Little Trouble Maker

Home Sweet Home

I remember how nervous I was about moving onto our new piece of land in the mountains of New Mexico in 1996. I was excited to live in the forest, but also nervous about bears and possibly mountain lions confronting me on the way to the outhouse. It seems funny looking back now, because we did see a bear occasionally but we never had a mountain lion or even a bobcat bother us, what I should have been worried about were the much smaller animals!

One late fall afternoon, I had the door to the trailer open to enjoy the mild weather when I noticed something about the size of a small cat with tan brown and white fur scurry across the ground outside. It went from under one of our vehicles to hide behind some plywood we had leaned against the storage shed. Jeff was outside, so I asked him if he saw it. He moved some of the plywood and out popped this animal I thought looked like a Chinchilla. It had large eyes and ears and a somewhat fluffy tail. It was kind of cute, but what in heaven’s name was it?

To get a better look at this critter, Jeff set out a few pieces of cat food in a dish and we quietly waited to see if it would come out from under the VW bus and eat the food. It did come out, and quite brazenly too, especially since it was late afternoon and it would have been highly visible to any hunting hawks.
 

White-throated Woodrat, quick sketch

 
Even after a good look, neither one of us was completely certain what it was, so the next time we went down to town to use the computer at the library we searched on-line. (Note: At this point in time, we didn’t have a phone line to our property, there wasn’t cell phone service and we certainly didn’t have a personal computer.) We found out it was a white throated wood rat, often called a pack rat. They could be found living at high altitudes, in rocky terrain and ponderosa forests. Okay, we could check all three of those boxes! Now we knew what the critter was, but we had no idea that a battle of wits had just begun.

One night about 3:00 am, we heard loud scratching noises in the ceiling just above our heads. What was that? Jeff went outside to check but couldn’t see anything. He banged on the ceiling and the noise stopped for awhile but soon those scrabbling noises started up again. It sounded way too loud for a mouse, good heavens, could that possibly be the wood rat?

The walls and ceiling of the 1972 Prowler RV trailer we were living in were made of thin plywood with about a 2 inch layer of insulation between that plywood and the outside metal skin, even rain and hail storms were noisy, but good grief, it was hard to sleep with some large rodent up there making those annoying sounds just above our heads. It would settle down and we would drift off to sleep, only to be awakened again by that scratching! I still remember the vivid dream I had one night of seeing that wood rat’s face peering down on me after I dreamed it had gnawed a hole through the ceiling. Yeeesh.

The next morning Jeff went on the roof and noticed that the vent for our propane stove was the entrance point. He had put window screen over it previously to keep birds out, but this animal had chewed right through that, so he cut a small sheet of expanded metal mesh and attached it over the vent. Perfect.

That night, the scratching sounds started again! Good grief, we had inadvertently trapped the thing in! Sigh, we hadn’t given enough thought about this being a nocturnal animal. We couldn’t use poison, we didn’t want it dead in our walls, so how were we going to get it out? Jeff took the metal screen off and then spent the next few nights waking up at 3am to put it back on after all seemed quiet. We thought he could block the wood rat out after it had gone out to search for food. Nope, nope and nope!

Eventually Jeff came up with a different tactic. The pilot light for our propane fridge was accessible from a small hatch on the outside of the trailer. This hatch was long and narrow, about 16 inches long and 4 inches wide. When he took the hatch off, we could see by the poo-pellets left behind that our wood rat had been to that part of trailer. Great! Jeff decided to leave the hatch off hoping the wood rat would leap the 4 feet to the ground or jump over to the small juniper tree trunk that was only a little over a foot away from the side of the trailer. Problem solved.

Nope. That night we could still hear our unwanted “upstairs” neighbor moving around in the ceiling! That wood rat had moved in with us and wasn’t taking any of our hints to leave.

Follow the Trail, please!

