More Brushes and Paintings

As usual, it is when I have the most to do that I am the most inspired to study and explore. Since Art in the Pearl starts Saturday I find myself wildly enthused (distracted?) about learning everything I can about layers and brushes in Photoshop. This first illustration shows an ink sketch I did a couple of years ago (once again, happened to be one of the few already in my computer that I grabbed to experiment on). The original sketch was done in either black or brown ink (I can't remember which). I colorized it in Photoshop and added brushes of scratches and images in black, various colors and white (the eraser tool). I think the 2nd piece looks sort of like an etching with lots of false bite. I like how you can take a simple drawing and change it. Wow, this is the most fun I've had since I got my first coloring crayons.

I've been painting too. First I did one of twins. John's mother was an identical twin and my nieces are fraternal twins. My close friend Sky has twin daughters. There are, in fact, so many multiple births in our families that I won't go into all of them. They have been an ongoing mystery all my life. Joanne and Justine lived into their late eighties and dressed in identical clothing both in their youth and old age. Everywhere we went with them they attracted favorable attention. (they were Phi Beta Kappa scholars and school teachers, both of which made them proud.) Anyway, I've wanted to paint twins for quite awhile and no doubt this won't be the last time. So here are the twins.

Next I painted a big mermaid. I saw Laurie Anderson live in concert and thought the bowing of her violin sounded like the sound whales make underwater. So I had my mermaid bowing a slow response to the whales. I could hear it as I painted.

Then I did a painting of a hot air balloon. It will mean something different to its eventual owner but when I painted it I was thinking of my 2 daughters and myself and the long time we have had to enjoy each other. They are grown women now and my closest friends. We all live within 20 minutes of each other and they have made my life so rich by being who they are. We lead our separate lives but are bound together in a beautiful and irrevocable way as all families are.

The last picture is of John's hand holding a heart shaped strawberry that was as big as a plum. This was just before we got the best and nearly only good soaking rain of the summer. Halleluia!


Well, it really is time for me to start packing boxes and getting ready for the weekend. I'll try to get out and take some pictures to share with you again. I have really enjoyed doing that you know. It helps me look at my own life differently. For someone who works in isolation I begin to feel the presence of a community at my elbow. It is the thing that makes street life so vital in other parts of the world, having friends to visit with on a regular basis. Thank heavens for the internet. Now I feel the presence of others and that makes me happy.

Brushes and Layers

I'm finally getting around to learning about brushes and layers in Photoshop. Sure, I experimented all last winter making fatbook pages with photographic images and design elements that I mostly cribbed off the web but I have been studying the sites of various illustrators and trying to figure out how they do some of the things they do. I am so danged curious; I think I have to unravel every puzzle. So anyway, I met Kathy, a local artist who scans in her own drawings and then plays with them, she made me curious, and I found a few web tutorials (free of course) and this is my first project. I already had the quickly drawn image scanned into my computer (something I did months ago in preparation for a painting) and then I used brushes to make textures and chose colors and added text and a duplicate image a little offset and so on. Dang, FUN!

If any of you are more experienced at this than I am I would appreciate being pointed in the right direction to improve my skills. Do I just keep playing? Keep looking at the work of artists who are more experienced than myself? (I have a feeling that is the answer.) In October I plan to take Photoshop at Mac Camp but other than that I am all self-taught.

Only a few more days to prepare for Art in the Pearl. I completed 2 new paintings this week but I am still tweaking on them so it is too early to share. Instead I will give you pictures from the garden. The first is of a yellow watermelon that is finally ripe. These guys are smallish and very sweet and juicy.

Next come a couple of roses. The coral one is "Touch of Class" and has the most beautiful buds and shape of blossom. Unfortunately she lacks a powerful scent but we forgive her for that. She is long stemmed and high steppin'.

Next is the buttery, apple spice scented David Austin rose named "Graham Thomas". This rose grows to phenomenal size and is covered with blooms from May to late fall. Really an awesome rose.

We got our act together for a change and put some corn up for the winter. We scalded it first out on the deck on our Y2K outdoor burners, blanched it in ice water, then cut it off the cobs for the freezer. I didn't count the bags but there were a couple dozen at least and we still have another wave of corn getting ripe.

