Day 28

Last day!  :)
Joy today is having all my dishes and clothes clean!!

Day 27

Joy today was a nice day out with friends at the museum of natural history.  I love it there.

Day 26

Joy...my Daniel Gerhartz dvd arrived!

Day 25

We got a lot of snow, and I am working from home.  School is also closed.  Joy today is being able to stay home and drink tea all day.

Day 24

Joy is more snow!  What a great winter.  :)

Day 23

Joy today is getting LOTS of stuff done and feeling accomplished- cat went to the vet, Daya went to the dentist, and we went to see a movie with friends after wards.

Day 22

Joy today is my Oily Girls over at WetCanvas.  It's wonderful  to have such caring, supportive, intelligent, and talented friends.

I'm working on a neverending painting... well, I hope it ends!! I have to get through the tedious part... here is a detail  sneak-preview!  (ignore the background; it is blacked out on purpose)

Day 21

Joy today is painting. (again)

Day 20

My friend and I took the kids to Chuck E Cheese today.  My daughter loves it there- me, not so much.  But she had fun.

Joy today was LEAVING and going home!

The 2010 Portrait Exchange

Back in November I did a drawing and painting of Dave- my portrait swap partner.  He is a wonderful gentleman from Wales, with a great face. 

I mailed Dave's portrait out this past Tuesday morning via regular airmail- I was shocked when Dave sent me a note early Friday morning that it had already arrived!!

 

Here is a pic of the lovely painting and drawing I got from Dave!  (Images posted with permission.)

Thanks Dave for being such an awesome portrait swap partner!

Day 19

Joy today is FRIDAY!

Day 18

Joy today is oil paint.  I finally spent some time at the easel for the first time this year.  :)

Day 17

Joy today is Tylenol, because my head and shoulders really hurt a lot...a hot shower didn't fix it, but the Tylenol is working.  So I am glad it is here.

Day 16

Joy today is getting my driver's license renewed.  Now that might seem an odd thing to be a joy- but since I was told growing up that I wouldn't be able to drive due to my wonky eyes, it's a big deal to me.  Even the trip to the DMV was painless and relatively fast.

I think the eye dr I had as a teen wasn't a particularly good one-  since he might have contributed to the no driving thing.  He also told me once that I have no peripheral vision, which is completely wrong.  My vision field is, as my eye dr today said, textbook perfect.  And he would know, since I have to take a visual field test every year.

Day 15

Joy today is a whole entire day to not have to do anything, go anywhere, run any errands, or take my daughter out,

Day 14

Joy today is unexpected alone time while my daughter is at a no-parents birthday party!  And even better, her friend is also vegetarian!  It's good for her to have peer support.   :)

Day 13

Joy is getting my portrait swap painting in the mail!!!  Almost a month and a half after it was sent- we thought it was lost in the mail and I was very sad. I painted Dave, and Dave painted me!  Picture later.

Day 12

Joy is a hot bath with grapefruit lemon soap.

Day 11

Joy today is evening silence.

Day 10

Joy today is good friends.

Day 9

Snow!!
I don't have to drive in it, I don't have to shovel it.  Joy.  :)

Day 8

I am feeling joyful today about the snowstorm that is coming tomorrow night!!

Day 7

Joy today is an absolutely perfect cup of looseleaf organic assam tea.

Day 6

Joy today is a relaxing day.

Day 5

Joy today is having finished all the tasks I had to do at the office this week, with nothing hanging over me this weekend.

Day 4

Joy today is reading a good book.  :)

Day 3

Joy today is a warm furry purring kitty cat.

Day 2

Joy today is making and decorating gingerbread cookies with my daughter!  They didn't come out as good as the ones my friend Jane gave us, so I'll have to make them again to perfect the recipe.  :)

Day 1

Today was my official start of Soul Coaching. This is my third year going through the program and it really is wonderful. Like last year, I will keep my joy journal online this time around.

My joy for today is unexpected gifts. Today was the first day back at work after the holidays. It is well-known in the office that i love my tea, and I am always sharing tea with those who sit around me. My co-worker went to Disney World over the break. He went into a tea shop and saw a box of green tea with different flavorings. He said he thought of me and got me a box! Wasn't that nice?

2011

Well, it is the start of yet another new year. As always, I set intentions rather than resolutions.

Here are my intentions:
*Drink a lot of tea
*Go through my Portrait Painting Atelier book
*Artistic focus: direct layered paintings, portraiture and plein air. Last year I completed 74 paintings!! It is time to slow down and start applying all that practice to longer, more finished works.
*Go through the Soul Coaching program again.
*Change my name back (finally!!)
*A secret intention that i am not announcing publicly until it is concrete

How to Get Everything You Want for Christmas

My 5 year old basically got everything she wanted for Christmas. But not because she is some super-angel child (which she is most of the time) or any successful wheedling tactics.

No, she did it the old fashioned way and wrote a good solid list for Santa. She even put in there (somewhere) "tea for Mommy".

This list, however, was a little non-traditional, guaranteed to get Santa's attention. She used the back of a piece of paper that was floating around my apartment...the color reference I used when i painted Twilight...

Whatever works, right?

Mr. Jitters

Drusilla and her 3 rat boys are staying with us for the holidays.  Here is a little painting of her hairless rat, Mr. Jitters.

2 hours, 8x10 oil on canvas

Plein Air 39

It's 27 degrees out today (that's -3 for you Celsius fans) and I have a day off, so I went out painting in Central Park.  It was cold and I was standing on a steep slope which was really uncomfortable.

This morning before I left my friend sent me a text WITH CAPITAL LETTERS  telling me I HAD to get a copy of Pema Chodron's Unconditional Confidence as soon as possible.  So I did, because I usually recognize obvious Signs when I see them.

I started listening to the lecture right exactly as I started painting.  Pema's opening lines in the speech were about- the act of starting a painting- and I do mean I was literally laying out my first brush strokes on the blank panel as she was saying it.  And this was not a lecture on painting.

(By the way, it is an excellent lecture and I highly recommend it)

I like when things like this happen, the moments of obvious synchronicity.  Things for me have been very quiet on the spiritual front. And life in general.  I have felt uninspired and generally in a flat place.  Like the Nice Guidance Voices have gone quiet and have been busy with other things.  So it is really nice when the universe says HI I AM HERE!! in a way I cannot possibly miss or misinterpret.


Anyhow, here is the painting.  8x10 oil on panel, one hour, it was toned with yellow ochre but I like an earth red undertone better.

Palette: Fanchon Red, Yellow Ochre, Lemon Yellow, Pthalo Green, French Ultramarine, and Burnt Umber.
I like this particular palette quite a lot, it might be my favorite plein air palette to date.

Today was also my new knife's first outing.  She had a great time.  I should have put more of that red leaf ground color in the rocks.