 
 Jeff wasn't defeated yet, he took that long hatch door from the trailer and made a temporary bridge by balancing one end from a knot on the juniper tree’s trunk and resting the other end on the lip of the open hatch on the trailer. Then the best idea of all, he put a line of dry cat food pieces along his makeshift gangway.

We got into bed carefully that night, making certain we didn’t shake the trailer too much and undo Jeff’s handiwork. Generally, it’s not great to be awakened at 3:00 am, but it was the best thing in the world to hear that small piece of metal slap the side of the trailer and fall. After a few moments of celebration, we debated if it was worth going outside in the cold to put the cover back on the hatch. Jeff decided he wasn’t taking any chances and went outside and put the hatch cover back in place. Thank heaven he did.

We had just settled back down under the covers and started feeling sleepy when we heard the most unsettling thing of all, the sound of a wood rat’s tiny toenails scraping down the metal siding of the trailer! It was trying to get back in by leaping from the juniper tree and aiming for the once open hatch! Yikes!

It gave me such an eerie feeling that this animal was so determined to get what it wanted and it was my first inkling that I had underestimated what the smaller wildlife we were sharing this mountainside with were capable of.

Happy creating!
>^-^<

Tina

p.s. My right eye has been fairly stable as long as I keep using the steroid eye drops, still no diagnosis as to why I have this condition. I only have the MRI test left to do, but with the current Covid-19 virus trouble, that may take awhile to schedule.

Hello Spring

Surprise!  They are yellow.

I had a tulip bulb that had accidentally ended up in one of my indoor planters because I am guilty of reusing dirt from other pots. The last two years, it has sent up green leaves but never blooms.
I thought that it just didn't get enough sun, being inside and all, but I never moved it.

This year when the leaves came out, I was amazed to see two buds. Oh my, what color would they be? After reading about tulips, I realized that the bulbs need to get cold before they will bloom again. This year was record cold, 22 degrees below at our place. I am reminded that good things can come from difficulties.

I finished one painting, Cat Trip, when I was doing my "relationship" paintings in February. Because of several difficulties, I haven't painted much since....but I can take heart that like the tulip, maybe these troubles will help me bloom later unexpectedly.

Lucky Kitties

The Millicent Roger's Miniature show was last Sat., Feb 19th. I had entered the 5" x 4" painting of Muffy cat titled "I Am Not Amused" which I had actually painted for this show last year, but I didn't get it finished in time so I entered the watercolor "Look What The Human Dragged In" in it's place.

I didn't expect the watercolor cat with attitude to sell because the watercolor roses I painted the first year I entered didn't sell. Then again, the yellow daisies painted in oil on canvas didn't sell the second year.

I was holding my breath because I thought that the painting selling last year, my third try, was a fluke. If the second cat sold, maybe I was on to something.

I was able to exhale when I saw that my painting was one of the 33 that sold that night out of about 157 entered. The gallery does take 45% of the sale which is really fair for all their work in promoting the show and it is a fund raiser to keep the museum going.

So far, the cats are up two and flowers down two. At least for this show. Let's hear it for little purry mammals!

Relationships

My challenge theme for February is relationships. I have about five paintings in various stages of completion, but I wanted to get the first one I have completed, titled "Cat and Mouse" posted. I like that I now have four paintings related to doorways. It feels like a series! Has anyone seen a greeting card company that might like this style?

I spent today getting pictures ready of the paintings I plan on posting on e-bay soon. This took all of my "painting time" today, but I am determined to keep this goal of getting actual work out to sell this month. I am grateful that I have a relationship with Jeff, because he has been invaluable in sharing his "how to" knowledge of e-bay.

I am also grateful for all of you who have encouraged me and voted for "In The Shadows", I made 2185 out of 5000 entries! Thank you!

New Year

I set a goal to paint with more concepts in mind, and for the month of January I considered new beginnings. This got me thinking about doorways and the anticipation or dread of going into unknown territory.

I liked the "Waiting" painting so much because it sent me back through our travels in Greece and the many doorways and cats that we saw there. I wanted to explore more of those themes.

