Show me your heart

One of Amelia's favorite things to do lately is to try and make her fingers into a heart shape.  While doing this she will say "Mama, does this look like a heart?"  When she first started doing it, it looked nothing like a heart, her fingers would make all sorts of different shapes, but not a heart shape!  As you can see by the photo below, that she is finally getting the hang of it and just in time for Valentines Day! 



Her little hand hearts are so sweet and inspired me to try and draw it out.  The last painting I did I had a horrible time drawing out the hands, so I thought this would be great practice for drawing hands. 
 
 


Not quite as cute as her pudgy little hands, but  at least you can tell they are hands!

a little bit of love

"Love is life. And if you miss love, you miss life."
Leo Buscaglia

Yes, I finally did a little bit of painting!  I started this a few weeks ago and finished it up last night.  It's not a very complicated piece so it really shouldn't have taken so long, but painting hasn't been at the top of my list of things to do lately!  I finally decided that I just need to do it no matter what else needs to be done, and wow, I'm so glad I did it.  

I made a little sympathy card today too.  The card turned out kind of cheery looking, but Henry was 98 and lived a good, long, healthy life, loved to watch the birds outside his kitchen window  and always loved a good joke, so I guess as I was thinking about him, a happy little card was the result!

MY STUDIO!

I thought I'd share some pics of my new studio!   I finally got it put together over the last few days.  I love it!  The kids love it too and have very quickly started to take it over.  I'm loving my free drafting table that I got.  It has all those drawers for my art supplies!  I'm thinking down the line I'd like to paint it a fun color, but probably not until it warms up outside so I can do it there.




Aren't those floors beautiful?  The kids have made themselves a comfy little corner to read their books with all sorts of throw pillows.  I would love to sew some fun new pillow covers for them.  Fischer had the brilliant idea of jumping off of the drafting table onto the pillows while wearing capes to see if they could fly, but luckily I was able to put an end to that quickly before anyone got hurt!



The walls are a little bare.  I've decided that I would like to get artwork from my favorite artists hanging on my walls for inspiration.  Unfortunately this takes money, which we don't have a lot of right now, but I see the walls filling up slowly over time.



















I wish I had some artwork to share with you, but this studio has been a bit of a distraction and I'm not sure that I've even lifted a pencil this past week!  But now that I have this beautiful studio,  I can't wait to get going.  (I still need lights though, oh yeah, and a chair!)  Hopefully there will be artwork soon!

Room Re-do

This past Saturday I talked my husband into starting an unplanned project, tearing up the carpet in our office and turning it into my studio!   Much of our house is covered in carpet in some form or another, even the kitchen and one of the bathrooms!  This was how the house was when we bought it 3 years ago.  The carpet is OK, but not my favorite.   Under most of the carpeting is hard wood floors, except for the kitchen and bathroom.   It's a bit of a risk to pull up the carpeting when your not sure what shape the floor is in underneath.

Over the last 3 years we've done a lot of dog sitting for my mother-n-law. Her previous dog which has since past away and now her current dog have chosen our office as their favorite spot to pee, poop and puke.  I can't even tell you how many times we've had to clean this up off of our carpet.  There was even one particular incident this past fall where her dog had a GI bleed and blood was coming from both ends.  Not an easy one to clean up.  This happened the week after we had just had all of our carpets shampooed!  Needless to say, I've been campaigning hard to get the carpet in the office pulled up, and I finally won this weekend!  Yeah!!!


                                          Our office prior to the re-do. 

I've always done my artwork in the kitchen.  Even out in Idaho I worked at the island in our kitchen.  I find kitchens to be one of the most comfortable places in the house and they always have great lighting, especially our kitchen right now.  It gets total southern exposure all day long and then from the west.  I love all of that natural light.  The drawback of course is that it is the kitchen!  In between meals I'm always having to clean up and then restart projects, while the mess accumulates on the counters.  My husband has been so patient with this and has rarely uttered a complaint about it.


                                 My studio, I mean kitchen, notice the lovely teal carpet! 

