Sad Clown

"I find I have to be the sad clown:

laughing on the outside,

crying on the inside."

-James Gandolfini

"Sad Clown

8"x8" on 1.5" deep canvas

painted edges, ready to hang

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Scars Tell our Story

Scars tell our story...sometimes you can see them and sometimes you can't.

Through October 20th I will be donating 50% of my original art sales to the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), Texas 21 Chapter. More information may be found here. Let's make the climate great again!

"Scars Tell our Story"

Miniature easel included in the price of the painting.

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Floating Just Below the Surface

There are days that leave you feeling like you are floating just below the water's surface...struggling for a breath that may never be attained.

Through October 20th I will be donating 50% of my original art sales to the Citizens' Climate Lobby (CCL), Texas 21 Chapter. More information may be found here. Let's make the climate great again!

"Floating Just Below the Surface"

All works are copyrighted and all rights are reserved by the artist.

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Thankful for my Muse

As I was wrapping up my 6th year of painting and starting my 7th, I thought of my muse in this wonderful art adventure I'm on. Feelings of bliss, angst, being driven, sadness, despair, triumph, compassion, calm, joy, love.... I think my painting is all about embracing those feelings and getting them out. It's all about the process. I've been asked if it's hard to let go of my work when they go to other homes and with the exception of about five pieces (all featuring my family/pets and one with a quote that particularly speaks my truth), the answer is "no". The process feeds my soul and I'm ever thankful for my muse, all those feelings, that need not be labeled good or bad, positive or negative.

This is the piece I completed on the 16th of June, the last day of my 6th year of painting.

"Thankful for my Muse"

And then over the weekend our family went to a tie dye party!

My original paintings are available in my online gallery.

Prints of many of my paintings are available in my Etsy shop. 

Let me know if you're interested in prints of my paintings.

  I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

I'd love to hear from you...feel free to leave me a comment.

Feeling a Tiny Tad Frida

I've got an egg dilemma. Today I discovered that Phyllis had laid an egg way, WAY, up under our deck. I can see it. But I can't get it. We've had a bit of an egg shortage lately and I'm wondering if there are other eggs under there. And I must admit that I'm a bit terrified about the smell these potential eggs might create after a bunch of 90+ degree Texas days. I need fall weather and a long stick STAT!


As part of my art class we did a super quick study on creating faces. Here's mine. Below it are a couple of stages.

"Feeling a Tiny Tad Frida"

I sketched the face with a pencil.

I used white acrylic to go over my sketch.
The graphite blended with the paint. On my
finished painting I used a bit of black acrylic
as well to get the darks.

Click here to view my gallery.

Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

Please click the links below to share my blog.

Moon Gaze - Part 3

I woke up the little guy this morning at the time he said he'd be getting up.


Me: "It's 7:00. I have to leave and I want to be sure you'll get up."

Little guy: "OK, mom." He leaned over and did something on his phone.

Me: "So are you getting up?"

Little guy: "It's a process mom."


"Process" clearly means several encounters with a snooze button. And so I left, hoping that he'd get up in time to get to school before the bell rang.


I'm having surgery tomorrow morning so I'll miss blogging and posting my art for the first time in over four years. I plan to be back up and running really soon.

Happily, I finished this bag for my big guy's girlfriend. Here it is shot from all sides.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Moon Gaze - Part 2

Something happened last night that makes me feel like we're doing something right. And it fits so well into this canvas bag painting I'm doing of a woman who is so at peace with her world. Last night I remembered that we needed to put our big trash bin out to the curb for this morning's garbage pick up. Dave went out to do it and came in and said, "We have no trash."

We looked in our kitchen trash can and it was not even half full. So no trash to the curb for us this week. Makes me happy.


And I continued working on this wonderful canvas bag project.

I painted the handles and much of the background blue.

I'm getting more bleeding. I'll fix that later.

I dripped on the flower...it's OK, I've already decided that I like it.

Here's the back of the bag. The back seriously
needs to have more going on. Must think of something.

