The Muse of The Day

Three Paintings From The Past

We have had a patch of rough weather - tornadoes, driving rain, and the unit that heats my studio and the rest of the bottom floor has gone on the blink. I had done everything in my power to insure that Sunday would be a sewing day. I had cleaned the house, top to bottom, on Thursday, I had gotten all the food shopping and errands done on Friday, I had a cooking marathon all day Saturday so that there would be plenty of leftovers, and all in all I was ready for my sewing jaunt on Sunday. Now I am sitting in my studio writing this, I am dressed like I belong inside Dr. Zhivago's house. I am waiting for the little portable heater to heat up the room, every possible light bulb is on, and we have put in a call to the heating people. I thought I would share some color with you today since I so enjoyed my Sunday morning spent perusing your blogs. Below you see three paintings I have in my "stash". 

This is one of my daughter, Nica May, the egg shaped rock above her head was a recurrent them in a series I once did. The theme was based on issues of being born, or rather reborn, into who you will become. The painting (30" by 40") sits on one of the shelves now of my studio. I like to see it every time I leave the studio.

 

 

Next up is a three piece painting ( it is about 8 feet tall) on motherhood. I often feel that as a mother and artist, if I may be so bold to call myself that, you are split, physically, mentally, and emotionally, but you must still walk forward towards the light. You feel like your creative self (represented by the bowl) never gets filled and is in a permanent state of being empty. 

 

FInally I am showing you a painting of the tea accoutrement and my pencil box that I used to keep in my studio when my studio was not located in my home. I loved this little painting (24" by 20" if I remember right.) Somebody bought it and gave it as a gift to a friend who was dying of cancer. The friend died a month later and I wondered if the painting ended up in a garage sale some where. I take solace in the fact the painting was most probably one of the last gifts they got to open in their lives, hopefully it brought a little smile to them.

 

All this cooking and driving I have been doing makes me miss painting. Of course, I can't just blame it on the cooking and driving. Maybe one of these days I will burst and go back to painting. For now there is a sewing project waiting to be tackled. I am going to go sew.

Have a good Sunday.

Carolina

An Accurate Perspective

Yesterday brought more storms. We have had more than 24 hours of rain, it is akin to putting your house in neutral in the drive-thru car wash and letting the jet sprayers do their thing while you, like a sitting duck, stare dumbfounded out the window as your house just goes through it. More tornadoes made an appearance as well. Sadly some people where not as lucky as I was. So far early this morning, they have already counted over 200 people that had died from the tornadoes. The cloud formations that came from the horizon were stunning. Although we had swirling formations on my road and the trees bent like sticks of soft gum, most of the worst tornadoes leveled areas 2 hours south east of my mountain.

It kind of puts things in perspective, doesn't it? We can whine all we want about the reasons we don't get down to the work of art making, but in the face of not having an opportunity to create ever again, all our whining seems childish and insignificant. Yesterday, with the power out, I pulled up a chair to the window and began to read Art & Fear by Bayles and Orland after I had finished making my daily painting in my sketchbook. I had had difficulty on this simple little painting of my bread box. The mental demons were, like tornadoes, swirling around my head telling me to give up. "How hard could it be?" I heard them say. "It's a box." "Really, the idea of taking a virtual class on keeping a sketchbook is sweet, but you won't be able to keep this up if you can't draw a simple box." You can not imagine the relationship I developed with my eraser. The simple perspective lines baffled me and my untrained hand could not follow what my eyes could see. Had Dali been in the room, perhaps the warped box could have been interpreted differently. I, however, only judged myself against EVERY OTHER ARTIST, DEAD AND ALIVE, THAT HAS EVER EXISTED IN THIS ENTIRE WORLD. Talk about pressure.

I think that the key to life, as in art, is having an accurate perspective. That is a big statement. I will let you ponder it a bit while you look at the much worked on and finally finished painting I did yesterday.

