Art Class

Wow. I've been making art most of my life. My older cousin Dean threatened to hit me REALLY hard if I went outside the lines in his coloring book. I remember being quite frightened that he would notice I did get a speck out of the lines, so I outlined the entire picture with black crayon. I later decided I couldn't draw, so started making cartoons, and eventually gave up my arty self to my sister Anita, who I said was the artist of the family. I took a class about twenty years ago, based on the book, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, by Betty Edwards. A local gal taught the class and he changed how I think about things. Everything we render as an artist is merely a shape...





Now, I have taken another class, at Gage Academy of Art, in Seattle, and a wonderful, talented artist named Rita Natarova, has changed how I look at things again. I learned about edges, and how to render a drawing or painting with very little on the page. Well, I must say I learned how it's done. If I practice, I hope one day to be able to do it. Wow. Learning something new every twenty years. I highly recommend it.

Polaroid Cameras

I was thinking of technology the other day as I took a Polaroid photo of a friend to make a kitchy calendar for the refrigerator, with a tiny premade calendar stuck on below it, and a magnet on the back.

I bought that camera in 1987 when I was in Real Estate and a new agent in Seattle. We would take our data (printed on dot matrix printers, and cut with a paper cutter) and glue them on to a page. Above the data about the homes that we were comparing, we would add a photograph.

If we had time, we would take the photos with a 35 mm camera, and then have them developed and glue them above the data. If we didn't have time, and were in a rush to get the information to the client, we drove through neighborhoods, taking Polaroid photos and gluing them onto the top of the page...

My daughters said, "You know, mom, they are going to stop making Polaroid film. Everything digital now." I realized I've had the camera for 21 years. It was a very good 25 dollar investment.

Holiday Traditions

Gingerbread houses? Not at my childhood home. I was born a few days after Christmas, so the birthday cake idea seemed silly after overeating from Thanksgiving through Christmas. We started making "candy houses". I think it may have started with gingerbread, but my mother didn't care for the flavor of gingerbread. It was a tradition got to help stick the candy on, with a thick fast drying icing. I got to rip the candy off and eat it on my birthday. Eventually the cardboard boxes we made the houses out of became a sturdy, wooden house, including a wooden yard, and a wooden fence, and...of course, an outhouse. (including the opening door with a crescent moon on it). One year my father brought this contraption home from his cabinet shop. It has survived all the years (40 or so) and all the candy stuck on over foil.

What is your holiday tradition that has survived?

Fall Leaves

Recycled Binders

The ReBinder is a very cool tool. Check out the way it looks after one quarter in middle school. The great thing about this is that the center binder is removable and the cover is replaceable. A Seattle company that ships in a flash, and makes envelopes, folders, cd covers, etc.

Girlfriend Saturdays

Patricia had a great idea recently. She and I have been walking on Saturday mornings for about 16 years as a way to keep in touch while having busy lives. We recently started helping each other out after the walk for three or four hours.

One Saturday she announced, "I need a wife". Don't we all, I replied. She elaborated with a list of tolerations she was meaning to get to in her house, and yard. We agreed to spend every other week helping each other. We can ask for any task, as big and messy as they come, and we set to working right after our walk and a snack. There is usually a lunch break, too, and then we are off to whatever the day has for us, gone our separate ways.

So far we have organized paperwork, put together storage shelves, and done guerrilla gardening. Here is a photo of us after 4 hours of intense gardening. The perennials were chest high, and (!) there were weeds. Now...ready for the winter and coming spring.

Thanks Patricia!

Bird

Here is a little sketch of a bird taking flight, done on two pieces of paper from a journal with tear out sheets. I've been enjoying painting the images on both sides of the page since reading about vacation journaling a couple of years ago.

Rejection.

almost happy

Happy is what I am trying to paint. This one may make it. Satisfied. Happy. Thoughtful. She knows a secret, perhaps, as most girls do...

