Sprouting Potatoes

Hopefully spring will be here soon, and we can start getting the garden ready. We're going to start sprouting potatoes today in egg cartons and then we'll plant them after the last frost. Our garden didn't do so well last year, only lettuce, rocket and loads of green tomatoes that never ripened. The boys loved it though, the digging, the weeding, all the worms. Slug hunting in the evening. A friend had a good book on that, 50 ways to kill a slug, but the boys just collected them in buckets and dumped them on the lawn in front of the train station.

Instinct

Yummmmm.....

Celebrate

...the curiosity of children and of baloons, especially the first ones to hold onto or be tied to your wrist. The stillness before it flies away or pops. I remember some lovely baloon books from my childhood, and line books too.

drawing from life...

had an amazing time at a life drawing session yesterday. It's been years since I've drawn the model and I was practicly racing around the room to sketch different angles.

There's also some sort of strange creative energy that happens when thirty people are concentrating so hard on the same thing. i loved it!

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time is slipping by

evening sunlight

Leonardo DaVinci once said that the only time to paint is at dusk and dawn, when the light is at half mast. Everything becomes illuminated and takes on their richest colors.

Hibernating

I guess it's like the calm before the storm. The kids are napping, and I've got some space to think. I need to meditate, I need quiet, I need time in my studio. Once an art teacher told me to just spend time in your studio, and I do feel that that helps, to just be there with those ideas for a while and if nothings coming then something eventually will if you keep at it. It's important to keep doing the things we believe in, or feel passionate about. Painting's something I just can't get away from. Since we moved to England I haven't painted much, my boys have taken up alot more time than before and I've been side tracked with crafty things, but about a month ago I finally created a small studio space and it just feels so good to be in it physically and with my thoughts. I'm not sure where I'm going though, I've been working on a new book project which has been fun, new collage images. And I started a new oil series, white on white. I'll have to write down my musings about white, but that'll be for next time...

Tea for Two

Winter's finally here, snow, and sledding, snowmen and the cold that gets into your socks and up your sleeves. Wet, slushy snow today. But still fun to shovel and throw around. Tea is lovely and warm though! Been painting again, little doodles, small oils, as well as the usual crafty stuff. The boys were so good this morning at May's, making bread and paper mache fruit. Thought it might be interesting to have a blog, such an odd world, but there are such lovely ones out there, and I just wanted to add my two cents. Enjoy!