This tree has a better social life than me.

 Live oak at Fairchild Botanical Gardens, Miami. Acrylic on paper, quickly sketched.

Portrait of my plant

After sending a call for plants, a colleague gave me my very own to keep. I am afraid there are all sorts of condo rules about keeping houseplants, so I hope it can stay alive in our semi dark studio classroom. I named the plant "Grant".

Here is the real deal

Here is my portrait

 I played with the color scheme, reflecting my under-the-weather sublime mood.

Here are relatives of grant in the wild.

Now I see Grant everywhere!

Student work: Moonflowers

Had to put a call out for houseplant models. My students needed to study the organic details of nature and apply value in both cross hatches and ink washes. It is always a successful assignment because I bring them through it in steps. Directions below

 First- having plants on all the tables I give the students a minute to draw (no shading) each plant, then move to the left. I call it "speed dating" as they are just exploring and getting to know the subject.

 Then they pick what they consider their favorite plant and do a 2 minute study, and if they like that, they continue filling the page with bits and pieces of the plant. No pots. No vases. and the plant must touch or "go off" three sides of the paper.

my demo piece

 Then they do hatch and cross hatch value scales. Outline in ink over the pencil lines and hatch or cross hatch 2/3 of the plant matter.

Then they add a circle for a full moon and paint the night sky. Once that is done they look to make a grey wash and fill over 2/3 of the leaves so that the light white of the paper dances the eye across the space. We learn about value, movement, and composition and well as technical tricks with hatching and using ink quils!

Oh, not Mice!!!

I got a call that my sweet little house in upstate New York was being infested with mice. So I grabbed a couple girlfriends, flew practically through hurricane Florence, and took back the territory!

 I needed the girls to give me courage. Not sure what I would find, the place looked okay, but the basement, where I have stored precious items for the last 8 years, was full of signs. Acorn shells were in the photo albums, poop along the tops of framed paintings, all over the soaps and gnawed remnants of fabric in the kid's sports equipment. I braved the darkest recesses and, armed with my pals, dust masks and gloves, we purged the basement of financial records pre-2008, my wedding veil, pillows and blankets, and even old journals. In the end the place was clean, and the shelves were empty. A pile of sports equipment awaits donation,  the local dumpster and my father's furnace are filled. I hope... that does the trick. I am completely grateful to my two friends. I could not have done something like this without their encouragement and elbow grease. It was a huge undertaking. And they kept me from wallowing in the loss, they kept me laughing and focused.
Now I need a new tenant. 3BD/ 2B lots of woods, $1550/mo plus utilities, and your own snow plow hire.

flying around Hurricane Florence

the big purge

need a tenant

Autumn Equinox Kitchen Sketch

There is something about Fall, even in the tropics of Miami, that gets you into the kitchen for comfort food. 

Easy Applesauce:
Peel and cube 5 apples
throw in a pot with 3/4 cup water
1/4 cup sugar
a bit of cinnamon
Bring to boil, then simmer for 15 minutes.
Mash and serve!

I made it to sooth my man's sore throat. He is ussually the one in the kitchen soothing my ailments.

Here is is making a lemon caper sauce for his own pan fried Alaskan caught Halibut steak!

A bad record tie

I just broke the tie for my worst year of blogging on record! This is my 2353rd post, but it has not been easy.

acrylic on canvas 9 x 9 inches

Between issues of camera pictures not loading, computer software scrambling phone images, or loading them sideways, and then the cumbersome space needed for getting on the lap top, I have let the blog practice fade. Instagram is much easier in that it calls only for a picture and a few hashtags. And I love speaking in pictures! It is the artist's delight.
But the practice of blogging has always been a rewarding struggle for me. I get challenged by finding the words to capture a fleeting muse. I mull over lists and letters. I write and delete and write again.
In 2017 I did not blog in the months of June, August, October or November! Those are the months that I am out of balance, either in transition or in full exertion.

acrylic on wood panel 9 x 12 inches

That calls to question if blogging requires, (in addition to better software),  a chill pace... balance?

#dailypainter   #blogger  #instaartist  #numbersgame

Quick sketches in the classroom

I love what a wet black brush can do! Even on cardboard

Another one on the pile

The years seem to be adding up. I just closed the last pages in my summer sketchbook and tossed it onto the pile from the last few years...

I've kept my sketchbooks continually since 1979, when I entered college, but only since I started teaching full time, in the fall of 2011, did I start re-purposing ex-library books for summer documenting.

 They have become a place for me to note in detail my days of liberty, and to experiment in paint and collage in ways I might not on a bigger platform. Intimate in size, the sketchbooks travel easily and can be added to in public places without much notice. They document my love of travel, my sons, and life on Home Farm. Filled with portraits of friends (some who have died), notes about what art is, quotes to inspire, and the light on places I love, the sketchbooks show that I am pilgrim, mother, daughter, and artist.

Love and War, sketchbook pages

sketchbook pages

The summer book captures my love for Home Farm, the 300+acre farm my grandfather purchased back in 1936. I've spent countless summers there following my dad around and catching the awesomeness of the place.

Summer is over, and my roadtrip sketchbook is done, every page a small treasure of memory.