The last photo is of a honey bee's butt that squirmed its way into a blue salvia blossom. It struggled for quite awhile to get back out; that's how I was able to shoot a good picture. What a life; wallowing in sweet nectar all day and flitting from flower to flower. The busy, happy bee.

Time for me to get to work too. September is the month that always makes me think of getting down to brass tacks again; waking up earlier and reining in the lazy summer routine. It is my version of "back to school" (I always loved school) as I set new goals for myself and work to broaden my experience.

Paint, Eat, Party

Oh, I love summer. The week has been heavenly; corn from the garden, a deluge of cucumbers and tomatoes, many hours blissfully covered in paint and many more hours celebrating a birthday, an anniversary and deep friendships with the nicest people in our neck of the woods. First the paintings. I decided to do another version of the accordianist. The subject matter just tickles me. Maybe because the accordian is played from behind, like a guitar so that the musician is looking into space or into their own abstraction. And boy, I really identify with that.


The next painting is about how I feel torn about traveling this winter. Actually, I am torn about so many things - a Pisces trait. I want to stay at home. No, I'm bored. Let's go. Ack, I'll miss my studio. Yick. I need to get out and have some new experiences. Maybe you know the drill.

Then I wanted to do something about all the bugs in the garden this time of year. About how in our culture we generally disrespect what we don't understand, especially the little crawly guys. So many of them are our allies in the garden; pollinating bees, beetles, ants that transform wood to soil and so on. So I did this one.

The last one I did yesterday from a list I made in my journal. One of the things my therapist asked me at one point was what made me happy. I had been so focused on the negatives that I hadn't really given that much thought. How obvious it seems to me now. Yes, avoiding pain is good but everyone finds happiness in a unique way. So now that I focus on happiness I love to make lists that are navigation tools. Here is one.

I will finish out with photographs of food and of one of the two parties we attended this weekend. I forgot to photograph the Blackberry Cobblers for you (I made 3). But these salads should wet your whistle.



The carrots in the photo above are not roasted but rather a variety with an unusual color. We belong to a loose-knit group of organic growers who love to experiment with heirloom varieties and so I suspect that is what is shown in the photo.

The last photo will be of our wonderful friend and host, Rick, celebrating his 60th Birthday. His friends arrived from far and wide to celebrate his amazing journey - some had not seen each other for over 30 years so it was a reunion of old friends as well. My, we are surprised to be getting so old, we old hippies. But here's a secret for the young'uns: it all gets sweeter with time. The friendships deeper. The love stronger. It is all so good.

Blackberry Time

Summer is full on us here beside the Willamette River in Oregon. Quite near our house is a wonderful park where the Molalla River flows into the Willamette. Our entire family loves this park; it is the perfect place to bring a picnic lunch as there are many picnic tables under big, old shade trees and lots of parking near them. John and I got up early this morning to walk the park trails and pick blackberries. At this spot we saw a green heron (their legs are the unbelievable color of pale copper green) and a turtle sunning herself on a log in the river.

These are the blackberry bushes lining the trail in the park. The berries are just coming on now but soon there will be the smell of blackberries cooking in the sun all through the park. We make cobbler out of the berries every year. I will be taking them to some gatherings soon so will try to remember to post the recipe with pictures. (I know, I still owe you the Rhubarb Crunch recipe. One of these days when the world slows down a bit.)

In one place the trail winds along the Willamette. I think everyone with a boat and a pair of water skis was out on the river today.

Here they are. We tried to decide if we like them better than raspberries and couldn't make up our minds. John likes them better. I'd hate to choose.

Beautiful hot, dry summer. A golden field containing Queen Anne's Lace. On the other side of this meadow is a third river in this drainage; the wonderfully named Pudding River.

A couple of my favorite bloggers have illness in their families this week and I am so sorry about that. I can't stop thinking about them and about how I have grown close to them by visiting them daily on the net. One woman I do know from Artfest. She is an angel who rescues forsaken dogs and her husband is ill. The other I know only from what she has shared in her writing. Please join me in sending these dear ones supportive thoughts of healing and strength. We can only feel humble and small when illness strikes. Take care of your health now and make the most of every moment.

