Boo!

Well, it's the last week of October! Sorry I missed last week, but here's this week's photo of my back yard:

Sunday afternoon, October 26th, off the deck

You can see that the leaves are pretty much done. We had a Nor'Easter blow in and for several days the wind was simply howling. We could have had a sweeter leaf season, if not for that. I'm actually amazed that there are leaves on anything after that storm, as it almost flipped our big table on the deck!

Last week I worked on my Queen of Hearts, and I'm super close to being done:

I was painting the hedgehogs, and the one on the left came out fine... but the one on the right turned into the Dormouse. This is what happens when I paint. I simply cannot plan everything out. Sometimes, it has its own ideas, and in this case it was including the Dormouse!

I need to paint the rose hedge that goes around the painting, because I will be including some white and red roses as well as some in-between that are dripping red paint. Those are more complicated elements, and I don't want to over complicate the painting by adding in more detailed flowers and such in the rest of the Garden just yet. I need to check the balance. I thought the hedge would be last, but that just shows what I know! Nothing! The painting rules me!

I am really looking forward to being done with it, however. I did paint some mini-canvas creatures for the online auction I participate in on Facebook:

"Elsie" Poor Elsie. She just wanted to go out trick-or-treating with everyone else... but no one asked her to go! I think they worried she might eat all of their candy, as Elsie has a fearful chocolate addiction - particularly if it has caramel too! 

"Charlie" Charlie is a friendly sort, but as he was out and about on Halloween night he suddenly noticed all manner of wee beasties knocking on doors and asking for candy! It was pretty scary for poor Charlie, so he went and hid in the pumpkin patch until it was all over!

"Gus" Gus is the bravest of our three little misfits. Once he realized what was going on, he made his own happy Halloween friend out of a pumpkin... isn't that what everyone else was doing when they carved theirs? Well, Gus certainly thought so! But he didn't want to get much closer to find out more. No, no... this is close enough. Definitely close enough.

I'm thinking more and more about reabsorbing my Whimsical Misfits (these sorts of creatures) with my Fairy Tale page. I'm just not certain what to do though. They're pretty specific, and yet, they certainly can be their own fairy tale too.

Hmm.

This upcoming week, I hope to finish the Queen (FINALLY!) That's my primary goal. After that, I think I'm going to take an Alice-break and work on Holiday art. Specifically to finish the kittens from last year for Holiday cards, and a few others as well. Christmas certainly comes fast for the artist community, because we have to be working well in advance! It makes me want to put my tree up early, though.

Normally, we put all the Christmas decor up the first week of November, except for the family tree. The family Christmas tree goes up after thanksgiving dinner (so we all don't go into comas after the pie) that way we know the whole family, and often out of town family are there to join in. This year, with showing the house since it's for sale, I can't put up any Christmas decor until Thanksgiving weekend. Although... if showings die off, I may sneak down and start putting stuff up anyway. It cheers me up, and I'm one of those people who has to have everything down on January 2nd because it bugs me after the fact. So, my holiday time is limited! Gah!

I hope everyone has a nice week ahead! We're having a teenage horror-movie party on Halloween. That ought to be... interesting. Or scary. Probably scary.

Feeling Autumn

Here is my weekly photo from my deck, showing off the hot autumn colors!

It's less brown in person, much more rainbow with orange, yellow, and red with the green. My phone simply doesn't do it justice.

Well, this has been a less productive week, unfortunately. I'm still finding my balance with things. I needed to do something fun for Halloween, just because... So, I painted this:

4x6 inch acrylic painting on professional canvas panel

It sold right away, so other people are clearly in a holiday mood too! It felt good to paint something fun and carefree! Even though I paint fairy tales, sometimes my work can get so serious!

October also kicked off #Inktober online, where artists all over the world are doing a daily drawing in ink. I saw one set of artists that were each drawing a monster to eat the other's monster from the day before and told my son about it. He instantly fell in love with the idea, and begged me to do it. I agreed, and his first drawing was this (all of these are simply ball-point pens on sketch paper):

Kinda creepy to start with, don't you think? I went for the guilt-route and did a "you don't want to kill and eat lil ole me, now do you?" with this:

The next day, my goal was to eat/kill his squid creature so I went with this:

See, the little lantern at the end of his stalk lures in the evil squid-things my son drew, and he eats them!

My son had no problem with killing my cute creature with this:

EEEEK!

Now, that looks like a spider to me, don't you think? So the next day I drew this to squish the spider:

Big foot for squishing creepies!

And then my son quit. 