Our house is rather large and I decided that it really is time to figure out a spot that I could make into my studio.  The options were the basement, the office or our attic.  The basement has some beautiful brick walls, but for me, I just couldn't see much inspiration coming from that space.  Our attic is really a neat space, all sorts of windows and angles to the ceiling, but so cold in the winter and unbearably hot in the summer, plus it just feels so far away from the rest of the house, like the kitchen, where I do spend a lot of time even if I'm not painting.  The last option was the office, which is a room that doesn't really get used much and is pretty much sort of wasted space, it's on the main level and near the kitchen.  The big drawback about this room of course was the said carpet and also its location which is on the northeast side of the house and so it doesn't have the greatest lighting.


This past week my husbands business partner gave me a free drafting table which will be perfect for my studio and am totally psyched about!  While rearranging furniture in the office to make room for the table,  I found 4 new pee stains from a recent dog sitting and decided enough is enough, this carpet is coming out!  So Saturday morning out it came!



Luckily the floor was in wonderful shape.  All around the perimeter was old carpet glue from previous carpet.  Initially we were going to just scrape that off and call it good, but my husband decided we should totally refinish the floor.  The last pic above shows the floor after it had been sanded.


                                        The kids playroom and our living room. 

Our house turned into total disarray after this decision.  I included a couple pics of how our house looked over the last 5 days.  Furniture overflowed into our living room and into the playroom.  The office is behind the French doors in the second pic.

 

Here's the office, or should I now say my studio!  I'm over the top excited with how the floor turned out.  It looks awesome.  I can't stop looking at it!  The floor is a beautiful red oak and looks wonderful.  I thought the floors looked pretty good prior to sanding, but WOW,  refinishing them really brought out the grain of the wood.  I figured since we refinished the floors, the walls could really use a fresh coat of paint.   I ended up going with a light lime green color on 2 of the walls.  Lime green and orange have been my favorite colors forever.  The color and fresh paint really brightens the room.

This evening we started moving the furniture in.  I haven't decided how I'm going to utilize the space yet, but I'll post some pics when it's finished.  The only light source in the room are  2 wall sconces, so we still have to figure that out yet too, but I'm so happy with the results!  It was so worth the mess that we've went through over the last few days.  I love, love, love it!  Sorry this post got a little long, I guess it's because I'm so excited about it all!

And a new year begins with Hope

I'm not really sure how I want to write this post, but I've been putting it off long enough.  I think the longer I put it off, the harder it is going to be.  It's difficult for me to put my feelings and thoughts into comprehensible writing in normal situations, let alone emotional ones, but here it goes.


                My sister Wendy, my Mom, me and Amelia  on my Mom's 60th birthday this past April

About 2 weeks before Christmas my mom found out she had a tumor in her abdomen. The Monday before Christmas she had surgery to remove the tumor and a hysterectomy.  It turned out that the tumor was Stage 3 ovarian cancer.   They also found it on her appendix,  bowel and some lymph nodes near one of her kidneys.  It was a long surgery and her hospital stay ended up being longer than planned and included quite a scare at one point, which then required an  overnight in the ICU.    It was a very long week for all of us, but especially for her.  So many thoughts, prayers and love were sent her way during that time and still are.   She came home the day after Christmas and has been recovering very well.   Even though it wasn't the Christmas we had planned, to have my mom still with us is by far the best gift one could ask for.  She is a tough one and I'm amazed at how well she is doing.   The human body and it's resiliency is absolutely astounding. 

My mom has always been very healthy, so this all has been very shocking, overwhelming, scary, surreal, stressful, and by all means a  roller coaster ride of emotions.  I can't even imagine how my mom must feel. 

I live 3 1/2 hours away from my parents, which right now is really feeling like it's far away, but I just have to remember that it is much better than being in Idaho where I used to live.   I feel fortunate to be a SAHM because I was able to spend 2 weeks at my parents house while all of this was going on. My sister lives just 20 minutes from them and is able to pop in whenever she can.   I wish I could do that.  I miss my mom and just want to be there for her and my dad.    It gives me comfort to be there with her and have her close, to make sure she is ok and help out with everything,  plus I know that having her grandkids there brightens her day.

It's hard for me to welcome this new year when I know what my mom has to go through.  Besides having just been through major surgery, in a few weeks she has to start chemotherapy.  So instead of  saying "Happy New Year", which doesn't feel quite right with everything going on,  I've decided that this year will be a "Hopeful New Year"!  With hope comes  the belief that a positive outcome lies ahead, and with hope comes the strength, courage and confidence that I know my mom will have to win her fight against cancer. 