The August Garden

The summer is speeding by. This is the month that I make a new calendar for the coming year; it is a tradition that has gone on for quite some time. I have a coil binder that I use to bind the pages together after I have rubber stamped on the numbers and letters and painted the borders to my satisfaction. For some reason it gives me immense pleasure to touch these pages of the life that is coming and to give thanks for the time that may be allotted to me. I used one of my new fuchsia coils across the top and it looks wonderful. My only "date" so far is Artfest in March which I have optimistically penciled in.

Went for a walk through the beautiful garden this morning and shot some pictures to share. The bumblebees were bumbling, the hummingbirds diving and the crow calling to me to let me know that we are all ALIVE and blessed. These are the best of the treasures.

Stupice tomatoes. They have a short growing season and are the first we harvest. They are Italian I think and pronounced stoo-pee-chee.

This is a tall perennial sunflower named rudebeckia. It is tough, generous and a large presence at the back of the flower border.

The buttercup is my favorite squash. We make a wonderful soup in the fall with this squash. I can hardly wait. It is the deep, orange color of pumpkin when cooked.

You probably have sunflowers too but they are always a welcome sight in the summertime. You will only ever need to plant them once and the birds will thank you each fall by planting them again for the following year. We never harvest the seeds. They are just for the birds.

My dear friend and relative Christine from Denver gave me the wine colored hollyhock seeds one year when we visited her there. They have come up as volunteers ever since. Thank you Chris, we think of you every time we admire these beauties.

Gosh, the peas are making out with the sunflowers. Everything is in love with everything else. It is okay. Don't let nature's promiscuity frighten you.

Onions drying on the deck. Before this the slats held an enormous crop of garlic. Nice harvest, Mr. Farmer.
These are the right-side-up peppers but we also have some that are growing upside-down, with the peppers pointed up like ... like ... upside down peppers. The upside down ones are called chilis de agua. The farmer knows the names of all the chilis. He crosses them and grows new ones all the time. He grows many many many varieties.

We love to disagree about blue flowers. I was enchanted by them at first sight but the mister says they are not natural looking. I have 4 bushes of them now. Dont ever try to disagree with me. I'll go all j-cat and plant hydrangeas everywhere.

We are still swamped with strawberries. These small, long guys are my favorites. Extreme flavor and sweetness. I almost got a tummy ache this morning trying to eat them all.

Gladiolas that the birds planted. Truly. They came up from seed one year where none had been before. Now we have a big stand of them. They remind me of proper old ladies that go to church. Very formal and stiff they are.

The queen of the weed kingdom, showing off again. She is such a ham.

I couldn't resist a verdant overview. Cucumbers and chayotes in the foreground, corn in the middle ground and douglas firs in the background.

The corn is ripe now. Time for the dish with the peppers, onion, butter and sweet corn. Soo-weet Iowa corn as Liz likes to say.

Echinacea blooming sweetly. Such hot, improbable colors. Nature's all dressed up today.

We have canna lilies that remind us of the Yucatan where we first saw them.

This is a shot of John's clever composting system. He made a cage of inexpensive pig wire and layers leaves collected in fall with the scraps from the kitchen.

The bees adore the flowers on the artichokes. So do I. This is my favorite purple I think.

Another artichoke blossom. I recently read that eating artichokes was like trying to make a meal out of licking postage stamps. That was pretty funny but I thoroughly disagree. I love to make a meal out of licking lemon juice and butter off of artichoke leaves. And then the heart! Oh, that's heaven.

The trees are loaded with apples again. Maybe we'll have enough to have a cider pressing party this fall.

This is an artichoke that didn't produce a choke to eat this year but it is pretty anyway. Sort of like a bromiliad with the red center.

Put it altogether and you have dinner ... here we have succulent beans, blanched and then tossed with sage, parsley and lots of garlic and olive oil in a frying pan for the finish. The cucumber salad has lemon basil, onion, tomato and rice vinegar. Yum.