I painted the first layer on the petals.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Moon Gaze - Part 1

My little guy had an a couple of his old friends (from way back in kindergarten) spend the night last night. I was telling one of them about my upcoming surgery and he said, "You'll be able to hula-hoop again!" I was pleasantly stunned. He was right! I had to quit hula-hooping when I got a blood clot four years ago, but now that the root cause of all of that will be gone, well, hula-hooping here I come!  It's the little things....


My big guy's girlfriend dropped off a canvas bag and a lovely request (I LOVE requests!). This morning I started on her bag.

I started by sketching out her idea.
This is the front.

This is the back.

I used watered down acrylics to add color.

Here's the beginnings of the moon.

Here's the back of the bag.

I'm excited to see how this bag turns out!

 Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Thankful

Me: "You have beautiful blue eyes."

Little guy: "Uh-huh."

Me: "You should say, 'Thank you.'"

Little guy: "Why, you didn't give them to me."

Me: "It was a compliment, that's why you should say, 'Thank you.'"

Little guy: "Oh, I thought we were talking about genetics."

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Big Eyes

Dave's been using our family as his guinea pigs lately for his photography. It's actually quite fun. But one thing I'm noticing is that if I'm smiling, as I'm apt to do, I squint...like crazy! So I figured, why not try not smiling and see how it goes. Well, my eyes were still not what I'd hoped. So I tried opening them a bit more, you know, just to see how it'd go. Did I look like a supermodel? No way. Nope. Not ever, really. But I looked like a cross between a lemur, Marty Feldman, and Crazy Eyes.

"Big eyes" fail.


P.S. Yes, this wee one looks sweet...that was so not the look I pulled off.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

 

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Staring Down

It wasn't my intention. It really wasn't. But...

The first thing I painted on my hallway graffiti wall was this creature...and it happens to be right outside my oldest son's door. Now I rather like this creature, but I'm thinking that in the middle of the night when my kid gets up to go to the bathroom and sleepily heads back to his room, that this thing staring at him might just be a tad startling as it stares him down.

Sorry, kiddo, I'll make the next thing a tad more welcoming.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

 

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

The Other Side

My right wrist has been hurting for a while so I figured I'd make lemons out of lemonade and take on a personal challenge. I decided to do a series of paintings with my left hand. I've done it before, though not for this reason. This is one of my prior lefty pieces and here is another. Interesting to me how sweet and childlike those pieces are...and how this one is so not.

I wonder what opposite hand creations reveal about us over time.


Look for more lefty pieces this week.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

 

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

The Kid Makes me Wonder if Honesty is the Best Policy

The kid is always asking me why I talk to strangers.

Well, today the answer was, "Because you farted in the elevator, and it was really potent, and I thought that lady deserved to know what she was getting into."

And what did that lady stranger say?  "I'll be fine."


Can't say I didn't warn her.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

 

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Panic Attack...Nope

A few years back I had a full fledged panic attack while I was at the dentist's office.  They were having to break apart one of my fillings from when I was a kid and I felt like there were silver boulders bouncing around in my trachea.  And, admittedly, I kind of lost it.  It was not pretty.

Well, I put my big girl panties on today and went to the dentist for a cleaning.  A different dentist.  And while my hands were firmly clasped together I managed to stay downright relaxed...the whole time!

That's right, I'm a bad mamma jamma!

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale.

 

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Downward Flow

OK, heads up, this blog post is kind of nasty.  Not inappropriate nasty or anything like that.  Just nasty.  That's all.

The little guy and I were at the store today.  I happened to see a display of those amazing little pies they used to sell in the 70s.  The ones with the pastry outside and the awesome chocolate pudding ones were my favorite.  And there was one right there.

Being the great, health conscious mom I am, I insisted that I get one for my kid.  He didn't argue with me.

Once in the car he tore the package open, took a bite and said, "Hmmmm, there wasn't any chocolate in that bite.

Me:  "Take another bite.  You're gonna love it!"  And he bit it.

Little guy:  "This is not good mom."

Me:  "What?!?!"  I looked at the pudding insides of that tasty treat and I swear it must've been on that shelf since the 70s.

