powerful hearts

last week i received a beautiful package from teri mahl of working the earth... there were miscellaneous treasures in it, but the most amazing one


was a bag that she made for me... for the front flap she used a piece of fabric that i sent her a few weeks ago in a package of tree flags. i thought she might be able to use the fabric (barkcloth from old curtains a friend recently gave me) -- i had no idea that she and her daughters made bags to sell, or that she even sewed! i just liked it so i stuck it in there. she not only made the bag, she painted the crow and other gorgeousness on it... i call it my 'soul bag' - you know how some people have soul mates, well this is my soul bag. the middle pic is me wearing it just after i got it. it goes with blue jeans *perfectly*.

thank you so very much, teri...


this doll was part of my sister's birthday present, and what i spent a good part of last week working on. here she is sitting amidst the mess at the end of the process, a mere few days ago. (can you hear me telling her to watch out for wet paint?) my sister *totally* ignored the instructions on the box and opened the package today, four days before her birthday!

i also worked in my Barely There Book...


the lines of this face were already on the page, i just filled them in with paint and oil pastels. it was so rewarding that i kept going in that vein...






it didn't work on this page so i set the whistling dogs to it!


finis - the front and back covers... i waited until the end to paint the small front page so it'd 'fit in'...

and then i started in a new muslin book...








it took me until this page to figure out why i wasn't liking the surface of the pages... at first i thought i'd used too much acrylic on them, but then i realized it was because this book was made from a different batch of muslin which has a looser weave, which made the surface rougher. so much for that muslin when it comes to books... i'm gonna add a note to the step-by-step about this - small differences in weave make a big difference when it comes to drawing and painting on it. the tighter the weave the better, unless you want a rough surface.

so i 've made another book with the Nice Muslin... : )


this is what happens when you go to michael's because you have a 45% off all paint, pencils, oil pastels (etc. etc.) coupon. you come home and use all your new stuff one page!! i got some new oil pastels, soft pastel pencils, and, and...


i found another gregory grenon face in a magazine this week. i'm crazy about gregory grenon's faces...

i'm all over the place with the quotes i'm ending with lately, but i guess that's okay. i read these words by annie dillard this week and they really resonated...

Rembrandt and Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Gauguin, possessed, I believe, powerful hearts, not powerful wills. They loved the range of materials they used. The work's possibilities excited them; the field's complexities fired their imaginations. The caring suggested the tasks; the tasks suggested the schedules. They learned their fields and then loved them. They worked, respectfully, out of their love and knowledge, and they produced complex bodies of work that endure. Then, and only then, the world flapped at them some sort of hat, which, if they were still living, they ignored as well as they could, to keep at their tasks.

Annie Dillard, from The Writing Life



if you have a few minutes...

XO