"In the Shadows" was inspired by our trip to an abandoned silk factory. I wanted to capture the warmth of the red bricks exposed in the heart of the walls in contrast to the cold concrete. I also wanted to have some of the sense of mystery of "what is in the next room".

"Safe Passage" reflects the sense of hope I feel looking forward to the coming year after being in a twilight of worry for the last few months. A golden cat, for me, represents a good messenger and guide.

"Fortune Teller" is the desire we feel in wanting to know the future, but we can only see such a small part of what is ahead of us. All the constellations of the zodiac are there, but can they really tell us anything?

"Fire and Ice", the leaves caught in the winter ice by our spring and "Sheer Gold", the one amber iris I had bloom this summer are part of those beautiful moments that I just love to capture and share. I hope you will enjoy them too.

PS: I entered "In the Shadows" in the Saachi Gallery Showdown 3, a free online gallery for any artist. If you would like the fun of being an Art Critic, click on the link in my "also like"list and then enter my name in the "Search for" box. When you click to vote, you get to sign up for free on their site and then vote away! Have fun! (You get to vote for me vs. another artist, and then for all the others you want--feel the power!) The winning artists get $500.00 and the publicity.

Humpty Dumpty Had a Great Fall

I had a great half-marathon in August, and then everything seems to have "gone off the wall" since then. First, work slowed down to a quarter of what it had been all year. Of course, I had to have a root canal in October, very expensive. Then my Mom had two strokes in November. I was lucky to be able to spend three weeks with her since I didn't have any work. While driving the 700 miles back from my parents, my transmission decides to start slipping, also very expensive. Then to top it all, another tooth filling decides to fail resulting in, you guessed it, a crown. Unbelievable.

There is some promise of work in January and February, but with warnings that things may be a bit slower. All this has made me really look at being more in control of my own work. I need to set more definite goals with deadlines for completion. I am considering seriously putting my work on E-bay. That will require that I produce more work. I have been trying out the tiny 2.5" x 3.5" artist trading card format. I like that I can complete a painting in an afternoon instead of days. I think my images are just as good if not better than some that are selling.

I am posting my first three super tiny paintings, which are canvas on tiny wood frames. I would love your feed back, dear readers, if you are still out there. I think I should get $30.00 each, what do you think?

Jeff's Corner: When life hands you lemons, throw them at someone!

Late Bloomers

Small and beautiful.

I planted my sunflowers later than I wanted to this year. Actually, I have never planted them up here before, but I wanted to see how they would do, even if they got a late start. They did come up, and after learning that I had to protect the seedlings from the birds, who ate about five of them, I managed to get nine plants growing.

As summer has ended, three of them are blooming and I keep warning the others that the frost is coming soon. The classic tall "Silver Stripe" are the ones that are not open yet, even though their bloom heads are formed. The smallest, "Music Box", which is only about 16 inches tall has three blooms on one stock, is already open and so pretty.

I feel like I have been a "late bloomer" my whole life, and I hope that my efforts to keep progressing with my painting will yield some beautiful results, even if my progress towards a career is pretty slow right now.

Shades of Grey

I am enticed by all the flower catalogs that come in the mail and I do my best to resist buying anything. I know all to well that not many plants will survive the weather or the animals here on the mountainside. But last fall, I couldn't resist the "Reblooming Irises" offered by Brecks. I was anxious all spring to see what flowers would appear. So far, only two of the six plants have bloomed. The earliest was completely white and so pretty. I have to admit, I was hoping for something with more color, since painting white flowers is still intimidating to me. Anything "white" is basically every color but white because of the light reflections and shadows. I took a lot of photos, hoping to get something I felt inspired to paint.

