go dog go

am running amuck but managed to get this dog painted and i’m pleased beyond pleased with it! the background is in acrylics: i painted the 8″ x 12″ wood panel in red then off white then blue then sanded and i think got a fun effect. the dog is from a photo my friend joyce took while in south africa recently…he just looks so mournful and “take me home” (i would!) that i had to paint him. i did him in oils. i was so happy when done i can hardly tell you! some things i’ve painted over the years i’ve grown to dislike as time goes by. some things i love more with time and i think this is going to be one of those. hooray for oils…too fun!

kelley and hudson come tomorrow…yippee!…and will be here until next monday so no paintings this week. but when they leave, i’m ready to go full tilt! i’ve got my next painting planned and a great business venture in the works that i’ll go into next time.
now…got to go put together a baby swing i borrowed and fit the baby car seat i borrowed into the car and go shopping for vegetarian meals for kell and wash the sheets etcetc! it’s gramma time!

ya gotta hear this and see that

just ran across this and it is a lovely thing.  i LOVE james taylor and have since his “sweet baby james” album came out.  he was gorgeous and his voice made me melt…he is still very appealing and his voice still makes me melt.  here he is with allison krause (awesome in her own right) at a tribute at the kennedy center for paul simon (another genius singer/songwriter that i love) singing his “the boxer.”

http://razor9edge.vox.com/library/audio/6a00c2251e8450604a00e398a06d820005.html

i’d love to hear a whole album of them collaborating!

no new paintings yet…i’ve been out of town and back into real life with a vengence.   kaki, my baby, is graduating from high school next week, my folks are coming for it, we are re-doing alyx’s room-cleaning out & re-painting, having a garage sale, and i’ve got painting jobs on top of it all.  fun and fun. so it’ll be another couple weeks before i break out the oils again.  though for kicks, here’s the set of refrigerator magnets slash christmas ornaments i made niev from her favorite series, the baby blue cat books by ainsley pryor.  these picture books you can only get used now, they are out of print which is a shame as they are so fun, especially the baby blue cat who said no and the baby blue cat and the whole batch of cookies.  alyx and kaki loved them and now niev.  thanks, ainsley pryor! (i’ve tried to find a way to send her a fan letter but to no avail. drats.)

got back from portland yesterday…had a grand time with the grandbabies!  here’s some braggy photos:

hudson, 3 months, and my kelley

hudson and his hero, cousin ty

rowan (or ronin as niev and i call her) 6 months

ronin divebombing hudson

niev, 2 1/2...my sister karli was playing photographer and got this hollywood worthy headshot

my hilarious niev LOVED playing with the dollhouse at my folk's house

this gramma gig is the BEST!

ya gotta see ‘em movie reviews

two movies to share, one a blockbuster, one a quiet little indy film, both highly enjoyable.

quiet little indy: “wrist cutters”
this was one of those films that i might never have picked up on my own.  one boring evening earlier in the week, miq went to the local video store…sidebar: are they still called that even though mostly none of us are watching videos and mostly all are watching dvds?  “i’m going to the dvd store” just doesn’t have the ring that “i’m going to the video store” does.  and speaking of that, doesnt “mix tape” sound way cooler than “mix cd”??  i believe i will have to call them mix tapes til the end of time or some other technology comes along that sounds as cool.  okay and yes, cd’s are much much cooler than wonky tapes but i’m just talkin’ words.  mix tape: cool.  mix cd: clunky.  end of sidebar….so miq went to the video store and the pickings were slim.  he brought home a terribly dumb film we’d never heard of called “fan boys” (give that a big fat pass) and this.  after watching fan boys, i hadn’t much hope at all for wrist cutters but how wrong was i. if you are looking for action and car chases and sex and violence and larger-than-life characters, this is not it. it was wonderful and a gem.  very quirky in every way right down to the quirky sound track (i am now a huge fan of gogol bordello!) but it’s quirky in all the right ways, quirky in unself-conscious ways, quirky in quiet, intelligent ways.  loved it. LOVED IT!