He rolled down his window and spit the chewed up bite out.  Now, my kid is amazing at so many things.  He's an amazing athlete, can ride a unicycle like it's nothin', can design and shoot spectacular rockets, but the kid cannot spit any distance to save his life.  So...yup...that chewed up bite went straight down instead of forward and landed on my car door...and proceeded to ever so slowly ooze its way down, down, down.

Me:  "That's going to be really disgusting if it flies off of my car and hits another one."

Little guy beaming:  "They'll just think it was a really big bird."

I love how he can take something that tasted horrible and make it something positive in his eyes.

Click here to purchase this piece.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Mind that Language!

I remember the first time my little guy cussed.  He tripped, and with absolutely perfect timing he said, "God dammit!"  And that's the day I stopped cussing in front of my toddler.

Now these days he says "crap"...a lot...but that's it.  At least in front of me, so I'm good with that.

But today I thought he'd finally slipped back to his toddler cussing days when I received this text.


"Where at the svcuk age you picking me up"


Wha?


"School are"


Oh...whew!

Click here to purchase this painting.

If it's wrong to have my art reflect my life, then I don't wanna be right.

Sometimes my art is just what pops into my head, sometimes it's my attempt to accurately approximately represent something I've seen, and sometimes it's an illustration to reflect something that's going on in my life.

Well, sorry to report, folks, that I currently have a cold.  A drippy, whiny, pity party kind of cold.  So there ya go, my friends. 

Bottoms up with my cup of water with Emergen-C...here's to feeling inspired to paint kitties, birdies, and flowers tomorrow.


P.S. Every time my family looks my way, at me holding a tissue, sniffling, hair all cwazy...well, I shout, "I'm pretty!"  Pretty sure it's agreement (or maybe fear) that I see in their eyes.

Click here to purchase this painting.

The First Time I got Busted by the Cops

For some reason, lately every time I see the color green, this old memory comes flooding back.


I must've been nine or ten.  It was a perfect summer day, with perfect weather, in perfect Palo Alto, California, in my grandparents' perfect neighborhood.  I was riding my beyond amazing green banana seat bike with tall handlebars.  Proudly printed on the frame were the words "Dill Pickle," and the playing card I had clipped near my spokes was making the most satisfying purr.  My brother was seated behind me.  No helmets.  No worries.  Wind in our hair.  Bliss!

And then a police officer pulled up beside us and demanded that we stop immediately.  Which we most certainly did.


Police Officer:  "Only one passenger per seat."


I looked at my banana seat that clearly provided ample room for my bottom, my brother's bottom, and at least one more friend's bottom, and looked back at the cop.

I think it was at that moment that I realized that not all laws made make sense...or at least the bad ones shouldn't apply to me.

Click here to purchase this painting.

I Done Got Hip Checked

I got hip checked today.


Little guy:  "Hey mom, have you heard this song before?"

Me:  "No.  I like it."

Little guy:  "Here, I'll play you some more of their songs."

Me:  "You're the reason I'm so hip.  You keep me current."

Little guy:  "You're not hip. And don't say 'hip'."


..and I suppose his honesty would hurt if it were the slightest bit true.  Good thing it's so totally not!

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Shyness and Flatulance...is there really a connection?

I was telling my kid that I admired him.  It was a short-lived feeling.


Me:  "I thought it was so cool that you wanted to go to the homecoming game, and you were fine just being dropped off there, and you totally knew you'd find friends to hang out with.  I never would've done that as a kid."

Little guy:  "Yeah, mom, you were shy.  You still are."

Me:  "You think I'm shy?  I guess so.  What makes you think I'm shy?"

Little guy:  "Well, when you fart in public and I make a huge deal of it, you get upset."

A brief pause as I took a moment to ponder.

Me:  "Um, that's not because I'm shy.  That's because you busted me for doing something publicly inappropriate."

Little guy:  "Yeah, well you're still shy."

Me:  "Unlike you, I always at least make sure they're silent."

Little guy:  "Uh, that's how you know I'm not shy."

Click here to purchase this painting.