I hesitated over the challenge, but decided to dig in. I experimented with mixing ivory black, yellow ochre and white to get a nice warm grey, as suggested by Helen Van Wyk. This looked pretty good, but when I added some alizarin crimson to get cool shadows, it just seemed a bit pink. The principle is to add cool violets to yellows to get nice shadows. My next attempt I tried dioxazine purple instead of the alizarin crimson and that seemed better. Although, when I was near completion I had the feeling that it just looked too purple and basically awful. Jeff confirmed the too much purple part, so I took heart and added back some more yellow ochre and burnt sienna, which is in the yellow family.

This is the odd thing about painting. Often, it will look like such a failure because it doesn't match what I had in mind. Sometimes if I will just take a break and come back with the idea of judging what is there, not what I think should be there, the painting will magically transform from a complete mess in my mind to something that is not that bad. I definitely had that happen this time and only within a few minutes. I was disappointed because I thought it was so ugly I wasn't going to be able to put it on the blog. When I decided to just judge at it as itself, it suddenly looked much better. It does look different than I imagined, but I will leave it up to you to judge!

Alla Prima

In the spirit of trying different painting techniques, I wanted to try "alla prima" which is an Italian phrase that means "at the outset" or as we would say, "all at once". No underpainting, no preliminary drawing, just putting down the "shapes, tones and colors in one opaque application", as Helen Van Wyk describes it.

I had tried this before with oil paints and ended up with a mess. This time, I chose a subject I have painted before, a pink columbine and I followed Helen's directions exactly. First, prime the canvas gray so it is better to judge the color on. Sketch the placement of the image using paint. Put in the main body tones of the subject. (Not the extreme lights or darks.) Know where you light is coming from and paint the background from light to dark accordingly. Surprisingly, the dark side is where the light is coming from. Add light tones. Know where your focal point is and don't detract from it with extra fussy details elsewhere in the painting. Add dark tones and then the final highlights. Be sure you have layered and overlapped your shapes so that things in the foreground look like they belong there. Piece of cake...

Five hours later I had a pretty good little painting. I was hoping for two hours since my canvas was only 4" x 5", but size doesn't seem to matter when you are learning.

I will now share the amazing answer of what happens when you mix Alizarin Crimson and Viridian Green. I was sure I would get some weird brown, but it was the loveliest shade of purple gray. The color mixing principle I was using was to get the shadow tone of a pink flower by adding it's color complement, green. You can see this color on the pink petals of the columbine. I love learning new things that surprise me and I think I will try this style of painting again.

Jeff's Corner: What? Size doesn't matter??!!

Trying A Different Path

We have had a very wet and cold spring here at 8,500 ft. Amidst the gray and sometimes snowy days, the brave daffodils showed their pretty faces and I felt the definite itch to paint them. I decided to try a different approach and try to capture the concept of their boldness to bloom in such bad weather without my usual careful drawing and reference photos.

I chose an 8 x 10 canvas and decided to use acrylic paints because I wanted the quick drying time, so I could change the painting more easily as I painted. I struggled with getting the look of seeing the flowers through a wet window and in getting the sense of form to the flowers.

After some thought, I felt I needed a refresher course in basic value study. I found my copy of Helen Van Wyck's book on painting flowers and and went to work on a tiny 2 and 1/2 x 3 inch canvas to study on. She is so good at explaining body tone, body shadow, cast shadow, reflected light and highlights. I had forgotten her great color mixing ideas. Mainly adding the complement to get lively shadows and highlights. A little Alizarin Crimson added to the Cadmium Yellow made my dull shadows look so much more alive.

Feeling more confident, I decided to try another tiny canvas with oils. I didn't do a refined drawing, but I did get a bit stuck and had to get one of my photos out to get the placement of the shadows right. Even Helen was painting from actual flower arrangements, so it is good to have reference. I just want to learn how to not need it so much, and that will just have to take practice.

Does anyone have any guesses what fabulous color you get when you combine Alizarin Crimson with Viridian Green? I will share the amazing answer with you in the next Blog post!

Jeff Corner: My guess is Alizaridian!

The Third Time IS the Charm!