My Day Off

This is how I spend my leisure time. I bought this jacket at least 10 years ago to paint and it has taken me this long to get to it. I have lots of skirts I like to wear in the summer; this jacket is just the right weight for cool summer evenings.

I will decide in time if it needs iridescent highlights, beads and other glittery, gypsy danglies. It was so much fun that I am looking around the house for other things that I can touch up. Ack. I need to update my website first. There is always a job I should be doing instead of the fun stuff but as I look back over the years I can assure you that doing the fun stuff leads to gold more often than the worky stuff does. Several years ago I read Keri Smith's wonderful essay on doing what you love in art and how that leads to your best experiences and self fulfillment (and develops into your most important work). The entire essay is here. I print it out and read it again from time to time. I assume most of you know of her wonderful blog already; she is full of inspiration for all of us on the path of opening up to life and developing our own creative voice.

I have inspired myself to go into the studio now and decorate some journal pages with random monoprint backgrounds. Scribble and smoosh. Oh, what glorious fun! Then I will paint, sort, play in the studio and eventually get something started. Oh. And the website. A little work and a little play.

Art on the Green

We are home safely from our show in Coeur d'Alene. What a beautiful place it is! Located on the University campus in a wooded park beside the lake; the weather was exquisite and the city was as lovely as ever. This is a view of the big tent in the center of the park and some of the art booths.

My friend Alan McNiel designed the poster. This is what the tee shirts looked like from his image. When I went to purchase one they had all been sold out. Everyone wants to dress up in a weird chicken it seems.

And here is Allen with a painting of Seattle; it has a border of Starbucks logos. Allen and I both remember the very first Starbucks (c. 1980!) located in the University District in Seattle. I liked the logo because of the mermaid and because of a recent reading of Moby Dick. It was a little hole in the wall coffee shop. We never dreamed it would become a big corporation.

This is Lynn Sedlak-Ford.

And her husband Randy Sedlak-Ford.

They are great favorites of mine for always being in a great mood and having stories to tell from their travels all over the U. S. doing shows. They have great energy and their work grows with every passing season. Lynn is painting on canvas and doing aluminum paintings (I have no idea how except that they are sculptural and colorful and unusual). Randy is working in glass and metal and they both (I think) used to work in clay. You can't keep a good artist in his or her category!

This is Brett Varney showing the design he did for a tee shirt at a show earlier in the season. You can read all about his accomplishments on his website. He has done many posters and collected many awards in his brief time doing art fairs. He started doing serigraphs but wisely moved to another media to avoid the bad chemicals involved. Now he works in oil pastel and foil. I have had the pleasure of watching his work expode as he has dared to experiment and change. It has been gratifying.

This is Agnes Copeland from California. She does tropical watercolors that I found very beautiful. Her booth was near mine and we visited a bit in the early mornings before the crowds arrived. She's cool.

Kyle Paliotto's booth was right next to mine so I got to watch him paint in oils. He is from San Diego originally but now lives in the country near Coeur d'Alene with his talented wife who also paints. He paints traditional landscapes in a subdued palette; sensitive, lyrical, glowing from within. He is a young guy and I wish him all the best in his life. He is the kind of person I would bless if I were a fairy godmother; kind, brilliant, talented, with impeccable manners.

This is Richard Kapugi who I discovered for the 2nd time in 8 years. He lives in the piney woods without modern conveniences so of course a website is out of the question. But his paintings were original and self-taught in the very best sense of the word. My favorite was an angel at a bus stop (that I originally mistook for Jesus) who was unrecognized by all the hurrying crowd around him. His faces are quite compelling. I hope you run into him some time at the Cheney Cowles Museum Show or some other one in the area. He can be reached at P.O. Box 940, Priest River, Idaho 83856. Maybe later you can google his name and find a website.

I took this photo of a sand sculpture moments before it crashed. Here is the next version that was more successful.

Here are the best tatoos I found for you. Delicious, no?




It was a great time at the fair. I left many paintings behind. I had a wonderful visit with my sister and her friends as well as my fellow artists. It is always good. Travel, good food, kind buyers, generous remarks. I boldly soak it all in.

Now I am so deliriously happy to be home.