Holiday Card Making During a Full Moon

 

On Dec. 15, while I was happily working 

on this year's holiday cards,

I was also following the Cold Full Moon on its journey 

as it rose in the Northeast & set in the Northwest.

I felt so alive & excited!

So I stopped what I was doing 

& started making sketches & notes & 

recording full moon information in my journal. 

And then I created a series of small paintings.

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!

I hope you'll leave me a note with a hint of who you are!

Sketching at the Little Beach

Finally, an outdoor sketch! 

We weren't exactly outdoors, we were eating 

takeout sandwiches in the car,

 overlooking the little beach that is just south of here.

 

The seagulls are way too big, 

but it was they who dominated my attention. 

Six of them,

hanging out, swimming from pebbled sand, 

then riding tiny waves,

then just floating & bobbing, 

together. 

One was often apart from the group, 

but eventually joined the others...

Sketches From the Back Seat

In early March I got to be a passenger along Route 1 

heading south! 

 So many times I've driven that road, sneaking glances.

So I took the opportunity to sketch! Of course!

Composing sketches while moving quickly is in some ways

like putting together a puzzle. 

I grab elements from the landscape as it whips by

and fit them in on the page. 

By the time I'm drawing individual parts

they are memory images,

but with actual references in the moving landscape.

I added some colored pencil notations in the car

and later I painted lightly with watercolors.

Observation lists 

also come in handy in such fast situations. 

The Skeletal Views of Winter

Out the living room window on a cloudy, post-snowfall day. 

In summer hummingbirds frequented the azalea bush.

They & the blossoms are gone,

but skeletal scenes of winter are very much here!

Stage 1 of the sketch. The minimalism of winter!

Sketchbook Wandering, close to home...

In and Out of Lines

My tiny holiday Zumba Girls have changed to Winter Girls.

When I'm watercoloring their fashions, I'm reminded of

my hours of coloring in childhood. 

Later coloring books were shunned by everyone I knew

as being detrimental to creativity. 

Now they are tremendously popular with adults,

& are sold as meditative activities. 

Are coloring books good or bad or neither?

My Prismacolors have replaced Crayolas.

Making this chart also felt like childhood coloring days.

I've been thinking about staying in lines, or not,

sharp edges verses soft, tight verses loose. 

Punching out colored penciled stars from my swatches creates sharp, 

manufactured edges and shapes.

Is this good for creativity, or bad, or neither?

What are your thoughts?

Tis the Season for Color

 

I love playing with bright colors at this time of year.

I made a chain of 70 Origami birds for 

a friend's 70th birthday which she hung in her window.

My new "Art Bin" box.

I bought it at a local art shop 

It has replaced my old broken paintbox.

I transferred my half pans & made a new color chart. 

See what it can do. More painted collages.

Some are for gifts, some for a new show.

And then, there is the contrast of the winter outdoors.

Cold, dark & muted colors.

It is soft & beautiful & restful.

An advent calendar with over-the-top glitter!!

I bought it at a local bookstore.

Merry & bright, somber & dark. 
They are opposed, but they complement each other nicely. 

Skiing in Acadia: Photos

Do you have favorite spots to which you return

over and over, in all seasons? 

I'm back at Acadia & Eagle Lake. 

Such happiness, moving through an enchanted winter forest 

with a rhythmic kick and glide, body & soul in harmony.

While the terrain varies 

as you glide along,

...there's a stretch where softwood boughs 

create cathedral ceilings...

Art. Beauty. Air. Joy. Health. Strength. Energy. Celebration.

Renewal. Inspiration. Wonder. 

Words fail me here...

And photos can only capture one aspect of the experience.

Please, do tell, what is a place that brings you back repeatedly? 

Frozen Art • Photos

 Frozen, so much is frozen up here, including my urge to sketch. 

Inside that frozen globe I imagine there to be energy & life, waiting to be tapped. 

Maybe when the shell melts a little, colorful images will fly out & show themselves.

Frozen does not mean that artistic expression has to stop.

Look at the image that was released from the ice 
in this sculpture near the Camden Library.

Note the tall masts of the windjammers in the background.

They sit still in the harbor for the winter, 

still like the energy that fuels my impulse to draw.