After some introspection, I set a goal for this new year that is easy to remember and that I thought I truly needed. This is it: "Less Stress; Generate Joy". I don't usually do the whole "goal" thing because I usually end up so frustrated since I set such unrealistic expectations for myself. But in the interest of following the advice of Eric Maisel in "Coaching the Artist Within", I needed to set a "purpose" for my creative life.

The deadline for the Millicent Rogers Museum show was a month earlier this year. This is my third year to enter, and I had been working on an idea, but with all the craziness around Christmas I wasn't able to finish the painting I had in mind. Instead, I remembered my goal and asked myself what I could reasonably accomplish in the time I had. So I ordered a frame for the the acrylic painting of "Oh My, Look What the Human Dragged In" and submitted that piece on time.

The opening for the show was this last Saturday, Feb 20th. After finding where my painting was hanging in the show, we made another round in the gallery to choose our favorites to vote for the "people's choice" awards. When we made it back to my painting to give it one last look before going home, Jeff noticed that it had sold! This was particularly sweet since there were some big name local artist's who hadn't sold their pieces yet. I felt particularly rewarded for choosing to have "less stress" and boy, did that sale generate some joy!

Jeff Corner: Now I'll never NOT be able to take pictures of cats...

"Take A Whack At It..."

"You can't hit a home run unless you step up to the plate." This was the advice from the card from the "Whack Pack" which I drew a few weeks ago when I was dithering about how to proceed on an idea for a painting I wanted to do. I was hoping to finish this new painting of a small disdainful Muffy cat in time for the Millicent Roger Museum's annual miniature show.

As usual, I was trying to know the end from the beginning and forgetting that often the answer comes while you are working on the painting. I came up with the idea of collaging a fictional news story behind Muffy, explaining why she looked so disgusted. I liked the idea, but I wasn't sure how to get the typewritten piece to put behind her and I worried that it might be too distracting from the main painting.

That advice was just what I needed to get moving instead of thinking. I wrote my story on the computer and then copied it onto a sheet of tracing paper. I ordered the picture frame I thought might work on line. I made several scale copies of Muffy's photo so I could see what size image would work best on a tiny 5"x 4" canvas. Finally, I got to the painting.

I made the right decision by doing a black and white underpainting of Muffy before I added the "news article" type. That helped so I could see the image as I added other layers of collage. I should have tested the tracing paper for buckling. It did get a bit bumpy when I put the collaging gel on it, but I decided to keep it anyway. While I was working, I remembered I had a piece of sheer green collaging paper that was just the color of Muffy's eyes. I added it over the whole image, hoping it would still go with the picture frame I had picked out. I had a moment when I thought I had ruined the whole thing, but I kept painting and I am very pleased with the result. It is different than I imagined, but I think it is better. Leaving room for the unexpected is a good idea.

Jeff's Corner: Paint first, ask questions later!

Virus!

Well, the good news is I didn't catch the virus, our poor computer did! It took Jeff many hours and phone calls to get our machine back to health. We sure realized how much we rely on this great tool and I wished a similar disease to strike those who create those kind of things. Talk about creative energy gone awry....and yes, I know I am vengeful, which is of course, another waste of energy.

Anyway, I do have a painting I wanted to share, which is another one from my "fall leaves and collage experiments." It is called "Masquerade". My inspiration was from a photo of the heart of one of my Dutch Irises from this summer. I have been looking over my flower pictures and trying to see some abstract designs or other themes that are not just obviously flowers.

With the fall leaves I added on the canvas, I also used some very sheer papers that had metallic designs that I thought worked with the sparkle of the real flower petals. I also hoped to capture the sense of a mask. Was I successful? What do you think?

Jeff's Corner: Next Halloween, I am going as one of Tina's paintings.

Tiny Fun

I wanted to do a small painting for a card for a "get well" card for a friend. I decided to use one of my photos of cats from Greece, mainly because this friend is a great lover of cats.

