In January, I enrolled in a course to learn how to create sellable surface pattern designs. I’m intending to find out how to create designs I can sell and license to individuals and companies for reproduction on fabric, wallpaper, wrapping paper, and you name it, all kinds of products. I started out trying floral designs, […]
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Tag: art
DAWN WAVE
Sometimes, before the sun is up all the way, the wind skittles across the glassy-smooth surface of the ocean, and it looks like a pinky-blue streaked mirror. The swells come rolling in, incessant, constant, hypnotic. Every so often, the current and the swells clash just right, and a surprised wave pops its head up to […]
WING and WING
I grew up on a small harbor right off Long Island Sound. We used to go down to the little beach near our house and watch the 12-meter racing boats cruise into the harbor on their practice days. So exciting – they were so huge! One of them could have eaten my tiny 13′ boat […]
JOURNEY
I think I have mentioned that, for 35 years, I carried in the back of my mind, continual, persistent, destructive thoughts of offing myself. Wondering, how can I do it – pills? A gun? A knife? Drive over a cliff? But somehow my eternal self, the One that is the True me, kept me going. […]
TUMBLING
I’m taking a 4-week class on how to paint waves. My first painting was a complete dud – as were #s 2, 3, and 4. And 5. Ugh. Today’s was, too. Well, it was a wee bit better, but did I feel like packing the paints in and running away to some secret place where […]
THE OBSCURE PAST
I like looking at old documents. Did you know that at one time, writing materials – especially parchment – were so precious that people wrote in tiny, tight script in one direction, and then turned the page 90 degrees, and wrote right over it with more tiny, tight script? I’ve tried to read documents like […]
MONSTERIOUS
Surprise! Black! Yes, I know people think of me as doing art with outrageous bright gleaming color – and – I also love black and white! I decided to just go wacky and blast out a really bold piece – I think this fulfills that idea. I’m thinking of that whole monsters and critters series […]
BUILDING BLOCKS
I think that, if you sliced open my skin and looked inside it with a Soul Microscope, I’d be a bright soft greeny aquamarine color. Like that soft green near the yellowy-green at the bottom, to the left of center. Color is what I live on. It makes my life rich, even during times when […]
ALL IS LIGHT
There have been times in my life when my entire system went on dizzy-mode. I’d have to stop whatever I was doing, or pull off the road, or stop a conversation I was in, in order to simply not fall down. After a few of them happened, I began to just close my eyes and […]
Dà Huā – BIG FLOWER
I had this idea that I was going to do a pastel of a stunning cactus plant I saw. I had it all drawn out and ready to go, and started applying the pastels…. And discovered that I had bitten off WAY more than I could chew! 16 flowers, 7 cacti bottoms… and the details […]
CURLY
For the last few days I have been a social cactus. I’ve been so irritable I felt like I could bite someone’s head off. Not sure why – seems like a lot of the tension from the last few years has released – but – there it is. So since I believe in transforming nasty […]
MY THOUGHTS OF PEACE FLY FAR BEYOND ME
Recently, I figured out a way to take thoughts of resistance and resentment and cook them up into new dishes of peace and calm. It’s not that hard. You kind of have to be a bit detached in order to do it. It’s like feeling a belly ache, and then watching yourself feel the belly […]
IT’S NOT MY FAULT!
This is dedicated to any frustrated artist… I attended an intense marketing workshop today. It made me cry. It put me right smack dab up against the years of deep conditioning I have fought my entire life. I absolutely loved everything about it. Here’s why: I grew up in the 50s, where it was, “little […]
YOU KNOW WHAT THEY SAY…
How many times have we heard, “Laughter is the best medicine”? Lots! Right? Well, a neighbor who is constantly bugging me about this little thing or other started in on me today. I had been standing on my little door stoop, enjoying the sun, and wasn’t about to let him wreck my day. I thought […]
COMFORT? Or CANOODLING?
Which would you name it? At first I thought, “Comfort.” But then as I looked at it more, it seemed like “Canoodling” would be a better name. What do you think? I had originally intended it to be totally hot, sizzling, and erotic. But as I drew it out and added color, it became sweeter […]
A TRIPLE WHAMMY
I posted on Facebook a couple days ago that I hadn’t been feeling well. No worries – not The Big V Thing! I got triple-whammied by other completely stupid stuff! First, I must have eaten something off, because I started feeling weak and nauseated. I was about to go to bed and let it wear […]
BAAAAAAAAH!
