It's Winter Again!

I took this photo 24 hours ago, wishing so badly for winter to come back. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do love spring....but it's January and January means winter. But our yard was a soggy, icky mess.

Little did I know, we were in the direct line of a winter snowstorm and my wish came true! Now we have snow again which I'm very excited about. The only bad thing is that I tried leaving my house today to head into Madison for an appt that I really needed to go to, but I got out in the road and realized that what I was trying to do was worth a pretty good eyeroll, so I was back inside my house in less than a minute calling to reschedule. 

So I spent most of my day doing art stuff and getting all my pieces ready to hang in the coffee shop. I finished my most dreaded task, applying the matte finish and mounting hardware, and now I'm onto titles and pricing. Ugh, pricing....you never used to be so damn hard. Ah well, I'll get it one day. 

Yola's in Madison

I've been trying to connect with a few coffee shop owners over the past week or so and as it turns out, one of them is looking for somebody to hang art in their shop for the month of February...which is in like, 6 days. I've got enough stuff ready but I felt like I should probably make a few more things just because otherwise it seemed too easy. ;)

These ones are all about the same size, 8" x 12". I need to buy a new reddish orange prisma color pencil [i think they call that rust. what a novel concept...] because mine got dropped one too many times and won't sharpen without crumbling into a million pieces. Once I get a new one, I'm going to color a couple of the leaves on this blue piece.

I'll probably end up hanging about 12-15 pieces or so and I think most of them will be pretty simple, mostly in the $45 - $150 range. I'm excited about the exposure more than anything, really....any sales will just be a nice surprise. So if you're on the West Side of Madison, you should run over and get a latte from Yola's and take a quick browse. They have a fireplace so make sure you bring a good book too. :)

Mixed Media: Progression Clips

I put together this short series of clips highlighting the progression of layers in the last piece I made. It's far from anything spectacular and I need to focus on better image quality next time, but for now I'm pretty happy with it. It's nice for me to be able to see how things came together, because I usually manage to erase that part from my head by the time I'm finished with it. I'm hoping to make a bunch of these to stream during my next art opening.

I'm pushing for 4 art shows over the next year. One solo, one with a friend who recently started printmaking, one group and one in....gulp...Minneapolis|St. Paul. Of course, more would be fun, but I think 4 is a decent number considering I'll still be working and doing the firefighting thing and hopefully going to school during that time. 

If you happen to be an artist in Madison or Minneapolis and you somehow strolled across this post, feel free to shoot me an email. I haven't researched my group show too much and I'd love to hear from groups looking for more people, and I'm also looking for a good venue in Minnesota. 

Okay, well that's all. Talk soon. 

Latest Mixed Media Collage: Drifter

Here's the latest piece- I finally felt that it was finished sometime yesterday afternoon. It's about 12" x 18", on wood that I cut and sanded a couple weeks ago. I don't know how it happens or why it happens, but I almost always end up gravitating towards cool colors, unless I really drag myself to the reds and yellows and oranges. I have been trying to lean toward the sunny-day hues, but in all honesty...I think I'm just a rainy-day girl at heart.

I thought about making a strikingly similar piece with sunnier tones [an idea I came up with about 3 seconds ago after mentioning that I'm a rainy-day gal and realizing that, coincidentally, there are raindrops all over this one...] so I might work on that sometime this week. 

I've got the next 2 or 3 weeks off [fuckshitYEAH!!!] and I'm going to focus on my art stuff pretty heavily during my break. I'm between seasons with my jobs and every year I have the luxury of enjoying my birthday week and then some away from the workplace. Yeah...it's pretty much perfect. 
I've been feeling pretty good lately but there's definitely something that's not right. It's kind of frustrating, but I'm getting through it. I've got another MRI and more tests tomorrow; we'll see how it goes. One thing I know for sure is that I'm not going to request Moby when they ask which internet radio station I want to listen to during the MRI...because that station is a bit nuts when teeter-tottered with the DitDitDitDitDitDitDit RRRRRRRR neeeeee.neeeee.neeee *CLANG*CLANG*CLANG* noise emitting from that damn magnetic-cylinder bed. It was 25 minutes of insane non-stop crazy electronic noize! I couldn't hear the music over the machine and it was kind of funny because as soon as the machine shut it's mouth for a minute, there was the music again, blazing into my ears. Less than comforting. Although I did kind of laugh about it when I realized what I'd gotten myself into. The night before that I had told Joe that I was a bit humored by this recurring image I had of being fed into a big machine with googly eyes and a mouth with sharp teeth and a crooked jaw and that Pink Floyd's "Welcome to the Machine" was playing anytime I started to think about this goofy cartoon-like thing. Yeah...I almost requested Pink Floyd for my tunes but I thought it might have been cliche [like they would have known what was going on...] So anyway, I don't know what music I should ask for tomorrow. I'll let you know if my experience is as good as the last.