He said it's too much like a homework assignment to have to draw every day. *sigh* I ended up not drawing yesterday, because I was kind of bummed over the whole thing. However, my daughter had been watching from the sidelines and when she heard he quit, she said she wanted to draw with me. Instead of killing each other's monsters, however, she wants a daily prompt instead. So, we're starting back into it today, and the prompt is Candy Land. We'll see what happens!

I'm working on doing the flamingo over the shoulder in my Queen of Hearts painting, and shipping out other paintings, and I just discovered the owls I painted last year, I guess I never listed them!

2x2 screech owl, now in my shop

2x4 white owl, now in my shop

So, oops. Caught that... maybe I was saving them for myself?

I also, after another showing and feeling bummed about the season, went into my crawl space and pulled out a couple fun Halloween decorations, including my favorite Halloween Cat:

I'm thinking that perhaps that cat shouldn't be put away anymore, as he tends to get lost. Perhaps he should just migrate to my studio in the off season?

I know my house is not supposed to have much personality at all while it's for sale, but it was getting depressing. I love the holidays, and it's hard not putting all the tacky crazy stuff up! So, a few things are up now, and even my kids said it makes them feel better!

No news on the house. We're still having showings, but I imagine it's as I feared that we're past the real estate window and we'll be here until it comes around again in the Spring. Things were pretty stressful this past week, but I think it's all going to be OK. 

Just breath deep and paint!

Cold

I've been under the weather with a sort of sideways cold. It's not all out, breath through a snorkel, bad... but it's not healthy either. I'm drained, and I have my three amigos: a Kleenex box, Sudafed, and Advil. It really seems to be hanging on. Because of that, I haven't gotten much done this week. Well, that and my husband has been out of town for the entire week, including over my anniversary! He did send these, though:

These make me want to get started painting my red queen with her dripping paint roses, because the roses are just perfect! I'm just not quite up to it right now.

Still, the whole single mom thing is tough, even if it's only for a week. (Hats off to the real single mothers!) Interestingly, the amount of laundry and dishes and other things has been dramatically different. I can now say with authority that my husband is responsible for a lot of chaos in the house! Ha! He comes home today. Thank goodness! Even if it means quadruple the laundry!

I did manage to finish these little minis (and they're available exclusively through my Etsy Shop, in the Halloween section. If it's not there, it's sold. These little paintings are moving extremely quickly!)

Just finished this one last night. 5x7" acrylic on canvas hard panel. I love playing with the breeze! 

"Sisters" this one sold before I could even post it for sale.

Lil'House, 2x2" ultra-mini canvas, acrylic.

Ultra-mini with, cat, and three crows in the tree. I just LOVE these ultra-minis (they're 2x2", but actually stretched canvas!)

Witchy Stroll, again playing with the breeze. I just love the idea of blowing leaves. This one is 3x6" stretched canvas, acrylic.

I have many more that I am working on, including a slew of ultra-minis. Some Halloween, but I'm actually getting hints that people want to see Christmas ones, so it looks like I may start doing those as well. I have a Harvest Festival booth next weekend that I need to stock, so I probably should make a lot more of both! Lots to do!

In addition to all of that, we're going to see another house tomorrow in addition to the one we already like. We may be putting an offer in as early as Monday, and I'm just this side of terrified. It's hard to think about uprooting our family from the house we have lived in for 13 years. Yet, the lure of actually having enough room (and instead of a tiny bedroom, a real STUDIO!!! Both houses have studios!) is so strong!

GAH!

Maybe that's why this cold isn't moving on quickly?

Happy Friday everyone!

18 Years

Today is my 18th wedding anniversary!

This is my favorite picture from our wedding. It's the "cake" picture.
Instead of shoving it in my face, he put frosting on my nose and then kissed me. 

It's hard to believe it's been 18 years. I got married when I was 20, and 18 years seemed a lifetime away! Well, I suppose it is, really. Had we gotten started on our family right away, I could have a senior in High School at this point! That's only slightly more terrifying than the fact that I have a 15-year-old who is currently learning how to drive, and that my youngest will be 13 in a couple months. The time really does start to slip away from you, doesn't it?

I'm married to a rocket scientist (yes, really), and when we went to see the pastor a few days before the wedding, she refused to marry us. They had given us a computer test that supposedly evaluated our personalities, how we approached problems, and how we viewed the world. It came back that we were entirely non-compatible. Well, of course it did! He's a rocket scientist and I'm an artist! COME ON! 

