October Sky for Sheila

7"x7"

acrylic on paper

For Sheila Tajima's journal in the Flying Moleskin's journal swap.

Fall is my favorite season. I love the deepening, more intense colors, the cool snap to the air,  the quickened pace.  Free from summer's humid weight, life feels sharper, clearer, more textured.  Light is lower, shadows longer, richer, and more mysterious. I imagine the trees are relieved to drop the burden of holding up all of those leaves, and sing when they decorate the landscape.

wishing you a bountiful new season...

My Front Porch

mixed media sketch
in moleskine journal

This is my sketch in Irit Bourla's journal for the Flying Moleskins journal swap. Irit's theme is local places, and since I don't go too far afield these days, out the front door seemed handy.  Our home was built in 1920, and has a long covered porch with a swing at one end. When the weather's decent, it's a relatively quiet spot to relax. So relaxing, in fact, that it wasn't until after I'd finished the sketch that I realized I'd done it upside down in the book! Apologies, Irit, but I've cut it out, and glued it in right side up.  Your book's flying to Adebanji tomorrow.

Happy Summer everyone.

The Flying Moleskins: Abstract Dreams

May You Soar

acrylic on paper

nfs

These are two pages for Dana Cooper, whose journal theme is dreams.  My dreams have been elusive lately, like shifting sand. A promise glimpsed of some distant, better future that dissolves when I try to understand its shape and content.  Fragments float, illuminated, forming landscapes both strange and somehow familiar. Echoes of joys remembered and not yet known.

Huge thanks to everyone who left such supportive comments on the show last month. We had a great turn-out despite the heat, and it was a success.   

Group Show This Weekend

I'm excited to be part of a 5-person show this weekend at a friend's historic farm in the Maryland countryside.  The stone walls and barnwood have turned out to be a great setting for the contemporary and abstract work.  I don't have photos of the work in place yet, but took some of the farm earlier this week.  I'm wondering if Jane and her family would notice if I move into the garden house....

 coming down the lane 

view from the garden house

main house and spring house

looking out from the large stone barn

garden house

a few of the local girls

Jane gives instructions to the welcoming committee

Santos...ready!

Mildred.

Please come if you're in the area.

Would love to see you! 

Participating artists: Jane Byron, Colleen Clapp, Liz Holm, C. Edward Ramsburg, Cristy Stup

Flying Moleskin Journal Swap

Megan, Ryan

watercolor in Moleskine journal

nfs

This is for Michelle Burnett.  I was wracking my brain for snapshot or postcard ideas from my past, and became so melancholy looking through old photos, I had to stop. Then I noticed some of the cutest kids I'd ever seen on Michelle's FB page. The apple really doesn't fall far.  

Thanks to Chris Beck for suggesting I break out the watercolors again. I'd forgotten how fun watery washes can be. After the Claybord issues from the last post, it was doubly fun.  Thanks for everyone's comments, advice and commiseration.  (And thanks, Michelle, for having such cute kids!)