Accept the News

Here is an image I worried over and now I think it's done, although I occasionally paint over things I don't like.

Last night, it looked like a creepy person. Today I think it looks like someone who has just heard some news that shocked them, and in the very next instant, they blink, and accept the news and decide how to react.

Laughter or tears, I wonder.

art for everyone

Here is my friend, Tim, holding his little bird sketch he got at my first art show. Tim is a wonderful cook and an interesting man. He wanted another bird I painted but someone else got that first, while he was serving the marvelous food he prepared for my party. Thanks, Tim!

Finishing the Face

New Work

I recently remembered that one of my daughters woke up one morning, when she was two and announced of reverence, "It turned blue! Last night it was pink and now it's blue!" I had been working on the painting at night while she slept. Recently I've taken to working over a couple of paintings I thought were finished.

Here are a couple of photos of pieces I've recently worked on:

My First Art Show!

Wow. It's like standing around with no clothes on, in front of an audience. I had my "old" art for sale (some from the 1970's), and put it all around my house, invited my friends and...well, here are a couple of pictures to share:

Art Old and New

I have old art, stacked up, some in frames, some I did 30 years ago...time to let some go to make room for new pieces.

I let go of many skeins of yarn lately, also. Out with the old! Make room for the new!

Mosaic Tile Cement

I was thinking recently about mastery. It takes people years to get mastery of any given task, or career, or athletic ability. I have been saving pieces for years to make a mosaic out of. I have another post about it...here

I hired Micha from Emerald City Mosaic to grout, because the mosaic took 4 plus hours and I wanted the end result to look great. He told me I had used the wrong adhesive. Who knew? So I made two and one half mosaics, because one fell off. Here is the one that fell off:

Making Art

I draw when I am waiting for things, like in a seminar, or at an airport...here is a sketch I made of a person listening in a class.

Here is a video I made while working on a project. I was quite engaged in making little cartoon people out of photos of people I saw in magazines.

Mosaic

I am working on a project I thought of several (5?) years ago. With my sister, Anita, we placed some tiles along the side of a driveway. It will lead into an art studio. Here is a picture of the beginning of the project. Still need to add grout.

Birds

Here is an image I'm enjoying. A bird sketch I made several years ago.

Community Service

Once a year, Windermere offices give back to the community by closing their offices and cleaning, painting, gardening in schools, parks, shelters and more. This year our office worked at Concord Elementary School located in South Park.

Beautiful and Small

Art in small pieces is often overlooked. Here is a piece by friend Sheryl Westergreen. It consists of 4 inch squares, and there are 35 of them altogether making up one piece of art. Very nice.

Thanks Sheryl.

Middle School Bullying

Wow. I volunteered for a committee at a middle school, on an "anti-bullying" committee and it was not what I expected. For one thing, we watched a video called, "Let's Get Real" and it blew my mind. Anyone who watches this powerful documentary will remember a time and place that they were either picked on, or picked on someone else. I then missed a committee meeting, so they put me in charge of the art poster contest. Whew! Too many hours of my slow computer time, and what an amazing result. Here are a couple of close-ups of the students poster art.

Green Furniture

These really cool people are making art out of reclaimed wood. Gudrun and Eric work in Ballard and have some furniture and cabinets on display around town. See this. What is green?

Furniture as Art

I recently went out furniture shopping with a friend. We went to the usual places. Crate and Barrel in University Village won our choice for several pieces, including dining room ad living room furniture. When shopping through Ballard, we stumbled into Collective and saw some cool wooden pieces made from reclaimed wood. They were truly beautiful. Check this out.

Birds

Did you know that West Seattle is a stopover spot for many migratory birds? Check this out. I've seen hundreds of these birds lately. At first I thought they were Canadian Geese, but it tuns out they are Brants.

Book for your Women

Local famous photographer, Rosanne Olson is off to be interviewed on "Good Morning America" on Sunday morning, the 13th, and airs in Seattle at 7:00 am. Her book is out on shelves now and available on Amazon.com a couple of great articles have been written about it. I recommend it to any and every women, young and old that you care about.