(Mom, I know you read my blog.  I love you.)

Absent

I've been absent from this little space of mine.  I have to be honest, I really haven't been inspired to write about anything and I REALLY haven't been inspired to paint anything lately.  Instead of painting though, I've been busy finding time to:

 Make fun star garland which Maya from Maya Made posted about last week.  These are easy and addictive little stars to make, Fischer was able to make some too. 



I did some garland that was only stars, but I also did some garland that has stars, pine cones and  pom poms made out of coffee filters that were dipped in coffee and cinnamon.  (inspired by these flowers on The White Bench)



I just couldn't stop myself from making a peppermint wreath.  I've seen different versions all over and found them to be so eye catching that I had to make one for myself!  I'm very happy with the results!  Fischer just wants to lick it though!





I've also been finding time to embroider a few simple little stocking stuffers for Amelia such as this headband and barrette.



And sew some little gift bags, with the goal that some day we will not have to use wrapping paper!



and of course finding the time to do a little Christmas baking.  Yum!





And in between all of this, I haven't forgotten to find the time to look at the beautiful sunsets that are in my own backyard!



What have you been finding time for?  

My Plan is Backfiring

The past month or so, my goal had been to get up earlier in the morning.  The days seem to pass by so fast and I feel like I can never get enough done in a day, so I thought I needed to get up earlier so I can accomplish more.   I've never been a morning person.  As a nurse I mainly worked second shift, staying up late and sleeping in.  Since I've been a stay at home mom, I've slowly felt a shift and mornings aren't as painful as they used to be.   My usual waking time is right around 7am, sometimes a little earlier, sometimes a little later and I go to bed right around 10pm. 

My quite time has always been after the kids go to bed.  I love this time!  It's when no one is  talking to me constantly, or demanding things from me, no one to follow me every single moment of the day.  It's when I can have a full thought without being interrupted!  This is when  I usually work on my artwork.  Many times though I find that I'm so darn tired at the end of the day that I either have to force myself  to paint or I just can't do it at all.

For this reason I decided I need to start getting up earlier.  I wanted some nice quiet time in the morning.  Relax a bit before the morning rush starts.  The first week of doing this was kind of hard, it didn't feel quite right.  I really dislike an alarm, so before going to bed I would have to tell myself I was going to wake up early and guess what?  It started to happen.  Now I've been waking up between 5 and 6 am, usually around 5:30.  There have been a few days where I "slept in" until 6:30!  To be honest, it has been wonderful.  I can accomplish so much in that quiet little space of time.  I usually start with my morning coffee, check e-mails and blogs and then start working on things that I normally don't have time for during the day.   If I have a painting in progress, I'll work on that.  Sometimes I just feel like reading, while other days I've cleaned out cabinets and bins, baked muffins or bread, sewn patches on pants or like yesterday I sewed this mama mouse and baby! (Amelia played with these little guys for hours!)   For me it feels like my time, extra time to do what I want. 



Unfortunately as my waking time has slowly shifted to an earlier time, so has our little light sleeping 4 year old, Amelia!  Argh!  I tiptoe down the stairs in the morning, but somehow her little ears and body sense that I'm up and usually within minutes she is also up.   She has always been our early riser, but usually 6:30-7am.  This past week I don't think she's slept past 6am.



My plan has backfired.  I'm not getting my morning peace now, my alone time and she is also getting an hour and a half to 2 hours less sleep!  I'm not sure what to do about it.  Today I stayed in bed a little longer so she could sleep.  I got up at 5:45 and within minutes she was up.  I guess I'll just have to go with it and enjoy it.  Amelia is a morning person and she almost always wakes up with a smile on her face and she also plays by herself very well, but I'm definitely missing my morning peace and quiet though.    She is busy talking to me right now as I'm trying to finish up this blog post!

I was hoping to quickly write this blog post this morning and work on this painting pictured below, but things have went slower this morning with her little voice chattering in my ear for the past hour!  Oh well, what can I do?  I'm definitely not going to try to get up even earlier!

Almost scrapped!

This piece was not easy.  I knew I wanted to paint a nuthatch, but I was really unsure of the direction I wanted to take it.  It initially started on wood with a collage background.  Soon after I started applying paint, I knew I didn't like the direction it was going and started a new nuthatch on watercolor paper.   Again, I didn't know what I wanted to do with it.

