You Can Sleep When Your Dead

Of course, I couldn't stop with one journal. In fact, I made 3 more paper journals and then I decorated my moleskin journal with Golden's Extra Heavy Gel/Molding Paste mixed with gesso and a stencil and then painted a wash over it. I was worried that it would flake off, but I coated it with Golden's soft gel gloss medium. And it feels like it came on the book, although you can feel some texture. These acrylic mediums fascinate me with the extension of choices you have to create on anything with acrylic paint.

This is one of the sketches in my newly decorated moleskin.

One time, when my grandson was describing me to a little friend of his, he said, "My Peggy Sue is an explorer, a painter, and a farm girl". Well, Peggy Sue (aka Odd Chick) will soon leave on a new exploration for about 10 days.

I'm taking several girls to South Carolina to visit a niece of mine and we're driving. Now that's about 30 hours from my little town of New Mexico. Every time I think about the drive to get there and back and how tiring it may be - I remember the song that says we can sleep when we're dead.

I have never seen the East Coast. I will be a virgin sight-see-er in Charleston and do you know how hard it is to be a virgin anything at 51?? I LOVE LOVE seeing new things and learning new things. I'll have lots of cool pics to share and who knows what I'll see that will stimulate a new passion in my art. PLUS, just being with a fun bunch of girls!! ROAD TRIPPIN! The best. You know, the kind where someone says, "ouuu, I like that shop, let's stop there, and someone actually STOPS!!" , and "ouu, I'm needing a coffee mocha vanilla with cinnamon and an apple turnover" and someone actually STOPS!!

I made a JOURNAL.

I made a journal. I made a journal. I made a journal!! And if you're saying "la de freakin dah" -then you have either never made a journal or you are way into the book-binding passion and not impressed or..... your JEALOUS!!! But for me- it was like -ähhhhhhh- I have arrived on a new exotic island with the most precious fruit available and I am gorging myself!

When I went to Artful Journey in California, my new found friend, Amy Krueger, walked out after the second day with her first journal and my jaw dropped! WHAT!!!! HOW!!!!! I had never seen such beautiful texture and paint and it was her very own journal. I just had to hold it and try not to drool on it. I didn't take that class. But when I got home, I went straight to her instructor's, Albie Smith's blog, and LO!! the generosity of this artist! She listed her supplies and where she gets them. Now it was just up to me to try to recreate some of the beautiful things I saw from her class. I didn't even come close if that gives you an idea but I am definitely on a journey.

Beware! She will introduce you to some stencils and paper that will blow your socks off so you and your credit card have been warned.

Teesha Moore's videos helped me make the actual journal. How I would have loved to have had Albie for a teacher as the girls fell in love with her and couldn't say enough good things about her. SOMEDAY!!

If anyone can give me more tips about how to make these beautiful covers and make a bigger journal- you would be feeding the happy little passion fairy that flies back and forth on art airlines. I'm so glad she landed here and took me away with her.

Didn't Like Him

I painted him awhile back but I wasn't happy with him. I like him better today. They say "never throw your paintings away" because you can always fix them or paint over them or maybe, just maybe when you pull it out from under the bed - you'll like it again.

Someone changed and it wasn't the painting.

I find myself dealing with people the same way sometimes. Too bad we can't tuck them under the bed for awhile. However, some of us have some excellent avoidance behaviours.

But after a little time, when you open up once again- you see them differently. Better.

I've learned to never throw someone away. We're all redeemable, unfinished.

You never know....maybe someone changed.

My New Friends

I'm just crazy about you.

I haven't seen your face yet.

I haven't even met you.

You are just around the next corner.

You are just a twinkle in my eye until then.

I can't wait to learn the things you'll teach me.

I can't wait to share the things I've learned.

I will get to experience the world through your eyes.

You will have a brand new look about old things.

You will pass on your vision for new things.

You will imprint me.

You will probably inspire a new passion in me.

You make me look forward to every day.

And I will die loving you.

And you will remember me.

You are my new friend.

Growing up

It's funny that when we you use a bigger brush, start blocking in color, use less color more carefully, remember to look where your sunshine is coming from - they say "your work looks more mature". Those boring things we learn along the way like adding every little detail, using color indiscriminately, being afraid of adding the darks, never looking to where your light comes from makes us look like we are just learning to speak this expression of art. If we only go back to our childish ways, sometimes our paintings grow up. Maybe because it's so hard to stop yourself from trying to give the viewer more than we think he needs. It's funny that our paintings begin moving out of adolescents when we begin moving back to simplicity.

I'm glad I'm seeing a little growth in my paintings. I hope you see it too. But it can be a little scarey growing up. But I just have to keep letting go of what has always been in me and let my little girl child paint.... freely again, without the critic in my ear, without the chatter in my head.

I still have a thousand paintings in front of me. And me and my girl-child will grow old together down this path. You just wait and see.

Collage is taking me places.

Collage is teaching me so much. I'm learning more and more about color and design from adding and layering elements and being fearless and trusting myself with my tools and my imagination.

It's no small thing to collage. I'm learning that it is an amazing tool toward better art but it is an amazing art in itself.

I love the idea of doing smaller pieces and finding the things that really work in them and then transferring those ideas to larger pieces.

The building in the background was the Presentation Center outside of Los Gatos, California. And the tree is also a photograph and the shadow my own idea of the reflection.

I sketched this model on the back of a scrap piece of paper while on the plane and then layered her in to this collage. I added napkins for additional layers. Her arm says, "Everything you can imagine is real".

That's what collage can do ..make what you imagine ... real.... and touchable, and reachable.

Imagining in that Alice-In-Wonderland World can be the most freeing activity. It is something no one, no circumstance, not age, nothing can take from you- the right to let your mind wander to a better place - to your own beautiful garden of Eden- a place to create. And then to write it or draw it or share with the world and hopefully, create the ripple affect that continues on to another.

Art is no small thing.

She Dreams of Horses

I've always loved drawing and painting horses but have steered away from a realistic painting because, in my culture, if you don't paint them RIGHT, you shouldn't even try. So I decided to take from a master of his craft, Virgil Stephens, who sells art to real horse people in the western part of the US (and all over the world)- but to the toughest critics of all, in my opinion. I was pleased with my final drawing.



He won't let up on you until you get it right and I love that about him. Although this composition is a little boring, it did teach a lot about the anatomy of the horse and I look forward to applying these skills to a more delectable composition in the future.

He also showed a demonstration on rub-outs and really whet my appetite to begin earnestly painting with oils. Mr. Stephens studied under Lou Maetas who is a master painter in this technique.

Lots of new things floating around in my head as I feel pushed further and further along by this passionate discontent to match my skill to my taste in art. I can see it like a brilliantly lit city in the night as I ride closer and closer from out in the far horizon.

Thanks for being my saddle tramp. If you have an interest in a 3 day workshop be sure and contact Virgil or Emily Stephens. They are setting up future workshops now.

Angel Muse

I got a new journal and I don't know what possessed me to try out my new Shiva oil sticks on the first page, but I just thought it was time. This was a little picture on a pocket calender I received in the mail and I thought I would try a study of it. I soon realized I was way over my head with hands and face tones but it certainly was great practice. Now I know why the oil painters get the big bucks. IT'S HARD.

But you should shake yourself up every now and then. Don't you think?

I'm so happy to have a small moleskin again. Maybe this Angel Muse will help me along as I fill up the pages.