Bison

Bison are such a unique and amazing animal.  One of my  highlights when we went to Yellowstone was waking up, looking out our window of the Old Faithful Lodge and seeing the bison.  The morning was cold and foggy, but their big dark figures contrasted beautifully against the colors of the geysers and hot springs.  It was one of those moments that will be etched in my mind forever.

Last summer on one of my running routes, there were two bison that were always out to pasture.  As I would start running past them, the one would come running up the field towards me, it always frightened me a bit as it came bounding through the long grass, only an electric fence between me and it, but just as it would reach the fence it would change direction and then it would  run the length of it with me.  A little unnerving, but kind of cool.

This piece came together pretty quickly.  I recently saw a picture of bison walking through Yellowstone and the hot springs and was inspired by the bright red, orange, and yellowy rust colors of the hot springs.  I painted a bunch of tea bags in these wonderful colors and tore them in strips and glued them down over coffee stained paper.  The dark brown strips in the painting are from a very concentrated coffee.  I love how rich the color is when I do that.  The clouds and sky are watercolor and gesso together which gives it a wonderful feathery kind of appearance.   The bison are cut from painted coffee filters.  I didn't do a lot of embellishing to this piece because I feel like it works just as it is and has the feeling that I'm looking for.

Forgotten

I've been busy updating my Etsy shop,  rewriting titles, changing tags and decreasing shipping costs all in hopes of bringing in more traffic to my shop.  I just can't seem to figure out Etsy.  My shop has been open for 2 years and I've had 10 sales.  Pretty sad isn't it?  Anyway, today I found an image that I thought was listed and wasn't.

I painted this one back in July or August.  It was one of the few paintings I did this summer.  Inspiration definitely went on summer vacation, somewhere far, far away I think.  (luckily she did return this fall feeling refreshed)

                                                                        "In the Thistle"  available here

 So while I didn't paint much this summer, and choosing not to fight with inspiration not being here, I chose instead to focus on getting back in shape and socializing.    I finally started going to our local bike shops (Blue Dog Cycle) women's ride, which got me totally hooked on mountain biking and loving it.  Every Wednesday we would bike and then go to the wine bar afterwards.  How awesome is that?  Besides biking I've finally gotten into a wonderful running groove.  I've always ran, but its been so hard to have any kind of exercise routine since having kids, but now that they are getting older its becoming a little bit easier.  (it still takes some will power though, like getting up at 5am today and heading out into the very cold darkness to get my run in before the kiddos get up for school)  So while it bothered me once and awhile that I had zero inspiration this summer, there was plenty of other fun things to do this summer to keep me occupied, cookouts, picnics, bonfires, late summer nights with the kids and neighbors.    For the most part I just accepted that I wasn't inspired  and knew it was for a reason and it would of course return and it did.

Have a wonderful weekend, I hope you find something fun or inspirational to do.   I've been busy sewing a little birthday present for Amelia and have also started some holiday crafting that I'll share next week.