Christmas soon will be here!

These lovely angels are here to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! They are up for grabs on ebay! Thanks for a great year everyone. I am very happy to know that this great community of art lovers and artists are here at my fingertips. It is wonderful to read your blogs, see your art, read your posts and share this experience here on this beautiful earth we all share.

Do you ever . . . . ?

Do you ever just feel like stopping painting? or whatever you love to do? Are you ever just burned out for a minute, or a couple of days? You just feel like there is nothing left to create inside your head. Nothing left to spill out on the paper? I have felt like this on and off. Then it happens. An idea, or an inspiration comes from seeing other people out there in cyber land. I see something in nature. I hear something in my head or see something outside myself and I slip right back into the ease of painting. I have to go paint. I keep doing it. I can't stop. It is like a habit - biting your fingernails, holding your blanky (as a baby) - you just can't stop. And there I am again, painting, drawing, imagining what the next work of art will be. It is an amazing journey. It holds twists and turns in the road, but the views are awesome and the path is never boring!

Here is one of my favorite artists!

New Ebay listings . . . It's about time!

I am so grateful to be able to walk downstairs to my new studio to paint and create! Things seem to be getting back to normal for me and I have so much to be thankful for!

For my man

Daylight ebbing,
Night falling,
Kids calling,
Dinner settling,
Air crisp and colder
Sunrise gone
Night is long
But still you hold me,
believe in me
Like the sun that rises,
You are there.

Soo, I am back to work

After the whole hospital stay and recovery (which is still in effect I guess) I am going back to work tomorrow.

A couple days before my accident, my husband and I arranged all my art stuff in one room downstairs with two lovely windows to let in great light and it is so roomy and everything is organized. Since my accident I have probably spent 3 hours in my studio. I cry when I go down there because I am grateful for one more day to paint, one more day to love my kids, one more day to cuddle with my hubby, one more day to see the beautiful sunshine streaming in my window, one more day to pet my dog, Ben. Here he is. He doesn't look like the type of dog to pull you down the deck stairs, does he?





Things are going well, but I'm getting frustrated at all the hobbling around in crutches I have to do.

Dear Friends

Dear Friends,

I have had an eventful week. After taking my dog outside with a long leash and allowing him to pull me off balance down my deck stairs, many things happened since then. I have also learned a few things . . .

• We went to the emergency to see if I broke any bones (found out later I just sprained my knee)
• Slept all day the next day with ice on and off my knee
• Called 911 the next day when I broke out in a cold sweat, breathing very hard and my hands and feet started to turn numb. I had been taking a walk around the house with my crutches
• Stayed in the hospital for 4 days with blood clots in my lungs - ouch
• Found out through sonogram of my heart, that I have a heart murmur
• I am home now, hobbling around on crutches
• My family is the most awesome caring family
• My friends and neighbors are wonderful, caring people
• Hospitals and technology are amazing
• People who are emergency technicians, nurses, and doctors should be applauded - they saved my life
  

All this seems like too much information to post here on my art site. I hesitate to post it, because it seems crazy to me that so much can happen in so little time and what good will it do you, followers and buddies online?

I would just like to encourage everyone to thank a person who smiles at you. Help a person who needs you. Give a lift to a person who cannot reach. Notice the colors of a nurse's shirt. Notice the fragrance that your friend is wearing today. You never know when your time to leave this world will be. I am grateful to have more time on this beautiful planet, to share this message with you. The sun shone through my window today and today it is different than last week. I value that sunshine a little more today. It is more beautiful than ever. . .

Thanks to God for sparing my life, for He is ultimately in control of what will happen. He is the divine creator of us all. I give Him and His Son the glory of all these beautiful things in life and my abilities to perceive them.

Here is a watercolor on eBay right now. It is in a group of watercolors. They already have bids, so I guess that these were a good idea. I used to do watercolors all the time. I love them. This one tells you to follow your heart. I wonder what that really means? Do you just do what you want? Is it really truly diving deep into your soul and searching for what your heart yearns for? Is it asking God for the best for you? He does know what is best, after all, He created us. I think that God wants me to become me and make those decisions though. If I let Him do it all, then I don't learn who I am. A little philosophical today. I think it is that I do not want the summer to end.


Here is another painting that is on eBay right now. I think I captured a thoughtful mood. I had a lot of fun doing this one. I am going back to teaching school in a week and a half. Training next week. I hope that I can keep posting art at least once a week when school starts. I hope, I hope, I hope. Sometimes it is all a little too much and I don't get much art done. We will see.

Baby Angel

Here is my latest attempt at painting a face. I really like how this little baby turned out. I have painted a couple of babies in honor of my little Baby Michael who left this world before he was even born. I was 5 months along in my pregnancy when we discovered he had died. I am so grateful for my other wonderful children, but this little baby always will have a spot in my heart.

Here are the latest paintings I listed on ebay!

Summer . . .