blockbuster: “STAR TREK”

star trek…this was my favorite tv show when i was kid, my favorite tv show that never got old, that i watched re-runs of for years and years and years and then watched all it’s permutations.  from 1966-1969,  those original shows, from ages 9 to 12, it’s where i lived.    i can’t tell you how much i loved this show and how it’s been a constant in my life.  i love that original cast, i love the sometimes goofy lines, the cheesy sets/costumes/makeup…i love it. i loved the spinoffs (voyager less but next generation, deep space nine and enterprise in particular). the stories were what set it apart, the underlying themes and the friendships especially between spock, kirk and mccoy.  so you can imagine how much i was anticipating this movie and it gave it all and more.  the casting was utterly brilliant, the writing and directing and story amazing…the alternate backstory thus leading to an alternate future for our beloved characters was inspired.  as future films with this cast (hopefully!) are made, one won’t be able to compare to the past.  they can take this in wholly new directions because they changed the future.  but most of all, i loved that leonard nimoy and his spock were such a big part of this story.  he was my fav when i was a kid and he’s still a fav now.  this series touches some part in me that i can’t explain.  it feels bigger than just a cheesy tv show and spinoffs and movies and now this the definitive movie.  it’s about the best of being human and where we can possibly go in the future…we can progress and learn and reach out into the universe.  it’s also about how important we are to each other, the friendships that we need to live each day.  mushgush…you get the drift.  go see it!  now! again!

re-do

finished the re-painting of alyx’s last night. have found out an important if aggravating thing: photos of paintings are never the same as the paintings not to mention the fact that they seem to highlight the worst faults of a given painting. photos in real life look much better (and a bit less flawed!). but what can you do? i have my next painting planned and will start tomorrow. am learning a lot. still not sure of the direction i’m heading but i am on the road…

ignore the previous ta-da

well, kids…painting the second.  this one of kaki and in oils.  this isn’t exactly a great photo of it but you get the drift.  much better than my first of alyx…which, by the way, i’ve just gesso-ed over as the more i looked at it, the more it stunk out loud.  that’s right. you heard me. IT SCREAMED STINK.  i am going to give it another go this time with oils.  oils have always seemed scary/hard to work with and i’ve never given them a proper chance but as it turns out, they are grand.  not that my painting is grand yet but i think oils are the way to fly for this portrait-y type stuff.  i’m just happy painting outside my comfort zone, outside clients, outside the same ol same ol…

ta-da

third time’s the charm!  i’m learning this blog thing through trial and error…i could have conferred with my Blog Guru (hi ilan!  i should have called you!) but i finally figured out how to put a photo on here (yippee!)  all by my frustrated self. so here’s my first small painting to be offered up to the art blog gods.  i’ve not really explored the photo-realistic thing and some part of me wants to say i can even if it’s not what i end up calling my own.  it’s not quite there yet…i’ve a long ways to go.  but ian and kaki and miq knew immediately that it was alyx which is a happy thing.  ian gave it some good critique-ing and technique advice that will come in handy the next go round. (#1 thing i learned:  pick a better photo with more contrast.)

i have to confess that painting this was a bit scary? stressful?   besides pretending to be smart, i was afraid that maybe i’ve been pretending to be a painter.  what is my style? where is my voice?  what if i’m a fraud??   doing this little painting, even if it’s not yet where i ultimately want to be, made me think that maybe sorta some day just maybe i can do it, that i can find whatever it is i’m looking for art-wise.  i guess i will just keep pretending that i know what i’m doing until i do…

playing smart

“don’t play dumb with me.”

“no, honestly, i am dumb. most of the time I’m playing smart.”