Like naughty children, we both had to drag our parents into the pastor's office and have them endorse our "case" in order for her to marry us. In the end, she said because it was two days before the wedding, it would be irresponsible of her business-wise to cancel at this point. However, if she had been able to meet with us months earlier as she would have preferred (we lived in Chicago, and this was Boulder, CO) she would have ended this long before. So, she said she'd perform the service, but she was lodging an official statement that she was certain our marriage wouldn't last two years and was totally against us getting married.

Nice way to start a marriage, right? To be honest, if I had it to do all over again I would go to an island and elope. What a mess. A mess with the pastor, a mess with the in-laws, a mess with the florist, a mess with extended family. Yup, a beach would have been the way to go! At least we had each other!

Regardless, we knew we were doing the right thing. We married, and I'd do it all over again. I love him more now than I did when we said "I do."

It's a cold, rainy Monday today. I plan on working on finishing the mini paintings I have going. They're selling out, for the most part, but I am also trying to up my stock for a harvest festival I have a booth at in two weeks. I'm glad they're so popular!

I decided to fill in the backgrounds and moons on the minis last night. I realized that even when I try, I never make two moons the same way. It's as if they just can't be duplicated, and each one wants to be unique:

Like moon-fingerprints, I guess! I really like that they're all different though. It'd really be a shame if they all looked the same!

I'm keen to see how my mini-haunted houses turn out, in particular today. I also sketched out a toad in a witch's hat, but he's a bit daunting for some reason. He's tiny, but detailed, so I've sort of been avoiding him. I'll get to him, though!

Color, Color Everywhere!

On Saturday, I got to take my daughter to her first road race! We did the Vibe Color Run 5k! I've been wanting to do a color run since I first saw them advertised, but living in the boonies not much comes our way. One day, however, an ad popped up for one right by us! I couldn't believe it! Even better, my daughter said she would do it with me (will wonders never cease?! My 15-year-old actually wants to go running with me?!)

This is us before the race. We're all clean!
Also, for the record: this is me with a major tan. It's all that tree-planting I've been doing. I know, it's practically unnoticeable to everyone else, but it's there!

It was about 52 degrees out, so it was a wee bit chilly. We hung out in the car for about 40 minutes, and everyone else was pretty much doing the same thing. Then, about 30 minutes before the race was to start, we headed over by the stage.

The race had 3000 runners, which is roughly the population of Vermont (OK, not really, but it's close!) We were in the second wave released, and they had color cannons at the start so I was blasted with blue so hard I couldn't see out of my sunglasses. They aren't messing around with those things!

Part of the course had been flooded with recent rain storms and was so swampy that everyone ended up in water over the tops of their shoes. I found this particularly hilarious once we hit dry ground again because you could hear a chorus of squishing when everyone was running. It sounded like we were all running with frogs strapped to our feet!

Unfortunately, at one point my glasses slipped and knocked my favorite nose stud out. It's somewhere on the trail in the forest, and I never found it again. I'm sure some squirrel will pick it up and be the envy of all his friends. (Squirrel-bling!)

We were pelted with color at several stations, but I noticed a shortage of pink. There should have been more pink. It seemed like the organizers favored yellow the most. Not that I'm a huge fan of pink, but the balance is what I'm after. (It's color, I can't help it!)

By the end, we were covered!

My girl and I at the finish line!

For comparison to the first photo, this is us in the car headed home:

We were smart, and had covered our car seats with trash bags. I was less smart when I got home and had to wait my turn for the shower. I finally sat down in my black computer chair. This left a neon green butt-print on it that I then had to clean off.

The funniest part of the day came once we had taken our showers and gotten all cleaned up. I asked my daughter if she had blown her nose yet. She was, as would be expected, completely taken aback by my question.

"No! Why would I?"

"Oh, no reason..."

...off she went to find a Kleenex. A moment later I heard her blow and exclaim "OMG!!! It's BLUE! AAAAAGH!"

Totally worth the effort, right there. Definitely a race worth doing again.

In other news, I've completed lots of mini paintings, and have even more in process now! As it stands, all the completed ones are sold, but I have many more in the works! Here are some of the completed minis:

And here are the paintings on my table right now:

I actually had to make myself stop sketching out ideas. I have SO many, but I need to paint these out. On the other hand, I worry I'll forget what they were if I don't sketch them down on a canvas right away. It's a bit ridiculous at this point, I suppose! If I just didn't need to eat or sleep or have all my other obligations, I'd be able to knock these guys out faster! *wink*

Autumn in the Air

This week, my family is supposed to be on a more normal schedule. I spent Monday morning feeling happy that I finally had my house back to myself, and I pulled out the itty-bitty stretched canvases to play with!