Did you ponder the statement? How many times have I had to weigh my view of a situation at hand, only to realize that from outside my own head it might not actually match up - at all. Having an accurate perspective means really analyzing the reality of whatever situation you are in, whether it be a natural disaster, a relationship, a conversation, or your art making results. In just the first few pages of the book I came away with a few thoughts. The most important thought I had was that learning "how" to make great art will only come AFTER I have learned how not to quit. My goal, then, needs to be to figure out how not to quit. On pg. 10 the authors say "Quitting means not starting again ... and art is ALL ABOUT starting again." Every single time you assemble your supplies it is about starting again, facing the demons, and not quitting. My good friend, Alicia, just posted this wonderful drawing of sparrows she did a few years back. It remained in her studio and was added to "the pile". The pile, that I am talking about, is the kind of pile we all have ... they are attempts that somehow, with our inaccurate perspective, we label as "not enough", or "unfinished", or "short of my expectations". The trouble with it all, is that she can not see it from my perspective. The drawing stands , all on it's own, as a PERFECT example of what we should be doing everyday - that is making art of what we love. Alicia loves nature - it shows through in every piece she does, whether it be in fabric or paint. If I could, I would do a blog intervention on her so that she could benefit from an accurate perspective. Her life,  like mine, is filled with non art making activities, or rather responsibilities. Our problem though, is not that we lack time to squeeze in art making. Our problem is that we choose to weigh down the side of the scale that makes us judge our own work, therefore ending our art making growth before it even has a chance to attempt flight. There is nothing wrong with judging our own work to see where it needs improvement, but the piece should be allowed to stand on it's own as an example of what we attempted that day, an example of how we did not quit that day. If we are truly lucky, in our lifetime, perhaps there will be art made by us that is appreciated by those who don't know us.

My husband and I were discussing the beauty of a 2500 year old Greek sculpture the other day. It dawned on me that it's maker never dealt with the wealth of images to compare his work to that the internet provides us today. (The internet, and the exposure it provides us to wonderful art can be downright intimidating to the budding artist.) This sculptor had made the sculpture for the pure beauty of it. He learned his craft through practice. His thoughts were not on how the world would view him 2500 years later in a me-centered world. He loved his materials, he loved his muse, and he was willing to work hard to express his love for his muse and make it eternal. We are not privy today to all his clumsy attempts he created when learning his craft. We just know that when we are in front of his work all that beauty and all that love is obvious, his perspective was accurate.

I leave you, then, with the thoughts that are in my mind. Hopefully you, too, might have these thoughts while you are working to stay on the path of not quitting.

Carolina

 

A Storm Makes Me Paint Eggs

 

Lately, the name of the game here at the Ellis house on the mountain is that we all get up around 6, load up into the truck, and go to the barn and work out. I hate it. Every minute I am there, I spend counting down how many minutes I have left. The only machine I get along with is the stretching machine. Today was so bad that I left early and started walking for home. It was cold and drizzly. Because we had taken the truck I had left my jacket at home, I only had my sweatshirt on. I hadn't gone but a mere 100 yards, after leaving the barn, when I started to feel the full effect of my stupidity. The gusty winds easily found an open gap at the neckline of my sweatshirt. I had two choices: return to the barn (this option would have only cemented my stupidity in everyone else's minds as well), or do something to warm up. I actually began running. Well.. running is kind of a big word for what I was doing. To anyone else it would have been obvious that I wasn't just walking, but perhaps if they had had a visual dictionary with my picture in it the word "running" would have been absent from the entire page. I was huffing and puffing none the less. I actually got to the point were I couldn't tell if the dampness around my neck was from the light drizzle or from my very own sweat. Trying to encourage myself to get to the top of every next hill that seemed to get steeper with every step, I played mental games with myself. "To that tree"... "to the big overturned stump that appeared since last week when we had all those tornadoes"... and so on until I made it to my driveway. The site of "home" never looked so good.

So yes we have had some pretty bad storms in the past couple of weeks. Sure my house didn't go flying through the air a la Wizard-of-Oz style, but at one point I did put the girls in the all cement storage area that we have. It is odd to be thinking that the whole house might fly away at any minute and that you are no more than twelve inches away from all your holiday decorations and that might be all your left with after the tornado has finished it's business. While we were in there I saw all the easter decorations as well. I, of course, started to get a hankering for chocolate eggs. I kept remembering the blog I saw the other day of a  french water colorist . She had painted the most amazingly beautiful Easter eggs. Between visions of colorful foil wrapped eggs I would feel the house shudder and shake from the violent winds outside. I decided right then and there to paint some eggs of my own.

Once the storm passed, and we were left without power, I grabbed my painting supplies and set up next to the living room window where on this dark and dreary day there was just enough light to paint by. Thank you Helene for inspiring me.

 

One to One

Below, you will find a part of an email I wrote this morning.

 

Hi Melissa,

Well, I guess a "good morning" is in order. Last night's storm was ferocious. We have seen many fierce wind storms up here on the mountain, but last night was so fierce that I actually went to bed with my bathrobe on. My husband thought I was being silly, but my bedroom is built like a tree house, up in the air, on 4 pillars, I was certain it would be the first thing to go flying through the woods. I didn't want people to find me the next morning and my girls being embarrassed because "Mom was indecent". I can laugh about it now, but last night it sounded like a train was coming through. 

