it's the holiday season

i hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, i know we did, we actually were lucky enough to have 2 Thanksgiving meals, one on Thursday and one on Saturday, so much good food and company.   the kids had so much fun with all of their cousins and probably wore themselves out, for  today started with Amelia throwing up and then followed shortly there after with Fischer,so i guess our extended weekend continues.    amelia's feeling better, hopefully fischer will be soon.



















now that Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas countdown begins.  i'm still hoping my Christmas spirit will kick in.  this coming weekend there are all sorts of fun Christmas activities to go to so that should help.   here's another Christmas painting i did.  i think my favorite part of it is the background.  i used watercolor pencils on the paper and then covered it with tissue paper. i really like how it gave it  a vintage look.
i sold my first ever  painting!  i had taken some paintings  into Tulips  here in town and  "Tattered Wings" sold the day after i took it in!  pretty exciting.  it was really hard for me to take that first step to get my paintings out there.  it took lots of encouragement and support from a wonderful friend who pretty much had to "hold my hand"  as we took them to the store last week.  a big THANK YOU to her.

safe travels

safe travels and a Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. 

a proud little reindeer

can you believe Thanksgiving is this week?  it just can't be.  that means Christmas is just over a month away! we've had a pretty mild fall here and my Christmas spirit hasn't kicked in yet.  colder weather is here, now i can only hope for some snow to help put me in the Christmas mood.  here's a proud reindeer that i painted in hopes of sparking a little bit of spirit.  i did the ornaments close to a month ago and couldn't figure out what to do with them.  i think they found the right place.

a boy and his dragon

i finished this painting last evening.   fischer was definitely the inspiration for this piece.  he loves dragons, dinosaurs, swords, gold, treasures, shields, and magic.  one evening a few weeks ago just as i crawled into bed and closed my eyes, this little image came to mind.  do you ever have that?  i love it.  it's when my body finally comes to rest and just as i  close my eyes, little visions and images flash before them.  i wish these little images were always creative ideas, but they're not.  sometimes this is when i realize i forgot to do something that day or it triggers stress and worries about the kids or bills or if i played hockey that night, i replay it over and over in my head.  lucky for me though, i usually fall asleep within minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

i made this painting for fischer and wouldn't you know it, the little art critic doesn't really like it.  at first he didn't like the dragon because he was smiling, he thought it should be mean looking.  after reading Puff the Magic Dragon to him, he realized yes, dragons can be friendly.  so now he says he doesn't like the boys nose or mouth, and he doesn't like the striped horns, he thinks they should be black.  i was surprised at how specific he was about it all.  i thought he'd be happy i actually painted a boy instead of girl for a change.  oh well, i'm happy with it.

can it be?

Oh my, can it really be 3 weeks since my last post?   according to my blog, my last post  was on  October 20th.  wow,  i guess i decided to take a little break from blogging.  actually it became a break from the computer all together, except for the occasional e-mail check.   i love reading all the blogs out there and seeing all the amazing work that people do, but sometimes for me it becomes too much.    too much information, too much inspiration, too many choices, so many talented people.  sometimes this inspires me, but it can also backfire and make me feel overwhelmed, over stimulated and my own ideas don't want to flow.



right around my last blog post i started reading the book "Simplicity Parenting:  Using the Extraordinary Power of Less to Raise Calmer, Happier, and More Secure Kids"  by Kim John Payne.   this book inspired me to simplify the kids play room, when you walked through you just felt stressed by all the "stuff" that was in there.  if i felt stressed by it all, i figured the kids did too.  i got rid of at least 2/3 of the toys and  oh my goodness, it feels so much better when you walk through.   my husband immediately noticed and said how good it felt, fischer  even said "thank you".  surprisingly, he hasn't even asked for any of the toys i got rid of. the play room is easier to clean and they play with the things they have always played with which are sticks, rocks, rope, blankets.  remember the old concept, less is more?  by having less toys, the kids will play deeper and use their own imaginations instead depending on so much stuff to do it for them.



which brings me to why i haven't blogged in awhile.  i hadn't  been feeling very inspired and was having a  hard time getting my thoughts together.   i hadn't made a conscious decision to stop blogging these last few weeks or reading blogs, but it just came about, i think the book influenced this.  i really don't spend a lot of time online, but i realized  i  needed some time to get my head around my own art, my own ideas, without being constantly influenced or stimulated by others ideas.      with less things to distract me, influence me, or overwhelm me, i feel that i can concentrate more on my own art and let my own style come out, which i'm still trying to figure out.  i'm still going to read blogs, but i'm going to really limit the amount of time i spend and also the blogs i read.  i can't say that my creativity is overflowing at this moment, but i feel like i'm in a better space and it will only continue to improve.
this past week i've been busy getting some of my paintings ready to sell at a local store.  it's the store i mentioned in my last post,  Tulips.  i do most of my paintings on recycled wood.  i usually paint the edges, but my husband was very kind and put a frame on a few of them and it really added a nice touch to them and gives them a nice finished look. it's amazing how long it takes just to prepare everything, but tomorrow i'm planning on taking 10 of my paintings there.  wish me luck.