I was snuggled into a sweater, because it was chilly. I even got to take a hot bath after lifting weights, and I lit a Pumpkin Cupcake candle (one of my absolute favorites right now! I love pumpkin/autumn scents.) It just put me into a very happy mood! I have to say, I miss drinking coffee. I don't miss the caffeine (or the panicky feeling it gives me), and I don't miss the calories... but I miss the pumpkin spice scents and flavors. That special little treat of sitting there and sipping that yummy-autumn-goodness. My pumpkin spice tea just isn't the same. It's not bad, but, just not the same.

So, candles it is! And I love them! I have a Pumpkin Caramel Latte candle too that is just divine!

I have a slew of little canvases, so I'm open to ideas. But here is what I've been working on so far:

I've got a witchy graveyard scene, a jack-o-lantern, a witch in the wind, a cat and the moon, and witchy boots! I had some extra ideas, but I figured I should actually paint some of these in first.

So, I finished the Jack-o-lantern:

I just love these teeny tiny canvases!

I decided to paint all the moons in at once:

I always use iridescent paint on the moons. Any reason to use something shiny! 

Then I finished the cat:

Then my wonderful day sort of fell in on itself. There was a house problem (our current one), a teenager drama problem (my daughter had a big disappointment), and my husband came home sick with a nasty cold.

But my Monday really was wonderful for a few hours there!

On the potential moving: no word yet. We're still waiting for more information about a few things, and have an appointment later this week to go back to the house and really get into the nitty gritty of what is wrong, and what we should offer if we decide we want the house. It's all still scary and whatnot, everything up in the air. Which means that painting is even more important to me, because I need the stress reliever!

Well, painting and running. I'm literally sitting here in my running gear waiting for it to be light enough outside to run. I would have gone at 5 AM this morning, but it was far too dark. There is a huge line of wicked storms heading this way today, and I think that's why it's abnormally dark (it's supposed to go from cold days of about 58 degrees to 90 degrees by tomorrow, then back down again. I'm bracing myself for a migraine with such a violent shift in the weather!)

It looks like I have to wait until the kids are off to school before I can head out. So, I thought I would check in! Thank you all for the advice and support on my last post. I really do appreciate it!

Playing Catch-up

I can't believe it's been a week since I've posted! I've had a lot of projects against a deadline hounding me, I've had a nasty cold, and my daughter is also in a school play (which means all our schedules have been completely dumped on their heads! Just last night I was sitting in my freezing car at 11:45PM waiting for rehearsal to get out so I could take her home. The poor girl was so tired, she was almost tearful this morning!)  Fortunately, it's show-weekend, so by Monday that part of the stress will be over!

I did get my finished Halloween Kittens up for sale...

on my main website: here, and prints starting at $17: here.

I also just finished another piece for the upcoming issue of THRICE Fiction Magazine. I can't just post a picture of it, because it is NOT work-safe. However, you can view it at the following link: here.

I'm working on a cute little commission right now of two owls in a tree:

And I realized that I'm simply dying to start painting snow, holiday type paintings. I was grumpy, working along, until I started painting that snow. Once I started, I felt my mood physically lift. I want to paint snow-stuff!

Queued up I have paintings of holiday ornaments, a snow queen, a Santa Claus, a snowman, and more! It's time! I've even started one that's similar to the owls, but in the branches I'm going to paint three ornaments. I haven't figured out which ones yet, but there will be three, and if I can make them shiny with iridescent paint - I will!

I've also started trying to learn how to sketch Celtic Knots. They're so linear that you can get a bit lost at times. I'm waiting on some graph paper and pencils, but I'm going to spend my doodling time on this right now so I can work some knot-work into some of my paintings (as well as possibly on another commission I'm still fleshing out a bit right now.)

Oh, and lastly, I've decided that if I can get my facebook page up to 300 likes, I'm going to give away a free 5x7 (acrylic, canvas panel) original in a drawing. Once I hit 300, anyone is eligible - I'll put the call out, and then have a random drawing to see who wins (they don't have to be new to the page.)

And that is where things are at! I'm in a Christmas mood, and just trying to keep up with my schedule! I hope everyone else is doing well!

Kittens and Sketchbooks!

I finished my Halloween Kittens painting, but the daylight has been so low that even with my studio lighting I haven't been able to take print-worthy files of it. So, here is just a quick snapshot of the finished painting:

My grey kitten came out a little grumpy looking, but my husband thinks that's fine for a Halloween painting!