Here's an article from the Seattle PI

and another from the Oregonian

Beach

Wow, I sure love the ocean. I just returned from a couple days on the Washington coast. Sunny days, surfers, whales swimming by, cranberry bogs getting ready to bloom. Here is a rain shower passing by.

wirlygig artists

I have a piece of art that spins around... Is it a whirligig? Is it a piece of kinetic art? It's not this, but it could be...

Dead Dads

My sweetie's dad died this week. He was 99 years old. What makes a good life? We are quite bad at death and dying in the U.S.A.

My dad made his transition to the other side last year. I am still amazed that I can't see him or speak with him. My dad died even though we all tried to keep him alive, with drugs, food, and whatever we could conjure. I still miss the guy.

A father's gift is complicated...How to be a man, a husband, a father. In some cases, how not to be, but the gift is the same. It's what they do or don't do that molds us.

Rest in peace, dear dads.

Prefab Building

I read about this in a Seattle magazine, the architect Ryan Grey Smith and his prefab sheds. Check this out. They look really fine and could be a great asset to anyone's casa.

Looking at Staged Real Estate

I looked at 7 condos downtown Seattle the other day. The first one I saw was incredibly beautiful. Why? Because the owner had really gorgeous funiture, and art, and when you walked in, it smelled nice, like some kind of exotic floral arrangement. There was no floral arrangement. Don't get me wrong. It did NOT smell like the artificial air fresheners that make me want to wash up, and blow my nose after viewing a house. Uck! You know what I mean, Glade would be one company that makes them. These are so gross. Uck. Another I looked at had something like a glade plug in freshener. It was a fine place, with no furniture, and a bad, bad, bad smell. Where would you rather live?

Water

It's a rainy day in Seattle...weather forecast....and I thought of an amazing drawing I saw in a magazine that I cannot find!!!

It was a view through a winshield, water drops reflecting the tailights of the car in front.

Sister says it's easy to paint water. Hmmmmm

Women's Bodies

Rosanne Olson, a local photographer extraordinaire, is publishing a book, called, This is Who I Am I encourage everyone to check it out, and order a copy.

Trulia

Who's ever heard of Trulia? Here we go, with listings posted on it, as of a couple of days ago... I s'pose someone might just find the home of their dreams online, and that could be where they find it. Who knows. The Seattle PI says this:

Self Portrait

This year's self portrait, me under the age of 18.


I saw the art show at Gage yesterday. They had self portraits from students, and a talk from a cardboard paper artist. He showed slides and images of his work. Amazing is an understatement. You can see his dog at the Tacoma Art Museum and his Umpire at the baseball stadium in Seattle (I hate that the stadiums keep changing names for advertising....what are they called today?) More of his work at: Platform Gallery. This guy's work is cardboard, glue and screws. Wow.

Flip Camera

The world's best boyfriend gave me a flip camera for Christmas and I have been playing with it. It's a bit of a problem, as one day I spent 3 or four hours creating a stupid video of driving down the road. Then I took it to the Seattle REI flagship store for company function (did you know they have a great meeting room upstairs?) and interviewed the speakers just before they talked. Here is a short (25 second) video I created with the camera.

Knitting

My mom and my grandmother taught me to knit when I was 6. I remember the metal knitting needles and the red yarn. I knit really tight, so when I pushed the ends of the needles my fingertips soon hurt. I knit a red scarf. I quit knitting until I was a teen, when I knit a sweater, but left in all my mistakes...it was a homely sweater. Fits and starts and many unfinished projects later, I recently knit a baby sweater for my nephew. It was pleasing to make (so small) and cute once I sewed it together. Here is a little photo of Wyatt, propped up on the couch wearing it:

All about you

http://www.wellcomemat.com/video/6DF8FF1C76


This link is to a video that pretty much sums up what the real estate client wants. I like it.