Summer is here, it is right now. I think about time and how it swiftly moves, it's wings wafting carelessly over our heads without any desire to slow. We watch and can't help but stare, hoping with our hearts and minds that time would land one day on the porch, by the swing hanging there, ready for us to lounge in. But sadly, time wafts on, carrying on, lifted higher by breezes we cannot see and by winds we cannot feel. Time is the enemy of artists. We create and time goes by, we paint and time laughs at our efforts. We try again and again, but time changes everything, from our styles, to our supplies, to our subjects. Time molds us into artists that we never knew we could be. Time . . . what does it mean to you?

Here are two more on ebay!

Well, here are two more paintings that I listed on ebay tonight. . .

And this next one is a result of being inspired to try cardboard as a painting surface! I got inspired by Mystele from Little Glimpses Studio. Click on her name to go to her blog if you want to see her beautiful art and her cardboard creative creations in paint! (Thanks, Mystele, I love working on cardboard!)

New pieces on ebay!

Here are some new folk art angel paintings I just listed on ebay!

Four Angels on Ebay!

This fun angel display is currently on ebay,
starting at $.99! Sorry Sold!

You can watch me paint two of the
angels on my last video I posted.
(Scroll all the way to the bottom
of my blog and it is posted there -
or go to my youtube channel
and see it there)

watercolors - lovelies on Etsy

Here are some of my new tiny watercolor sketches on Etsy!

A poem I wrote

When the night
is dark and ebony
breezes blowing
crickets chirping,
I think of you,
reaching to me
from years past
from memories in my mind
from photos in my book
silently watching me paint
as the night grows late
I feel the breeze on my cheek
and know you are there

Here is an impressionistic floral I finished . . .

I gave this painting to my sister-in-law for
her birthday . . . lots of birthdays lately . . .

More New Art . .

This painting is in my daughter's room.

When I was finished with it, she wouldn't let me sell it.

New Art

Here is a new collage painting. I really like this one!

And here is a folk art angel painting on a paper mache box. I gave this to my niece for her birthday. Birthdays are wonderful aren't they?

Blog Award

Thanks, Micah, for this "Dahling" award. I love it!

There are so many blogs that I love, that it is hard to choose, but I will choose a few. These ladies really inspire me. Here they are:

Abigail Halpin - a wonderful illustrator whose art I adore

Ann Gardner - a painter of whimsical girls - I love her art

Julie King - a super creative soul who inspires me all the time with her beautiful artwork and now photos

Check these great blogs out!

Lazy Sunday

I finished the fourth book in the Fablehaven series. (I am reading it with my 12 year old, so don't tell him a read ahead.) If you like Harry Potter, you will like this series. I love fantasy novels like this. I can't wait for the 5th book. It is supposed to be the concluding book.

Three new paintings listed on ebay!

(Well, this one isn't quite new. I already listed it on Etsy. After I put it on Ebay, I remembered I had listed it on Etsy and had to quickly take it off. Oh, the life of an artist!)




Here are three new paintings listed on Ebay today. Let me know which is your favorite!

Here's my new art video - painting folk art angels

Well friends, I am having a great time making these videos. I love watching them back even - I'm a little obsessed. You know, the summer has been a good one so far. I think that when you have time that you usually don't have - I am not teaching for the summer - that sometimes you squander it. I am trying not to do that. I am trying to do something for my family each day that counts, and some art each day, and I'm trying to get some exercise in. But I must say, I was up way too late last night posting this video. My computer takes too long! Well, happy viewing!

I tried in this video to show how I draw the faces. I haven't really showed that in other videos and I love the process. It is like how I image God creates, (on a very different scale of course) but in a way, it reminds me of that. When I begin to draw a face, the face takes on its own life. The girl or angel, or whoever I am drawing, becomes a personality for me. I love to watch it unfold. It happens without any planning on my part. I draw and draw and draw. I fill up sketchbook after sketchbook and there is never a face that is the same. It is like that with human beings. We are all God's children and we are all unique. What is amazing is that He knows us and that He loves us each one.

More new paintings!

Here is my heavy textured wing angel! Nothing like a little tissue paper to liven up your paintings!

Another angel! Which do you like best? Let me know in comments!

Here are some paintings I just put on Etsy! Yeah summer!

This is a mixed media painting of a girl. Follow the brightest star!


This is a collage painting that is sealed in beeswax. It has pressed flowers and leaves in it. I really love the pressed flowers and the beeswax together.

Sing To The Top of Your Lungs!

Here is a video that shows me painting my newest favorite mixed media collage painting!

School is almost out!

Well, school is almost out and I am happily looking forward to sleeping in time!

THINKING, thinking, thinking . . .

Well, my New Year's resolution to keep this blog up is not happening. I guess I need to make a January 19th, Martin Luther King resolution. I need to keep my blog up so much better than this!!!
I have lots of art to post, just can't seem to settle down to post it. I need to focus, and center, and breathe.

I am so full of ideas and struggles in teaching right now that when I get a day that is free, I just space out and relax and stress that all I am doing is relaxing. What good is relaxing and being lazy when you feel guilty about it?

I feel like I should be making art every day!!! Every day!! But I have a new puppy now and so I seem to have very little time.