I haven't tried painting with acrylics on watercolor paper for at least a year, so I thought I would give it a try. I couldn't believe a 5" x 7" painting could take five hours, but it did. The happy part about acrylics is that I could adjust the cats face several times until I could get it right. The cat's expression was key to the whole punch line of the card, (see the photo title).

Since the painting did take so much time, and I had another sick friend, I decided to do a color copy of the card onto good photo paper. The color density of the acrylics made for beautiful copies. Another plus for acrylics!

I just got the entrance form for the Millicent Roger's Museum miniature show for this year, and this painting gave me some ideas for my entry. Needless to say, I have small cats on my mind.

Jeff's Corner: "Morris, time for din din!"

Inspiration

After our snow storm in September, we actually did get some warmer days and some beautiful fall colors. I was particularly inspired by a group of Popular trees that were such a rich golden color, they fairly glowed in the fall sunshine. I stopped to pick up some of their leaves from the parking lot that was under them, and the combination of the black asphalt, yellow leaves and the red coat I was wearing gave me an immediate inspiration for a painting.

"Flip-side" 11" x 14" acrylic on canvas ©2009 Tina M Welter

I don't often get flashes like that, but it was great to be able to see something in my mind's eye that I wanted to create. Lately, I had been considering incorporating some collage into the background of my paintings to give them more interest and texture. I saw those leaves as an excellent resource to practice with. I purchased some "Golden" brand acrylic gel medium, which was suggested for collage, and got to work.

I chose to paint with acrylics because I knew that would mix well with that medium and because they dry fast. I didn't start with a drawing, I just started putting down the colors I wanted. My only rule was that I had to go with what felt right, and that I couldn't stop and think about it too long. This was incredibly fun and I ended up getting surprised mid-way with an idea that I wouldn't have thought of to start with, it had to evolve with the painting. A good lesson for me, since I often like to know the solution to many problems before I even get started!

"Flip-side" 11" x 14" acrylic on canvas ©2009 Tina M Welter

 Soon I felt I was finished, so I asked for Jeff's opinion, and he had one excellent suggestion to add one red leaf. Perfect. That is why it is good to have another pair of eyes that you trust. I signed the painting and hung it up. After a few days, I ended up turning it upside down and I think I like it better that way. I have posted it with both views, because I am interested in hearing some other opinions. Tell me which view you like better!

Jeff's Corner: I've looked at leaf from both sides now...

Update. I realized I didn't make it clear that the leaves in the middle of the painting ARE real leaves that I added onto the canvas using the acrylic gel medium. Thanks for asking and for voting!

Fall Preserves

I love the colors.

Summer is officially over when it snows here, and that was on Sept. 21st. My garden is mostly done. I managed to get the tomatoes under cover, but they are still only as big a golf balls. I made a valiant effort to grow things at this elevation, 8500 ft., but it did prove just too cold for squash and pumpkins. There were some potatoes to harvest and some very small corn. Lettuce and chard were definitely the winners.

Still pretty, even after the frost.

 Luckily, my family sent me home from Utah with peaches, blackberries, squash, normal size sweet corn and some cucumbers. My creativity has been focused on making jam and trying to bottle pickles for the first time. Thankfully, I had some success. It is more fun when my efforts pay off in good things to eat.

I have been working on some new flower painting ideas, but I am not quite ready to show the results of those. I thought the jars of jelly and jam were quite lovely to share for now.

Jeff's Corner: Now I know why Euell Gibbons was eating pine trees... (and what's in Grape Nuts anyway? No grapes, no nuts...)

Finally!

I was able to have some time last week to finally complete the commission of Muffy's portrait. Getting my boss's artwork ready for the big show it August took most of my time and desire to even work on art projects.

The happy news is that I was very happy with the finished painting. I was so glad that the cat's fur didn't look too "stiff". Also, my client was so happy she gave me a tip and sent me a thank you note. I am looking forward doing something else challenging of my own. Perhaps finishing a portrait that I started two years ago...painting people terrifies me, so I should try it, right?

