Studio

The studio is swept and clean. Ready for the next round of work. Stay tuned!

Back to school, back to work

Beginning of a Redwood Grove painting

Miss S. giving Spot a snack


My youngest, amongst the Redwoods


The calendar says September 1st, which for me and a lot of people means back to school and back to work. Summer flew by as we were busy with back to back house guests. All together we had over 30 days of visitors. I got to the studio when I could, but mostly I embraced summer for what it was... time to be with my kids and enjoy playing tourist with our company.
So last week, the kids began their school year, and I've been getting reacquainted with my studio work. September for me is officially the New Year. This is the time of year where I make plans and resolutions. My deadline is next June, when the kids get out for the next summer break and havoc resumes. I've picked up where I left off, and I have my list of goals and plans. I'm working on a painting which will be offered for auction at the local school's fundraising Gala. The 20"x20" sized canvases will continue, and I'll start a new batch of small scale work priced for holidays & tight budgets. There is also a large canvas in my studio that I'm stalking.
Hopefully I'll be back to my previous blog posting schedule.

The cleansing begins

Here comes the true crunch time of moving. It's been only a week since we got word that we're going across the country, and we've been moving in high gear since then. We're sorting through all of our belongings, and getting the house ready to put on the market. We're cleaning up and photographing each room to put on a spiffy web-page. We have to do this one room at time, because there's no way that my kid's rooms always look anything like this on a daily basis:

Looking at this, it's hard to believe that we are still living here...

Oh look! A stairwell! There's no clutter or cleanup project going on here, so it was safe to photograph.

The rest of the house is looking a little more like this.

Kidding. This is my packed up studio. This next one is the aerial view of my studio & sunroom. I love this view. This was taken from the ladder in my loft that goes up to the attic.

By the way, there was a lot more art in the attic. Lots. And almost all of it I don't want to bring with me. So, if anyone is interested in some seriously discounted art, please swing by soon. Invite yourselves, I beg of you.
I shall post some more pics throughout the weekend showcasing some of these found treasures.

Summertime, and the living's crazy



The past couple of weeks have been a bit of an upheaval around here. Just to recap:

*my children are home from school. Full time. I have not signed them up for any camps, programs, lessons or anything structured, mainly because they haven't really expressed a desire to go do these things. Instead we'll have the pool, fireflies, field trips, farmer's markets, library, playgrounds and playdates.
*Immediately after Miss S. finished her last day of kindergarten, we took off to the Outer Banks for the week. Now we're home and trying to find some semblance of a routine. The beach was great, by the way. We took the boat of course.



* my studio, which is on a 2nd floor loft in our sunroom, gets amazingly hot by noon. Hot enough to melt crayons. Hot enough to make me cranky while painting and lose my focus enough to ruin a good morning's work. Hot enough that I finally just set up a table downstairs, where it is at least 15 degrees cooler.


The dog seems to like my new studio location.


But, still, I'm managing to carve out painting time. Negotiating with D. so that he can get writing time, I can paint. This morning he's taking the kids on an excursion to Chuck E. Cheese, which is my own personal hell, so I'm grateful that he's taking the hit.

Through the mayhem of summer, I'm painting.