Cheers to 2013!

Hey hey! It's 2013! Did you all have a wonderful holiday season? Are you all glad that it's over? Yeah, me too. Although I've gotta say- this was the first year in forever that I wasn't running around touting my shiny bah-humbug horn. Not really sure what was different, but I had fun getting ready for Christmas this time which was really a nice change.

We cut our tree down a few weeks before the holiday and the weather ended up being perfect. It snowed for the first time this year and the temp was in the upper 30s. The tree farm we picked was really cool...just a ton of random pines poking out of the ground in a jagged pattern, across acres and acres of snowy white fields. Most tree farms tend to be planted in perfectly straight lines, row after row, with all of the pines separated by type and size. This felt more like we were in the woods, which was awesome.

I was also really thrilled about the day because it was the first time in what felt like ages that I had felt really good. I had enough strength to help Joe carry our tree, which I know sounds like nothing, but it was such a feeling of victory. I felt like a kid who just learned how to tie their shoes. 

I've been mostly fine lately but still not 100%. I'm dealing with some health stuff that's been everything from scary to frustrating to hopeful and back again. I'm still waiting on a diagnosis, and it could possibly take years to diagnose if it turns out to be what I am fearing most, which I'm near certain it is. I won't go into full details just yet, but I'm sure my next post will have more. For now I'm happy that I woke up feeling good this morning and I have mostly just been embracing these kind of days. Today is the first time in 23 days that I have the day off and the house to myself. I'm planning on doing some art stuff and I hope to finish this piece that I started a month ago.

Fingers crossed that I can get it finished! We'll see. I just noticed that my hands aren't shaking for the first time in 6 weeks. I should get drawing while things are good. :) See you guys soon! I hope you've had a great start to the new year.

Moonshadow

My sweet girl has been helping me take it easy over the past couple weeks while I haven't been feeling all that great. It's pretty amazing how much our pets can help us avoid slipping into a mood of doom and gloom...and even if we *do* find ourselves in a deep dark rut, they're always quick to pull us back to level ground. At least for a little while. 

 

It's December!

Hey it's December! 2012 is almost over...which is kind of a bummer because '2012' looks and sounds way cooler than '2013', doesn't it? I think it does. 

So how's everybody's last month of the year going? Basking in your glory of completed resolutions? I didn't do a 2012 resolution thing, but I did write my list of goals for my 27th birthday and I'm pretty close to crossing everything off. :)

Anyway. I don't know when this turned into an art blog again....I guess probably when I realized that house projects are really just not my thing, as much as I looked forward to them before we bought the house. I am so damn thankful we didn't get that fixer-upper we talked about. Yeesh. That would have been a mess. I'm not much of what you'd call a "weekend warrior." Mostly because I work on the weekends, but partly because I like to move at a more leisurely pace.

But back to what I was saying...art stuff. I finished this piece earlier today and now I'm working on a new one that's a little bit different than my usual style. Maybe I'll post photos in a few days. Okay, well I've gotta run. Hope you all have a fabulous weekend.

Autumn

The leaves surrendered 
to the sharp breeze,
and stuttered across the field.
Next they're swept up 
by a metal pronged rake, 
and into a pile they're reeled.

sold.

This was the first one I've done with leaves in quite a long time...I think another one is due. I'm hoping to cruise over to Home Depot after work tomorrow so I can get some more wood and get it cut before the temps drop. We'll see. I'm going to go make quesadillas now. Check ya later. :) Thanks for visiting.

Etsy Sale

Everything in the shop is 15% off. Enter code "fifteen" upon checkout.

At the Edge of the Field

Across the windswept golden field
stood a pine, so tall and frail.
Beneath the branches and needles and sap
fast asleep, a tired snail.

available. 


I've been hammering out some new tree pieces over the past couple weeks and I'm hoping to keep going. They're usually about 6" x 10" or so, but I've been meaning to pick up some wood that I can cut to about 12" x 24" and make them horizontal. They'd be the same style with the 2 blocks of color, but just horizontal with more trees.

New Pieces for Yellow Canoe

Hey everybody! How are things? I don't really know where I've been...I suppose work and class and doing things around the house have probably been occupying most of my time. I've also been writing for a new website, so that pulls a couple hours away too I guess. Oh...and I started running last week after a 4 year hiatus, so I'm pretty excited about that! I've also had more weekends off than I'm used to...it's been kind of weird spending my days with people rather than by myself.  