Art Chix

Once a year we do self portraits. I've been in a group called ARTCHIX for a couple of years now. That's what we are working on now. I've posted an image of my last year's self portrait.

The group consists of several women (we've lost a couple and added a couple). The group includes a professional photographer, a graphic designer, a children's book illustrator, a painter who is a therapist, a nurse/educator, a scientist, a technical writer who is also a most excellent songwriter and paper artist and me. We have a "theme" each time we get together and come up with so many versions of it, it's quite amazing. We meet at one of our houses for dinner, and talk about the process of making the art. I've been inspired by the chix's paintings, songs, drawings, multi-media, poems, performance pieces. To experience the same theme in these many ways is inspiring, and amazing, and so much fun. My best work these past few years came from working with this group.

Sewing

I had a fun time making tiny creatures this summer from The Cute Book by Aranzi Arondo. You can see a couple of images here.

Dreaming

Dreaming as a creative muse...do you ever think about that? For over twenty years, regularly, I had a dream journal and pencil by my bed and would write down my dreams when I woke. I sometimes couldn't read them at all if I wrote something in the night and then went back to sleep, as I would start to sleep before I stopped writing, and the writing would trail off into a long squiggle. Once, while sleeping, I took the pencil and bit on it, dreaming I was eating a pretzel. I still have that pencil. I once read a book that was a collection of dreams and drawings a woman had done based on her dreams. Well, dreams do tell us things, if we only listen.

Two houses

Many people live and play in more than one house. I do. My kids do. We are divorced. When there is a form to fill out, my kids check "divorced". They aren't out of high school yet.

Then I also stay at the world's best boyfriends house. I have space to keep things there, and it still often seems like something is missing. The socks, the mouth guard, the warm coat, the walking shoes!!!! arghhhh

Same issue when I go to my family's beach cabin near Westport, Washington. I must bring groceries, (at least the first meal, or I wake up hungry and get cranky), bedding, sheets, towels, toiletries, art supplies, warm weather clothes, cold weather clothes, a flashlight, chargers for cameras, computers, cell phones, ipods, boots, flip-flops, Dramamine for fishing, fishing gear...

I found a list of what one kid needs the other to bring from this house to their dad's:

• work sweatshirt




• jeans with belt




• chucks (that means converse shoes)




• gray fuzzy jacket




• 3 t-shirts

In fact, I just took a hairdryer, deodorant, eye liner, soap and shampoo to my daughter at her other house. Her hair always looks better here, she says, so she's going to try to make it look good tonight.

Thinking about Dreaming

I posted the last post about dreams and then dreamt I was on Orcas Island, pushing a grade school desk around. I finally pushed it into a school where I heard some fellows playing bluegrass music. They were sitting at the front door smoking...and getting a mean look from the secretary, but not caring. I walked outside and realized I was lost. I tried to use the phone to call my boyfriend but in the dream my phone needed to be re-booted and then I didn't have his number. I asked for help and got on a bus to the downtown area, which for some reason had a handful of skyscrapers and a police helicopter that had just crashed. I found the bus for the neighborhood I was going to. Several people were getting on. The fare was $4.05. The guy in front of me asked why the .o5? The bus driver didn't know, and the guy in front of me couldn't find his money. I fumbled for my change in my bag. I had several bags and had a hard time finding the correct one. I apologised to the bus driver, who was kind and said it was fine.





Then I woke up, and the first thing I looked at seemed like one of those space scenes in the movies where the stars are going by extremely fast. I thought about life as the great illusion.

Art and Real Estate

Ever wonder how the art gets into a Real Estate office? Some people buy it, some people loan it, some people have their artist friends set up a loaner show. In the Windermere Real Estate/Fauntleroy,Inc. office I work in...we are pleased to have Gary Faigin's paintings on loan. http://garyfaigin.com/

We are very pleased to have them here.