thank you

watercolor, colored pencil, oil pastel in muslin journal

thank you all so much for your responses to the last post. with almost each one, i thought "yes, that's it. that's just it!" as zom wrote, the artists who said they weren't going to paint if their work was selling may just have been having a 'bit of a sulk". probably... as for formal education (or not), the thing seems to be that we paint/create because we have to. selling, education - anything else - is an extra. we're gonna do what we're gonna do...

deb, of vintage moon studio, the three eyed beings have spoken and it is to your place that they're going! it was not an easy decision for them! they've asked me to thank each of you for saying you'd like to have your name in the hat... thank you!


all of these pieces on muslin were done with watercolors, colored pencils, and oil pastels...


she's the back side of the face that i posted a couple of weeks ago. some of the watercolors from that face bled through the muslin and i just added a bit to what was already there. i know, she looks a little freaked out by that butterfly, but i think she's okay. ; )


i've been aiming towards using fewer colors in the faces, which i usually fail at utterly (those colors!). but onward...


i loved this face when it had very little color, but then i felt like i had to see what it looked like with more, and it wasn't good. so i ripped it in half and sewed each half to kraft packing paper for future use as envelopes. deb, your beings will arrive in one of these, ha! but seriously, everything looks better when you put it on a letter or package, don't you think?


i've been out walking! oh! the weather is perfect and it's so nice to visit with old tree friends after a couple of months away. i did this peace sign last fall, but brightened it up as i walked past a few days ago.


went to the green shrine tree where things were in greater disarray than usual, so i straightened everything up again.


added this old bottle neck that i found earlier. what a beautiful new shade of green for the green shrine! the flicker feather was laying inside the tree and i can't remember if i put it there last time or not...


and i drew on a stick - this is 'eugenia' the green shrine tree overseer....


and then, and then (!) yesterday we went somewhere that i've been wanting to go for a long time, glass mountain... words cannot even begin to describe the joy i felt at being there. all of the obsidian that i see when i'm out walking comes from there - it was the obsidian source for native americans in this area, even though it's about 60 miles away as the crow flies.


one thing that i could never fathom was how the variety of obsidian that i find could come from one place, but there it was. within minutes i saw every kind that i've ever seen in my wanders. it was just amazing to see it at the source. my son and dh providing some perspective for size...


and lots of pumice; this piece weighed about as much as a feather....


oh how i do love mahogany obsidian...


sigh...


the view south as we were driving off the mountain towards home. i'm still filled with the joy of being there...

beautiful, creative week to you, and thank you again for your responses to last week's post...

* * *

"I have been in love with painting ever since I became conscious of it at the age of six. I drew some pictures I thought fairly good when I was fifty, but really nothing I did before the age of seventy was of any value at all. At seventy-three I have at last caught every aspect of nature - birds, fish, animals, insects, trees, grasses, all. When I am eighty I shall have developed still further, and I will really master the secrets of art at ninety. When I reach a hundred my work will be truly sublime, and my final goal will be attained around the age of one hundred and ten, when every line and dot I draw will be imbued with life."

~ Hokusai, "The Art-Crazy Old Man"

XO