–sam seaborn, the west wing

we just became utterly addicted to the west wing, one of the best shows ever created and cast and written and directed, one of the best things to come out of the medium of televison.  if you haven’t watched this amazing in-depth look into the workings of the white house, i suggest that you run rent it pronto or dvr it on bravo and okay, that is all just not the point but i came across the above west wing quote recently and it really just about sums up my day-to-day functioning walking-around-on-our-planet life.

i pretend that i’m an intelligent human.  oh yes, i do have some serviceable brains, a gift and love of books and words, a curiousity about the workings of the universe, an interest in the history of our species blahdeeblahdeeblah…but honestly, it’s all bits and pieces, dribs and drabs and trivia with a general overview of things.  like i’ve taken all the general ed 101 classes without doing the really hard work learning any one thing down to the bone.

and when i look back on my life, how i’ve dealt with other humans thus far…yikes!  i have had some incredibly stupid moments, sometimes lasting for years.  in 52 orbits of the planet around the sun, i’ve been dumb much much more than i’ve been smart. but i spend a lot of time playing smart soaked in the knowledge that really, basically, i’m an idiot.

just had to get that out there at the start.  want no pretenses.

i would hate to think this blog is just a glorified confessional because honestly if that’s what it’s going to be i will just end this right now and put both of us out of our misery…but i have hopes that in time this blogging whatnot will lead to something fine.

i’m not great at this blog thing.  i’m not great at looking at other people’s blogs (besides my kids/grandkid’s) and never thought i’d give it a go myself.  couldn’t be bothered, didn’t see the point.  i fill up my days pretty quickly without spending heaps of time on the internet cruising other people’s blogs but i have to confess to being utterly in awe of my friend orly’s blog (go there! now!) and not so much her blog but the richness of her art and inner world as exposed by her blog.

a couple weeks ago, i was going to go out to brekkie with her and she had asked me (many times…did i mention i’m lame?)  to comment on her blog so i decided to go through her blog from the beginning and oh. my. gosh.  the art and the love and the excitedment and the life and the joy poured from the thing and in some small grey part of my soul i didn’t realize how much i’d been neglecting spoke in this tiny but clamoring voice “i want that.”  so when i saw her at breakfast, i confessed and she proselytized. this blog thing as well as art journaling (see her blog for more on that) for her were the key to unlocking some pretty serious creativity and wonder.  she glowed as spoke and infected me with her enthusiam and excitement.  i went that afternoon to her home where her two delicious and smart and quality children i am fortunate enough to call my friends, ilan and maya, helped me set up the beginning bits of this blog space.  huzzah for the avineri’s!  huzzah! blessings upon you each and every.

so i’ve spent the day blowing my brains out over what to name the thing (does it work?  so many options and choosing is tough!) and what to have for a header and then taking a photo and figuring out how to edit it in photoshop elements and then figuring out how to do it on here…and here i am writing this and  i’m hoping…HOPING…that it truly will be a key to unlock some creative juices, to get out of my fug, to find my own voice after painting so much in others.  sure, i’ll share the occasional movie or book or hilarious grandkid story and you’ll just have to put up with that.  but my goal is to at least once a week paint some thing for no other reason than because and put the result on here and maybemaybemaybe i’ll be a little less dumb about painting as time goes by….

reviews:

movie: les choristes (the chorus) a really lovely gentle little french film that was a total treat

book: the elegance of the hedgehog by muriel barbery…a really lovely smart french novel that was honestly one of the best books i’ve read this year.  yumyum

and just to round out the program…

HILARIOUS NIEV TWO YEAR OLD JOKE:  so we have webcam/skype on the computer now…i can read niev her bedtime story while looking at her adorable self (amazing and yet, life-long sci-fi reader that i am: what took so long??).  she says to me in the biggest stage-whisper, hand partly covering her mouth, glee in her face “i’ve got a secret!”  “you do? what?” i ask and she screams “CANDY!” then laughs hysterically.  then repeats several times.  and it’s as funny to us both the last time as the first.