Little Suzi's

I started this painting who knows how long ago. I found it in my garage just waiting for stems and flowers. I love the green watercolorish background. So I added the yellow kissing flowers and some yellow bells to the foreground. I love that yellow bells bloom this time of year. This is my first year to have my art studio in the house in the sunroom where you get a full view of these amazing bushes all day. I planted four bushes about 12 years ago around the back patio and house area. They were literally a single stem that had been rooted by my pastor. Over the years I've been too chickin' to cut them back for fear they would never come back as grand. So now they are literally as tall as our single story house. I've had to trim, but that's it. They are a glorious site right now. And quite the inspiration. You'll be seeing more yellow bells in my garden paintings very soon.

Springing Up

Spring is coming early in Georgia this year it appears. With all the rain, rain, rain and the early warm weather, plants are springing up all over the place. I also noticed some new weeds, onions, and clover springing up as well! I love to work outside and plant new items in my yard. And I must have great soil, because bushes and flowers tend to grow like crazy for me. Just ask my mail lady about the lantana around our mailbox come spring. It gets taller than the mailbox every year. After the first frost I chop it all down, and after the first sign of spring, it comes right back up. Love that. Last year we did some grooming in the back yard after we got the adorable playhouse. It had to have it's own little yard. It was too cute to just not! Anyhoo....gotta run and start some new paintings before the kiddos get home. Have a lovely afternoon!

HAPPY DAY!

Check it out! I made shop of the day in PapernStitch. WHO HOO. Go to the blog and see! THANKS Brittni. Not only do I love this site for showing works, but she also writes a darn good blog. So go there now and enjoy.

"Make a Wish Mommy...."

So today is a big day around my house. It's my BIRTHDAY! Yeah! I kind of like this day. It means lots of phone calls, facebook messages and best of all CAKE! I love cake, especially the icing. I've been grinning from ear to ear all day. I know many people look at birthdays as a day of growing yet another year older. But I see it as another door to open. I believe this is #37. I kind of count by 5's now and the in-between years are just floaters. Ask me tomorrow and I'll say I'm 36, next week it'll be 38. Anyhoo......here's little Mailey telling me to make a wish with the dandelion. So sweet.

Here's me at day one of the 37th year. I thought it'd be fun to document it, and be able to look back at it next year to see how much I've grown. hehehe...Hopefully at this point I'll be doing less growing and more toning. That's a goal anyways. So what have I done on this special day? Let's see....started the day off with coffee and sweet cards from the family, taught an art lesson in Mailey's class, went to the Georgia Aquarium for a legislative spouse event (which included a yummy lunch and chocolate volcano dessert), hit Anthropologie(where I bought the above adorable yellow frock), and am now at home debating dinner. Billy will be at the Capitol until the wee hours tonight because it's crossover day. I think I'm going to take myself in this adorable new yellow frock out for pizza and beer with my dates Mailey and William. See you guys later!

"Please insert 25 cents"

Here's another in my series of the American Still Life. I actually have an original payphone here at my house. My father worked for Bell for years and somehow we ended up with a payphone when I was little. My sister Molly and I would spend hours playing with it, placing coins in the slot and pulling the lever to release the coins. At some point I decided to place paper money in the slots however, and now they are jammed. My children played hello on the phone as babies, but no coin fun. The lighting is a bit off in this photo, I'll get a better one outside tomorrow and re-post the pics. I was just dying to share tonight the final product! Of course I played up the colors in the phone. I don't recall ever seeing a turquoise blue payphone. It was fun adding the numbers and letters to the dial. My daughter Mailey helped and thought it was weird that the letters were out of order a bit. I don't understand why, but I am sure there was a logical reason there was no Q or X. I still love the sound of the dial phone. And I'm not that old either...just in case you were wondering. My 37th birthday will arrive in promptly 2 more days. Ahhhh...that means CAKE!

Barbie's Dream Camper

Airtream Silver Cloud 1936 15'

I've stepped out of my comfort zone a bit with my paintings in recent weeks. Although I will always paint little birds in their environments, I am having a bit of fun with these retro-American still life series I have going right now. First it was the bike series, and now vintage Airstream campers (I've got a turquiose payphone on the table too!). I found a fabulous website that had the original article on this particular camper and great photos. It was not the usual silver Airstream I was thinking of when looking for an example. But rather, this is originally "Woodframed and Masonite Skined". Yep. And cost all of $695.00 from a local Airstream dealer. So I took some liberty with the colors, I'm really into pink and orange right now. This the name Barbie's Dream Camper. Does that mean anything in particular those of you deep meaning in art people?

Speaking of deep meaning in art, I have a comment on that note. It was during my senior project interview when it hit me like a ton of bricks that perhaps my art was not really supposed to have some underlying deep context. The panel of 10 art professors (9 of whom were MEN) had concerns over my choice of making a paper quilt as my project (this is of course after approving the project and giving me thumbs up for 12 weeks while I made the beautiful piece). Not wanting to bore you with my anger towards that particular institution to this day for that grueling time of self pity over a grade, I'll skip forward to the artist I am now. And honestly, it's the artist I have always been. I paint happy, sweet, innocent paintings. I place a lot of thought into my compositions and the colors I place on my palette. But as far as there being deep meaning, I am sorry to disappoint that there is none. In fact, I view my art in the opposite. I want the viewer to see what is there, smile and say, I really like that. It could be my choice of colors, or texture, or composition or just the image itself. But in all honesty, what I gain the most from my art is happiness.

Producing all this work lately has almost seemed robotic. This veering into the still life scenes is helping to re channel my energy and regain some confidence in painting. And I am very happy to say, I am a bit tickled at the outcome of some of the paintings and their lack of global meaning.

"It's Raining, It's Pouring"...

Here's a new happy painting in the Mattie and her friends series. Are you singing along now? It's stuck in my head too! This painting is available for purchase in a new gallery for me. It's called Dogwood Gallery. It's located in Tyrone behind the Legacy Theater. I'm also teaching adult painting there on Tuesdays from 9:30-11:30 if you'd like to join me!