But! I do have most of today off, by myself, and just finished six new pieces, which I'm pretty amped about. Well, I'm probably just overly excited about having the day off by myself without having to be anywhere [until 6:30 tonight, anyway] or share it with anyone. To be honest, I'm feeling a bit of a social-overload right now so I'm just going to sit here and suck on my grape-flavored blow pop...I hate grape but the only other snack in the house is cool whip. I think that means I should *probably* go grocery shopping. But before I do that [I probably won't do that.....] I'm going to continue listening to silence and then catch up on cleaning. Maybe even read some of my book. Package a few things that need to be shipped. You know, typical weekday-off type stuff. 

Anyway, the pieces. I'm really digging how the red one and grey one in the middle came out. Not quite sure how I feel about the others yet, but that's okay. I've been thinking about branching out and trying a new tree design [do these puns just set themselves up or what...] but I haven't decided what I want to do yet. I've been thinking about my art a lot lately and what I can come up with that feels fresh and new without diverting too far from my style. I've got a couple ideas, but I still haven't found exactly what I'm looking for. I've been kind of tossing around the idea of having another show soon, but with the holidays and class and work, I'll probably end up wanting to run away. I don't know...an art show/birthday hoorah would be kind of fun if I could find the right venue. But that would mean that I'd only have...let me count......84 days...and that sounds like an awful lot of work. We'll see.

Anyway. I'm done with my grape blow pop so I should probably go do something now. Have a great week!

Life Has Been Good

I was lying in bed this morning under an oversized down blanket and plaid woolen throw when I decided to finally look over at the time- 5:20 a.m. I went to bed kind of late last night and I only grabbed a few hours of sleep the night before, so I was still a bit tired. After trying to fall back asleep and realizing that I was getting nowhere with it, I decided that I'd rather enjoy the morning on the east side of the house while the sun crept up rather than from the back of the house buried beneath my heap of blankets. And so I got up, filled a cup of coffee and crawled beneath another woolen blanket on the couch. Of course, the sun doesn't rise until about 6:30, but I was okay with waiting.

This past week has been really great. Joe and I spent 5 leisurely days off together and celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary. We went camping and canoeing, did a couple house projects and planted a crabapple tree. We've decided that we are going to plant a new tree every year for our anniversary and call it our anniversatree. This year we chose a Donald Wyman crabapple and a Velvet Pillar crab as well. I thought the deep cranberry-plum colored leaves would look good in front of the paint we chose for the exterior of the house.

I was pretty excited that the weekend was cool enough for long sleeves and a knit hat. And I was even more excited when I realized that my hair is actually long enough now to where I don't look like I'm bald when I wear a knit hat. Always a plus. We really like the tree and after a visit to the UW Arboretum, we're pretty giddy in anticipation of it getting bigger. The birch that was tiny when we moved in has grown to be taller than the house, so I figure it's just around the corner that this tree gets big too.

A couple days before we got the tree we went to Mirror Lake State Park which is one of my favorite places in the area. We invited our friends who have never gone kayaking before and we ventured off to the water after we made dinner in our dutch oven. I didn't get any photos of the canoe/kayak excursion because by the time we got down there it was already past dusk. Canoeing in the dark is always fun...the bats swing down and glide just above the water before darting back into the sky and the coyote ramblings carry out from within the bluffs. It's so so cool.

The weekend before last was really great too. Our friends Mike and Jodi who came kayaking with us were burning down their old farm house. Mike is a firefighter and he donated the house for fire training. He invited my department which is just the next town over, so it was a lot fun for me to go to a fire. There was a bunch of interior fire training which was awesome since I hadn't been in a house on fire before that. And then after like 15 different interior drills it was time to burn down the entire house. I'm standing on the left in the yellow helmet. Most of the other firefighters were hanging out up on the hill behind the house. I went up there for a bit but decided to come back down because it was a lot cooler on the side I was on.

It was a good time and I learned a few things too. I wasn't able to be on any of the teams that were putting out the interior fires since I haven't finished my classes yet, but I did get to hang out inside while Mike lit the fire and then we waited for awhile and watched it build until it took over the whole room. It was a nice opportunity for me to get more familiar to the SCBA mask-- I had a hard time with the mask at first and will probably still have a hard time for a little while. It's a psychological thing I suppose, but I can get past it if I can distract myself with other things that are going on. Plus I'm a little better off now that I am more acquainted with the way it works. It was fun to wait as the fire and smoke and heat built. I started fire classes last week so I'm looking forward to see what's next. I think this fire thing is going to be a good fit.

Today I'm painting the house a bit more and cutting a bunch of wood for some new art pieces. Hopefully I have enough sand paper to get everything ready to paint, but we'll see. Cutting the wood is my least favorite part.

But anyway...what's new with you?