Today I saw a shorty little video on FB by a gal who has a bunch of farm animals that bonded to her and follow her along like dogs – including turkeys, goats and sheep, and even a deer! Halfway through the video, one of the sheep – thick with a year’s worth of wool […]
MY NEW BOOK!
A few weeks ago, I was approached by a not-so-very-well-known company that prints books, art prints and other arty products. They wanted me to submit a book of images for them to print. The deal was they’d give me $150 off the printing price in exchange for a review. I’m thinking, “Huh? 150 bucks? Who […]
THE EVOLUTION of A PASTEL PAINTING
I’ve been asked how I do these pastel paintings. I do them in three main stages. First comes the idea, sketched roughly in black ink on a little scrap of paper. Then, I prepare a bigger sheet of paper or art board with a special gesso primer that has marble dust in it, so it’s […]
RASCALLY REINDEER & BUDDIES
Art always makes me feel better. Like somehow, I’m Doing My Life Right. Maybe it’s because I go into a trancey kind of out-there in-there smooth, calm, non-thinking zone state while I’m creating art. Maybe it’s because when I see those bright colors something grabs me deep in my heart, and says ‘life can’t be […]
RIVER WOLF
Sometimes I get caught by the Shoulds. As you probably know, besides being an avid sculptor and painter, I’ve also been a Peak Performance coach for many years. When covid hit, I put everything on the back burner and hibernated for 2 months. Then this little Voice in my mind popped up, saying, “You should […]
SILLY TIGER
Silly Tiger says… “Those minty leaves look so refreshing! And my new pink hairdo feels so divine!” More silliness is required the longer we are in lockdown, yes? Here’s to silliness for your day. Original – pastels on 12″x12″ gessoed board Prints – available in 11″x11 on paper Contact me if you’d like one or […]
HONEY BEAR
Who doesn’t like honey! When Honey Bear went to the river today, he found part of a honey comb that had fallen from the Honey Tree! What a score! As the bees buzzed around him trying to get it back, he grabbed it and off he ran! Soon he slowed down and started snacking, not […]
SURELY, FISH KNOWS THE WAY
I’m not an adherent of any recognizable religion – my folks never went to church, so I never got the classic religious conditioning many kids did in the 50s when I grew up. But I did have a few pretty traumatizing events happen in my teens that made me keenly aware of my mortality. By […]
THE BALANCE
The Balance is the 2-ton piece I carved at the Oamaru International Limestone Sculpture Symposium I was invited to participate in when I was Artist-in-Residence in Gore, New Zealand. I felt so fortunate to be a part of that symposium! Me, a little 55-year old funky sculptor from the US – whoddathunkit! But choose me […]
MANDALA: SACRED
A friend of mine posted on FB today, asking how old we were when we got our first traffic ticket. This little story popped into my mind right off: I would have been 22. I was late learning how to drive – I had driving-phobia. So one day I took it upon myself to get […]
IN MY WINDOW
After I got back to the States from New Zealand in 2002, I was filled with gratitude to be back in Hawaii again. I wanted to do a bunch of paintings celebrating the culture, and yet not be blatant, touristy-looking hawaiiana-ized. This was the first of the series. Each one was underpainted in various colors, […]
LEARNING to LOVE MYSELF NO MATTER WHAT
I’m not sure why everyone thinks they need to write about the current happenings (referring to the wave of black people being killed by cops and unmarked special ops troops). Yes, it is horrifying. Yes, I detest it, just as you do. But it’s not as if any of us are ‘experts’ or even come […]
ANGELA DERAIN
KAILUA BEACH CANAL – Painted in the style of André la Derain It was highly educational to replicate this image by André Derain. I learned that, although he had some cool ideas about color and its use, he was a careless painter, thus getting muddy colors and sloppy sections. I’m a smoother, and he was […]
INTO THE LIGHT
When I came back to Hawaii in 2002, it was a very scary time for me. I had almost no money, so I had to take a job. The only one I could find was pushing time share brochures into people’s hands as they walked along on the streets of Waikiki. 7 hours a day, […]