I love how nuthatches walk/hop up and down trees, many times upside down!  I wanted my nuthatch to have that upside down position that I usually see them in.  This little guy started out as a white breasted nuthatch but became the red breasted because I wanted more color! 



I'm not sure why I was drawn to pink, green and orange as the main colors.  I think this started to feel problematic with the bird.  It just didn't seem to match.  I decided to make his little belly much more orange than what it appears in real life.  I thought, why does he have to look exact?  I have a tendency want to make things look exactly as they are.  I've noticed Fischer has this too.  If I'm painting something that doesn't look the same in real life, he'll quickly point out "mom, that's not what it looks like".

I was so close to cutting up the picture and just using the parts I liked, or starting over.  I decided to keep working at it and see if I couldn't make it work somehow.  And guess what?  I think I like it now.  I know I'm not going to throw it away or cut it up,  I have to say,  I'm happy with it.

I think what made this painting kind of hard for me is that I'm going to be donating it for a silent auction  for the Holiday Faire at the Waldorf school here in town.   For one, I wanted it to be a gender neutral subject, I thought a bird would be great.  Unfortunately there might be too much pink in it though to make it very neutral now.   I'm just worried that no one will like it.  I definitely have to matte it for the auction, and I'm thinking I might frame it as well.  We will see, maybe I'll end up painting something else:)

And it just appeared!

This might seem like a silly blog post but I just had to share this little story.  When we lived in McCall Idaho, there was a little shop (it's closed now)  where they would sew just about anything you could imagine out of fleece.  Fleece hats, blankets, jackets, pajamas, and even dog bed covers if you wanted.  (we asked them for that one!)  One of the first winters there, I bought a gray neck gaiter.  Nothing fancy, but very warm.  I wore it for all my winter activities.  It became a necessity for snowboarding and skiing.  I loved it.  One fall probably 5 or 6 years ago, my husband took it with him when he went elk hunting.  After that trip, I never saw it again.  We searched through everything and everywhere we could but figured it was lost in the Idaho wilderness.    I remember searching for it several winters in a row while in Idaho, just hoping I might find it  and I've even searched for it here in Wisconsin.    No luck. 

Yesterday we had our first snow of the season.  Our kitchen has a small little closet I use for my coats and bags.  I've been going into that closet several times a day  for the last 3 years.  Yesterday I reached for my bag and saw lying on the bottom of the closet something gray.  When I picked  it up,  it was  my neck gaitor from McCall Idaho!



I have no idea where it came from!     I'm in that closet all the time, everyday!   I wear all the same jackets that I've worn for years, even the same jackets I had in Idaho.  All the jackets and bags I have in there have been used many, many times over the years.  My husband doesn't keep any of his things in there.  How crazy is that!  All of these years I've searched and searched and of course gave up searching, we even moved and purged  and out of nowhere it just appears!  My husband asked me if I believed if things could "just" appear.  I said no I don't think things just materialize out of thin air!   But really how bizarre  that  it did just appear in a place that I use all the time  AND on our first snow day of the season?  The timing couldn't have been any more perfect!   I love it! 

A Chickadee Greeting

The bold little chickadee made it onto another Christmas painting of mine.  Chickadees and cardinals are 2 birds that I really associate with winter here in Wisconsin.  This recent one of mine was done on watercolor paper with a coffee wash over the top.  For some reason I decided to do the stripes on the side by hand without drawing them straight with a ruler first.  I'm not sure if I like the look of it, it's not as clean looking.  The little bird and tree branch were done with recycled tea bags and a little bit of coffee filters ripped and glued onto the paper.  Watercolor, acrylic and some homemade walnut ink were used in the stripes. 



Here's my chickadee I did last year,



and here's the one from the year before.  (at least I think it's a chickadee, his beak is rather large!)  It's interesting to see the difference in the birds from year to year and the style I chose to use.  I didn't look at these other chickadees until I started writing this post.  They are all collages, but they definitely look different from each other.  I'm not sure which one is my favorite, there are parts I like about all of them.     Hmmm, the last 2 have a lot more orange on them,  maybe they are male? 



Yesterday I saw a little nuthatch on our tree.    I think it is time to paint a nuthatch!