All day yesterday was ugly here. I worked on a little project yesterday with that recipe you inspired me to do, but, since there was no sun, my pictures are a little flat. I may post it anyway today. It felt REALLY good to get inspired, and not let 24 hours go by before following through on the inspiration and completing the project.

 

And this is the result of that inspiration:

This is a corner of my kitchen, it is the place I have chosen to begin learning how to draw. When we built this house, the idea was that it would be a vacation house. It has a very relaxed feel. There aren't any closed cabinets, everything is out in the open. This way, anybody who is visiting can find what they need quickly. I recently, finally, got my cutting boards on the wall.

 

I used  these magnetic strips with these hooks from The Container Store, to hang my heavy cutting boards, pizza paddles, and my "breakfast" pans for making Ebelskivers and waffled pancakes. Both were gifts from my mom - although they keep me chubby, Mami, I can't live without them. The entire hanging apparatus for both rows cost me about $50 - and I can move the hooks around at will. They hold an enormous amount of weight for how slim and inconspicuous they are.

I have been meaning to write all of our favorite recipes in one book for my girls as a Christmas gift. Every Christmas that goes by I think - "there goes another year & I still haven't written the recipes down for them". Most of my recipes have been jotted down in a hurry, slipped into a plastic sleeve, and then added into a big, cumbersome 3 ring binder that never seems to close properly. It never fails that all the little holes in the plastic sleeves just will not all line up perfectly as I snap the darn rings together. The recipe, below, is in one to one proportions and works perfectly EVERY time I want to make waffles, Ebelskivers, pancakes, or waffled pancakes. I put all the ingredients in one bowl, mixing as I go. Note* that is a HEAPING teaspoon of double acting baking powder - think "Mountain on a spoon"

I triple the recipe when I make it, cooking the entire batch and freezing any cooked leftovers, although there rarely are any. Ebelskivers are like little pancake "balls" filled with warm, oozing jam. If I didn't have a man and I "needed" to get one, I wouldn't waste my time on any other tactics; I simply would make him a plate of Ebelskivers and watch him drop to his knees asking me for my hand in marriage.

 

So here I am, years later, without a cookbook of my recipes, having learned how to cook but wanting to learn how to draw. I am beginning to learn how to draw right here in my kitchen. The cutting board wall has been calling out to me, so this is where I have begun. It all seemed so easy, the simple shapes of the things I use every day so clearly visible in my mind. You can't imagine the brain squeeze this has been to actually put it all on paper.

 

My first drawing (above) nearly had me giving up. I heard every one of the voices in my head laughing at me in unison. I did the mental equivalent of "flipping them the bird" and pulled another sheet from my drawing pad. "THIS is hard" I kept hearing the voices say. "Maybe you should work on photography". "How much time is this going to take?" "Was that thing THAT big the last time I looked up?" "Where does that pan begin?"

I don't know how all those people draw so well. All I know is that I am going to need to draw every day for several years to get even close to what they do. 

 

Below you will see what I am hoping to put together with my "One to One" recipe in the cookbook for my girls. Little by little I am going to write down and collect the recipes for them. 

Let me know if you try the recipe - it is a keeper. I leave you then, hoping that tonight I can sleep without my bathrobe on.   Carolina

My Excuse

 

I don't ever do this, but I just had to this time. My excuse for not putting anything in here that I created is because I just had the week fly by - just like your week. Do me a favor, though, and click on "my excuse" above and see it through. You will be glad you did. I wasn't going to post at all, but I wanted to call somebody and share this with them ... but then that would have left you out. 

Bottle Project Homework #2

Progress on my homework project has been slow to materialize due to my time constraints. I have been thinking about it, however, and what you see below is phase two. I colored one of the bottle inspirations from last week.

 

I have had Christmas on the brain quite a bit lately. I am not quite sure if coloring the above drawing made me think of Christmas, if the cooler weather did it to me, or if I can blame Melissa P. for sending me into a state of shock by letting me know that Christmas is less than thirteen weeks away. However it came to be ... I have Christmas on the brain and have been eyeing my stash of Christmas music. I am still holding out on the music, but the bottle bottoms made me think of snowflakes. Here is my first card

 and that led me to this

 

In a way, the last one is a true reflection of how I feel about Christmas. It is a quite, gentle time that blends both my love for the magic of Christmas and my latina roots. I think I "kinda" like it.
 

