The Daily Doily Project #3

Day three: A Squirrel Honey

Basil just didn't look quite right, just sitting there on his lonesome, so I painted a fur baby friend for him.

She may or may not be based on the facebook pictures of a squirrel a friend rescued and raised. :)

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I'm using a scanner to capture images of all my DDP pieces instead of a camera like I do for my big paintings, and I can't seem to get it right- it's always a little too dark, or a little washed out. The colors are actually much more vivid in real life!
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Also, something I should have noted on the first DDP post was that they are all for sale.
Residency interview season is here for Dr A so I'm kind of scrambling to increase our income in any way I can, so I'm selling everything for... anything.
This piece: $35
Sweet Basil: $35
It Gets Better: $25
Painting lessons: $15 per hour
Babysitting: $10 per hour
Nannying (babysitting at least 3 days a week): $30 per day
My kidneys: $200 each
My right eye: $400
My hair: $ a golden watch chain
My soul: $ negotiable

drawn again

There are few things in life that make me as happy as my dog does.

There are few things in life that make me as happy as art does.

Lately I'm finding myself dragging in dog tired and sitting down with the sketch book and reworking the same thing over and over again.

There's a freedom in doing something for the tenth time you'll never get the first time. The first version of this piece was a ghosty shell of a dog. One of my biggest artistic hang-ups is the fear of messing things up by doing too much too it. It's a mistake I've made time and time again. Take the same sketch and draw it and redraw again and again and more and more comes out of it. The ghosty version was followed by more intensely colored versions, inked versions, and swirly skies. I don't know about anyone else, but for me it takes a lot of comfort with a piece to be brave enough to start drawing swirls with a pen.

Let's get digital... digital. I wanna get digitaaaal.

Geez, la sha, paint birds much?

Photoshop artwork while Dr. A plays Smash Bros much?

Sell them on your Etsy page much?

Nope. not much... yet.

Blog weirdly in third person perspective much?

nerd.

Building a Better Bird

I have had some wonderful pets.

Radar... Beavura... Beauvra's mother, Panda

(Someday I will have to write a post about the 8 lb bundle of insanity that was PandaCat and my absolute love for her. I can't think about it too much, though, cause it inspires so much melancholy for me).

I've also had some bad pets... verrry bad pets.

i.e. Fiefel the hampster... my first (very poorly named) cat "Good Kitty"... and my involuntarily adopted pet skunk.

I can't think of words that describe how unwelcome that skunk was-

having a skunk living and BREEDING in the crawl space just below your bathroom is noooo fun.

Trust me.

Because, you see, the toilet makes a loud sound when it is flushed, which scares skunks, and when skunks are scared... well, you know what happens then.

"Hello... animal control? How fast can you get here?"

I don't know what compelled me to get the hampster... I guess he was pretty cute... but when all a pet does is bite you and run away, it gets pretty uncute quick... plus he learned this neat trick where he propped his back legs up into the corner of the cage, and propelled his pee outside his cage.

Did you know hampster pee is incredibly sticky and hard to clean?

Cause it is.

But there is one pet I would never imagine keeping... and that is a bird.

1) Why would you put something blessedly built for flight in a cage?

2)Birds do not WANT to be with you. I promise. They really don't.

3)They are LOUD.

4)Bird poop.

But I do LOVE birds...

as evidenced by my art:

Also, check out this pink lady who just took up residence in my studio:

Do you recognize her?

Yep. She's the message bearing birdy from this painting.

Adopt her today by clicking here.

I promise she won't poop on your couch.

much.

Heavy (er)

My newest series of paintings is my attempt to be a little deeper.

I don't know why, but somehow I got all hung up on painting birds.

I didn't plan on it, but time and time again I sat down to paint and each time a feathery little critter would wind up peering out at me.

So... instead of flowers or scenes or birds I'm trying to explore the concept of being connected.

It's been a recurring theme in my writing for years, most notably this poem;

(Long time readers will recognize this as the poem I wrote after the death of a friend in 2007.)

I fell asleep in the bath

and dreamt the whole world was an ocean

and everyone was connected

moving together in fluid motion.

Everyone who'd ever lived and everyone who

ever would mingled together unaware

that their past and future

were presently there.

Suddenly I found myself

tangled up in reef

and as I lost my last breath

friends waved goodbye with grief.

I closed my eyes as my heart stopped

then opened them to find

that I was quite healthy,

but completely blind

to everything that in my dream

I'd learned I could see;

Nothing but cold bath water as company.

So I observed my hands

my wrinkled fingers and toes/ and contemplated life and time

and how mysteriously she flows.

Some art just makes itself.

Some paintings just seem to make themselves.

Like this one based on a well loved verse; "I will hide your word in my heart that I may not sin against God."

One part found object (a wooden tray)

One part paint.

A dash of old wire, and a smattering of beeswax

Mix well with a heaping helping of inspiration from this lady's style, and voila- a gloriously gritty work of art.

Buy it here.

If Anne Frank could be happy...

The first time I read the line

"Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy"

in The Diary of Anne Frank I kind of went into shock. I read it over and over in complete awe at the sheer unlikeliness of it all. I mean here was a girl living in an attic, knowing that unimaginable horrors could fall on her at any moment, and she still believed there was beauty in the world, and in being happy. I snagged this fantastic old wood tray at a flea market for a song.

I love painting on random wood objects so much more than on canvas.

Oh, the textures- fantastic!

And honey the price is right!