I?  This is a contour ink drawing of the vegetables lined up down the table.  They are really very large vegetables and would have lent themselves to being painted in a large format. Of course I can still do that.

It is a beautiful fall Saturday in Northern Michigan.  The leaves are brilliant, and the bay is very blue.We went downtown to the new chili restaurant for chili dogs for lunch. I forgot to take my sketchbook to sketch the salt shakers.  We'll be going back.

Now we are about to pick up on the bathroom project that we put aside for the summer.  Summer is long gone, and we are still trying to think up excuses not to get at it.  We are enablers.  Maybe that's why we have been together for so long.

Hope it's a beautiful day wherever you are - maybe you are outside sketching, or maybe you are inside painting your bathroom.

Quiche

Leftover Quiche for Breakfast

A quick little sketch of my breakfast this morning.  Also working on a couple of cloud paintings, but you know  -  those can be pretty boring to look at day after day (not that I have really been painting them day after day), so I think I will post them in groups of three or four.  That still might be boring, but anyway . . .

It is warm and sunny here today, and I am heading out to the farm market for squash and gourds. Maybe some apples and pears.  Potatoes. Mums. Pumpkins. And I claim to not be a fan of Autumn.

Clouds

 

Getting Easier

I may be way behind schedule on my self-imposed cloud challenge, but I'm gonna keep on keepin' on. I must say it is getting easier.  Of course it is!   Practice. Practice. Practice.

I had intended to do fall vegetables during the month of October.  I guess it wouldn't kill me to do both vegetables and clouds.  I love cut squash  -  those seeds with the negative spaces!  I'm a sucker for all those colors and textures once I get to the farm market. All those warm colors with cool shadows.  And those big blue/gray/green things (Hubbard?)  -  fun to mix!

Okay  -  who wants to do fall vegetables with me? Small studies. Practice. Practice. Practice.

New Sketchbook

Another New Sketchbook

Last week we made new sketchbooks. After the trip downstate to the paper/bookbinding store, I was anxious to bind a new book.  I think I have made nine of them so far, and  I'm a couple of books ahead now, which is a nice, secure feeling. What if I decide sometime that I am sick of making these, and I don't have any made up ahead?  Actually, I just really enjoy making them.  I don't need a reason, do I?

The drawing is a value sketch that I am working on for a new painting.  I want to use it as a demo for tomorrow's class.

Another beautiful, sunny, fall day here.   I should take a walk.  Does sitting in the sun eating potato chips count as doing something good for myself?  I think so.