 
 

 

Procrastination In Action

 

Welcome to a peek at how I procrastinate. I am the QUEEN of procrastination. As you know, I am supposed to be making the back of that quilt. Do you see a quilt here? No, of course not, that would be out of character. I am in the midst of doing what I do best - pushing aside what I am supposed to be working on. My friend, Alicia, sent me this wonderful book, A Forest Of Stories . In our facebooking back & forth I filled her in on a quest of mine to see ten trees that I have on my "bucket list" before I die. She saw this book and thought of me. 

 

Both the story & the illustrations are captivating and magical. Even the borders are beautiful. So beautiful in fact ...
  

 

that I had to copy them. I folded up the quilt and carefully placed it on my husband's pool table - I knew it would be safe there. I pushed aside my quilting supplies and made room for my paints. I haven't painted in a LONG, LONG time. I had to reacquaint my self with my supplies. No worries, though. When one is procrastinating any extra work is no work at all, as long as it doesn't have anything to do with the project I am avoiding.
  

   

I had so much fun. I kept right on going. I expanded a bit on the border and ended up with this:
 

Which then, of course, made me do this: 

 

Can't you just imagine an ultra thick polar fleece green poncho with an embroidered 3" ribbon down the front? And while we are at it why not get those boots and legs like the ones I drew on her?

As my fellow procrastinators in this world know, it never ends there. It is like a bacteria that keeps on growing.

  
 
 
 
 

 

For Brandy

Brandy wanted to see the finished white desk. Here it is, Brandy, and I can't properly describe how happy I am to have this much desk space. All I can say is - what took me so long? The fix was cheap & quick so I don't have an excuse for not getting it done sooner. It is kind of like cleaning the house - I gripe about it for days, when I finally get around to cleaning it I feel so content with myself. But, like a patient that has suffered memory loss, I completely forget that feeling when the house gets dirty again and I go right back into the pattern of complaining & procrastinating. Having this much desk area gives me enough space for the IMPORTANT things in life - like this bug I caught outside the other day.

 

Although it was dead, I had visions of it coming back to life in the middle of the night and crawling into my craft supplies so I made sure to put it in a jar with a tight fitting lid. I unscrewed the lid off the other day to show the bug to my kids and I just about was blown away to the other side of the studio. The stench was putrid ... & POTENT. Apparently it has been decaying - YUCK - but I can't bear to throw it out, you see ...I love the bug.

My desk area also affords me the space to keep other things that don't belong here like these peppers.

 

They too are in a state of decay at the moment. They are Habañero peppers. The old man at the dump, Ron, gave them to me. I guess he figured by way of association with my Latina background I would use these. These peppers are so hot it would make it impossible for me to speak after ingesting them. Do you think, Brandy, that he is trying to tell me something?

I like how my studio is coming along. I keep Alicia's painting in amongst my brushes as a reminder that she is painting just about a painting a day. (Alicia- YOU GO GIRL !!!). I have been starting to paint a bit myself. Most of it is the kind of stuff only my mother would compliment.

 

I thought, Brandy, you might want to see this too (below). Although I have an embarrassing 72 linear feet of shelf space ... somehow it was not enough. I took these super colorful bags that are being sold in all the bookstores now, and hung them up from hooks on the wall. They are holding everything from embroidery hoops to popsicle sticks ... you know ... stuff that never sits on a shelf well.

 

And so here I am, finally doing my work & homeschooling the girls in an organized environment. It almost feels surreal. I like having all my things around me. I have finished piecing the quilt top, but I will have to wait to reveal it. I am hoping to get the backing done before I take pictures of it all. I can say with a great degree of certainty, though, that you will have to wait until NEXT YEAR before you see it actually quilted. Lord knows what I was thinking when I decided to make the size it is turning out to be. Hope you enjoyed the tour, Brandy. If you are ever in Tennessee, do stop by. I promise not to serve you anything made with Habañero peppers & I will do my best to sweep the porch free of bugs before you arrive.  Carolina