I also took a few snaps of a print of Tea Time I ordered, with the original before I shipped it out, so I could show what a print looks like in comparison:

Honestly, I really was quite thrilled with my print that showed up. It's relief to know that partnering with Fine Art America was the right move for my business!

My print gallery at FAA is here: http://kyra-wilson.artistwebsites.com/ 

For me personally, I haven't decided if I'm going to keep the print for myself or sell it as a signed copy... I'm leaning towards keeping it. I really fell in love with this painting. I'm so pleased the new owner loves it too, but I admit I miss it a little. It was such a long process!

Switching topics here, I have decided I'm going to pick up a bunch of sketchbooks. I stopped working with them when I shifted to selling everything, because it felt like I was wasting my time on work that wouldn't go anywhere. In other words, I forgot how to play! Shame on me!

I've been waffling back and forth over it, but I finally realized that I really want to do this for a couple of reasons. The first is that I need to develop (or decide whether or not to develop) a "type" for my people/women/girls characters that I paint. I have a developed style, but I've been wondering if perhaps there is more to discover as I am heading back towards painting people once again.

The second reason is that I want to work on my Celtic drawings, in particular knot-work. I used to play around and draw out knots when I was bored in school, but it's been so long. I have a strong Scottish and Irish heritage, there's something about it that just calls to me. I think it's about time I start answering!

I'm hoping having a goal with my sketchbooks, that it will allow me to start playing again. I want to stop worrying over making something that won't go anywhere (or worry that I'll put something fabulous down on a piece of paper that isn't archival!) It's time to play! (And yes, I owe it to all of you wonderful artists who shared your sketchbooks and reminded me what it was like to have one! Thank you!)

...so, who's got snow?

Fumbling

Yesterday, I found myself simply at loose ends. I woke up feeling off, and sort of fumbled about the house, reading, drinking tea, warming up in front of the fireplace... but not painting. It turns out I have a bit of a cold setting in, but I'm hoping it won't be a big thing. I'm shooting for "just annoying" and passing quickly!

It was also election day, and so I knew I had to head out and not only get my painting and print shipments out, but also stop in the town hall and vote. It doesn't matter what your politics are, if you know your history, you know what a big deal it is to be able to go and vote - and how cool it is that a little peon like me is worth just as much as the most successful person in the voting booth (although, I would imagine they have a much cooler car to drive off in! One that probably doesn't make that weird knocking-wobble sound which I'm certain is heralding my impending doom...)

See? I voted and got my sticker. Stickers are the best. I love stickers. I used to collect them when I was a kid on the back of my bedroom door. I have no where to put them now (my husband would frown on the whole door-thing), but I still like to get them! Stickers are just fun!

Anyway, knowing I had a bunch of errands to run also threw me off a bit. I paint a lot better knowing I don't have to be anywhere, than I do when I know I have to "stop at * time and get ready to leave." I think I fear getting into my groove and having to stop. It really is awful when that happens!

Once I returned home, I brought up a minion studio helper to hang out with me.

This is Chester. Isn't he just fabulously fluffy? (for those keeping count, we have 1 giant cat, 3 dogs, 2 rabbits, and 25 chickens. It'll get worse in the spring when we add geese and pheasant to the flock. My husband keeps lobbying for alpacas, and my daughter for horses, my son wants a pig, but I can barely keep track of what we have now!)

I was able to paint a bit more and actually made some progress for a relatively small window of time. I worked solely on my Halloween kitten painting because I really need to finish it. I managed to finish the sleeping kitten:

I'll add whiskers to him tomorrow, but other than that he's done.

But now I'm a bit stumped on what color to make the kitten in the boot. Originally he was to be grey, but I'm worried that will be too dark what with the hat and boot right there. The sleeping kitten ended up basically brown, even though it's meant to be black because it's just too dark to show proper values otherwise.

It's a bit blurry, sorry about that.

Maybe sticking with grey is the way to go. Hmmm... Well, anyway, I'm hoping for a more productive day today!

Sleepy Studio

I ended up taking the weekend off to focus on the family, and so I thought I would be jumping right into studio work today. Instead? Well, I recently quit coffee (as in Saturday I quit - health reasons) and I found myself falling sleep and lacking motivation for most of the day.

I'm rather disappointed, because I'm finally down to working on the kittens in my Halloween painting:

I know it's blurry, sorry. The cell phone only does so much, it seems!