Jeff's Corner:  "Absolutely!"

Mental Gymnastics

I originally started this blog with the idea of testing what changing my thinking about my art making process might do to actually getting some art done. I think I have made some progress, but like anything, it takes practice. After reassessing what my mind set has been lately, I thought I could use a mini-workshop to get back on track.

I had purchased a set of cards called the "Creative Whack Pack" a few years ago. These were the invention of Roger Von Oech who is an author of several creativity books. The deck consists of 64 cards with each card having a different creativity strategy. There are four, sixteen card suits: Explorer, Artist, Judge, and Warrior. These represent four types of thinking involved in the creative process.

Anyway, I decided to get these cards out and try one of the suggested exercises to determine what type of creative style I have. My strongest suit turned out to be "Judge", which is evaluating an idea and deciding what to do with it. The next was "Warrior", this is the action suit for implementing ideas. (I thought that was good). "Explorer",which is for discovering resources to create new ideas and "Artist", transforming resources into new ideas were my least used strategies. No wonder I feel like my thinking is a bit stale! Obviously, all these strategies are good in their own way, but I can definitely see that I need to balance them out more evenly.

Now I am randomly choosing a card per day and applying that strategy to my day. So far, "Loosen Up" and "Asking, What IF?" were the most interesting and helpful. The "Experiment" is back on track!

Jeff's Corner: Suit yourself!

Putting first things first...

Last week I had a great comment on the blog that reminded me about doing what is most important to me first. I know that Eric Maisel suggested that in his book "Coaching the Artist Within". Lately, I have not been following through on that principle as far as my artwork goes. Consequently, my productivity has really suffered.

I did try put this concept back into play Saturday, and I succeeded in four and a half hours of blissful painting. It was a bit of a jolt to get back to the laundry, dealing with stacks of paper, etc. and I didn't get my floors swept or all the plants watered. I will admit I was a bit grumpy later when I was finishing dishes late at night. Jeff reminded me that I was just going to have to make up my mind about what I was going to be happier getting done, and quit trying to insist on doing it all. Blasphemy! I hate it when I can't be superwoman.

I spent a bit of time Sunday afternoon replaying some music for the piano I had written a couple of years ago. I have wanted to do this for a long time, but kept putting it off because I thought it would be such a disappointment. I had given it up in disgust at my lack of ability to write down all the music that I could hear in my head and I couldn't seem to get the music writing software, a computer and a keyboard that were all compatible at the same time to make up for my writing handicap. Amazingly, I could read and play what I wrote and got a great deal of enjoyment from hearing that music again. I would like to finish some of those compositions. Obviously, I am NOT superwoman and can't do everything, but I felt much happier this weekend actually doing more of what I like and less of what I "should" do.

Jeff's corner: My motto is - Don't "should" on yourself!

Moving Forward Slowly

I truly thought that when summer was here, I would be getting much more painting done than I have. I have not been doing my painting hour in the morning because I have been using more of that time to train for a half-marathon that I wanted to attempt the end of August. I also thought that once I got my garden planted and growing, it would take less time. I think I will have to be less ambitious next year and stick to lettuce and radishes!

Frankly, this week has been a real battle with depression over my whole "Artist Life Experiment". I haven't felt like writing because I think my progress has slowed so substantially and that I don't have anything to share other than my own discouragement, and that is not what I wanted this blog to be about.

I did manage to get some of the background color on the portrait of Muffy, and that did cheer me up. I think it is a good start. I can see that perhaps I need to re-evaluate my goals and decide whether to be content with doing many goals and getting a little done on each, or going back to being more focused on just one goal, then stop giving myself a guilt trip! Does anyone else always think they can do more than they really can? How do you deal with it?! Life is short, and I want to accomplish so much.

Jeff's Corner: What? Life is short?! Oh crap!...