Watching The Paint Dry

I thought I was all set with my studio desk. I made it, organized it, posted about it, and went upstairs to make dinner feeling pretty smug and accomplished. When dinner was done and the family was getting ready to settle in and watch a movie, I declined to join them and told them all I was too excited about my new desk top and was going to go work in the studio. Giddy, like a child, I walked into my studio feeling like I was getting the better form of entertainment for the night. I flicked on the lights and waited for them to adjust. Those super duper energy saver lights - the CFO's (compact flouresent) take a couple of minutes to "bloom" as I call it. While I waited I admired the grand expanse of workspace I now had. Pause. My table had a greenish tinge to it, I waited for the lights to come on full power and for that greenish cast to dissappear. Big, long, pause... still waiting for the lights ... still waiting ... green, Green, GREEN ??? The lights fully "bloomed", but my desktop still had that green tinge. Apparently, at night, that was the way the lights were going to make it look. Well, I would have none of it. I put some fabric swatches on it to see how well I could judge color, but it was a no go. A sleepless night ensued and the next day I was the proud owner of yet another power tool, a palm sander. 

Since then I sanded all the coating off - I needed the palm sander so that I would only take the clear finish off and not go right through the plywood. The belt sander I had would have been too much. Does it sound like I am quantifying my purchase and the addition of yet another power tool to my arsenal? You "betcha". Now that I had the egg yolk yellow sawhorses screwed into the plywood, I got to test the movability factor of my desk top. It was "no problema". Most of my week has been spent, then, on this desk. Sanding, 2 coats of priming, and many coats of paint later ... I am just watching the paint dry.

In an effort to give you something more creative to ponder, I am going to include 3 images of bridges I saw in Maine while we were on our summer road trip. Since this post is about my greenish hued desk top I think it's a good time to share these images with you. They are a bit "out there" on the color. I think it is important to push the envelope, if you will, with color. It makes you see things differently. Hopefully my desk will dry soon and I can get going soon on my other projects. See you then.   Carolina

 

 

  
 

Koda- CHROME

I love my husband, but one of his best features is also one of his worst. He is the kind of guy that doesn't dilly dally, he doesn't just sit around waiting for things to happen - he gets it done as expeditiously as possible. Most of the time that is a great feature to have but we just took a family road trip and I was privy to the other side of the coin - he didn't want to stop on the highway so I could get a picture or two for my blog.

 

Now , you must understand that he did pullover to let me take pictures whenever I wanted, whenever we weren't on the highway, that is. On the way to Maine I was busy stitching the quilt as it was part of our wedding gift, on the way back I had to find a way to entertain myself. Hence, the photos you are looking at.

 

 

But just look at those shadows. I couldn't help but notice the lovely patterns the shadows made. Many a trucker gave me an odd look as I stuck my phone out the window of our overly stuffed vehicle. I am sure I am not the first one to do that, but I am pretty sure I am one of the oldest.

I love all things girly,colorful, with a dose of vintage. But I gotta tell you these trucks are too beautiful to not notice. Don't you just think "quilts" when you see them?

Personally, I couldn't get enough of them. I find there is so much beauty in our world and it is not all found in nature.

 

From now on, if I am not driving, I will be taking pictures out the window with my little phone & loving all the patterns and reflections that are out there, and the love of my life will be happy that I didn't ask him to pull over for me.

 

Do you remember the Kodachrome song? It is right up there with American Pie for a road trip song. Do you feel the need to sing it full out?  Come on, I have sung it twenty times already. Jodi? Remember doing karaoke together in Aruba? Come on, click here and lets sing it together.
 

Until next time,  Carolina
 

 
 

 

Wordless Wednesday : The Bride Wore White

 

  

 
 
 

 

Doodle 'til I Drop

We all doodle. We doodle while we are on the phone, when we are bored, when we are frustrated, when we are waiting ... we doodle. We throw away most of these doodles, at least I do. But what if I did a doodle to keep?

 

So what would happen if you took doodling a step further? ... and doodled on different paper...

 

or on something like a paper bag ...
 

 

or with a different tool on something else entirely ... something more ... permanent...

 

Something you could actually sit on and doodle some more ...
 
  

Would you doodle 'til you dropped?

I did.
 

 
 
 

 

Baby steps

And so I begin...I am a new born baby in the blog world. Last night I finally took the leap and jumped into Blog River. The water feels icy-cold and my brain is numb. After many, many tries at coming up with the name for my blog I bought the typepad and .com address for The Muse of The Day and jumped. It was late last night and I know better than to do that so late in my day. My head, of course was thinking ... finally I get to be creative ... the reality is it was anything but that. By 2:30 a.m. I finally came to my senses and bought Typepad For Dummies from Amazon and called it a night. I have a lot to learn. I leave you, my dear friend with a drawing I recently did.  I hope to get this blog up and going so I can get on my  creative path where hopefully the water will be warmer. Until next time, Carolina