#367/365 Paintings

From the book: How to be an Explorer of the World. Portable life museum. Keri Smith.

“You are an explorer. Your mission is to document and observe the world around you as if you’ve never seen it before. Take notes. Collect things you find on your travels. Document your findings. Notice patterns. Copy. Trace. Focus on one thing as a time. Record what you are drawn to.”

……….

I love this book and it seemed the perfect thing to leave you with after this year of exploring coffee, bunnies, cows, kites, Dr. Seuss, food, wine, horses, dogs, Europe, fishes, literary inspirations and more together. I’m overwhelmed that this project is coming to a close. If I didn’t have so many wonderful things to look forward to creating from it in 2014, I just might be too much of a puddle to conclude it. ; )

I have some wrap up pages for you. One is a calendar of ALL of the paintings over the year. It’s a quick way to see them all and click to the posts. The other is the reflections article I promised. It chronicles in short summation the beginning, middle and end of this project and a few practices that made it happy/healthy. Click on images below to get there.

[one_half][/one_half][one_half_last]

[/one_half_last]

I intend to keep you in the loop about gallery plans, Kickstarter book stuff, fun photos, coaching, articles and new works when the year long children’s book illustration study course begins in Jan. So this is not goodbye—just to this format. Still, I look forward to some down time — chocolate and bubbly.

H A P P Y   N E W  Y E A R’ S  Change is your friend. So am I!

#365/365 Paintings. WAHOO!

D O G by Niya Christine.

I’m an old dog—a yellow lab as handsome as the day is long. I know that’s a cliché thing to say but I’m not a creative type like my friend Bosely—he’s an Irish Setter. I’m what you’d call a traditionalist. I like to eat exactly at 8:30 a.m. and 6 p.m. I take my bone with me everywhere I go. I will not carry the poop-bag.

I’ve had three names in my life. Max, Sirus and Jonesy—and this divides my life into three, four year parts. I’m glad I was Max in the first four years of my life. I lived with a family…a pretty good one too! But the woman, Grace…

If you want to read this story in full, click here

………….

I enjoyed writing this story. Max, Sirus and Jonesy had a life that we either pity or envy depending upon your point of view. ; )

………….

#364/365 Paintings

“Fear not the strangeness you feel, the future

must enter you long before it happens. Just wait

for the birth for the hour of new clarity.” ~ Rilke

………..

This is a good one for New Years. Me likey!

#363/365 Paintings

Robert Grudin: From, Time and The Art of Living

“The simplest form of creative expression available to most of us is the letter. Letters may take us an hour or less to write; but a number of them {Plato, Cicero and Pliny the Younger} have endured for millennia. Whether we write for permanence or merely for communication, the act of producing a letter, even one never mailed necessitates a form of creative concentration that can improve our lives.”

…………..

I want to thank Janet Faught for the reminder today in our email exchange about the art of letter writing. It becomes even more precious in these times.

#362/365 Paintings

Anne Lamott. Excerpt from “Bird by Bird”

“I still encourage anyone who feels at all compelled to write to do so.”

{…}

“But I also tell my students that sometimes when my writer friends are working, they feel better and more alive than they do at any other time. And sometimes when they are writing well, they feel that they are living up to something. It is as if the right words, the true words, are already inside them, and they just want to help them get out. Writing this way is a little like milking a cow: the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.”

………

“…the milk is so rich and delicious, and the cow is so glad you did it.”  {love that line}

Bird by Bird. Painting by painting. 5 more to go. Hope everyone’s Christmas was fabulous!

#357/365 Paintings

One day a young rabbit found himself alone in the family den.

His sister, 10 seconds younger had nuzzled him to go above
to play. But he found the sun, flowers, bees, hay, mosquitoes and an occasional rattlesnake a lot to negotiate one month into life. He decided he would rather snuggle with the cool earth and wait for legitimate ideas and deeds. He was certain there was more to life than the stresses above. So he kept house and sat in just
the right place to have full choice of any of mother’s milk when she returned.

Days went by and neither mother nor siblings came home. He became
very scared, very hungry, very tired.

……………. See next page.