I finished the boot, and I really like the textures I achieved (in particular in the checkered areas.) Tomorrow, I'm planning much kitten-goodness.

I also did manage to finish a secret project which I hope to share in a few days... But until then I'll just say I played with watercolor pencils, thinking I would just use them like colored pencils on cold pressed, but I ended up wetting them to smooth out the values. I just don't like rough-choppy in my own work. I'm fine with it in other's, but on my own it drives me absolutely batty. I want smooth!

I have plans, once I finish the Halloween painting, and two commissions (which I'll post the sketches to soon), to start in on the backlog of holiday paintings. My kids took down our Halloween decor, and put up some of the winter holiday decor, and I'm simply dying to start painting those! Especially since I have some left unfinished from last year! It'll be good to paint with the season, and to clear out the backlog!

I'm also itching to work on an unfinished painting of my Alice, but I'm thinking she'll probably have to wait until the slower season in January. Clearly, there's never enough time - but that's complicated by the unexpected napping from the caffeine withdrawals!

Clean-Up

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my studio space lately. It's been amazing to see other artists' spaces, and then to take a second look at my own. My studio space used to be in the basement, but I found the darkness a dreary and draining sort of heaviness that I couldn't stand, no matter how many lights I brought in. So, I ended up moving my studio into one of the bedrooms upstairs.

It originally was my daughter's old bedroom, and it used to be two different shades of Pepto Bismal pink. I'm sure you can imagine my panic need to paint it something else as quickly as possible! It's a very small room (about 9' x 10' at best) and thus any color on the walls can be problematic when painting, because they can change the tones of what I'm working on. I went with something just a touch off-white, to try to avoid the color refraction problem. I cannot tell you the relief I experienced when the vibrant pink was finally covered up! However, this is now the only room in my house with white walls. I'm simply addicted to color, so it's strange to think that where I work is the most lacking in it. Still, it seemed the only solution.

With such a small space, I tend to "leak" into the other areas of the house. I had recently set up my studio table in the family room to accommodate both my need to feel less isolated, and also have access to the television (I simply love shows playing while I work. It's hard for me to sit still and watch anything without finding most television shows annoying, but I can paint through them and follow the stories just fine!) I also had shipments working off the dining room table, and other canvases and prints stacked in other areas. My poor family was tiptoeing around my work, which seemed to have exploded into almost every area of the house!

I reorganized and cleaned up this week, pulling my studio back into my studio space. I have to be constantly vigilant with my space due to its size, otherwise my small space becomes a disaster area! It's all clean, but I'm realizing how... cold it all feels.

This is on the door:

A friendly face to greeeeeet you!

Several years ago, I helped with an elementary production of Alice in Wonderland (before I ever started my current series). I created the Cheshire Cat costume by painting this on fabric (which took forever, having not painted on unprimed fabric before, it was a multi-layer process), and it went on one child's chest. The costume took three kids, all dressed in black. The second had a black cylinder spiraled with bright teal fur, the third had painted legs, fur and tail on them. We set them up in a dark area with a black light on them, and it allowed the Cheshire to come apart or go back together, and really turned out very cool! I kept his face when we were through, although I'm not sure why. I just kind of like him. As I develop my Cheshire for my series, I expect him to be VERY different, but this one will always be my first!

Looking through the door (you can see how Lily has grown!  compared with the photo below?) She's still rambunctious at 6 months old, but she immediately settles down the moment we set foot in my studio. She's my studio dog!

Puppy Lily! Just for reference. 

Art table, brought back up and set up to look out at the mountains (it's a bit dark this morning!)

Without drying racks (or space for one), I've been using my walls. I hang paintings over every spare inch of space (away from my easel, because of the splashing) and I think that I hadn't noticed how barren everything was because I had so many hanging for the Alice show. Since I released them for sale and shipped everything out, suddenly everything is stark once again and I realize I don't like it. 

When I had envisioned my studio, I always thought about collecting things that I enjoy around me, and that inspire. Yet, I didn't do that. I'm not sure why. Space is certainly an issue. I've already proven I can fill up an entire house with my space needs! So bringing it down to such a small space makes it tricky. Maybe if I put in shelves, I can start collecting stuff. I also have a collection of work from other artists and some friends that I'd like to put up, to have around me. I have purchased prints and such, but haven't hung any because I can't figure out how to pull that off. 

In my head, I have a lovely cottage in the woods, with flowers blooming in boxes out the windows which are swung open to let the light in. There are bits of things on shelves and tables, sparkly finds, and more. There is room for everything. Drying racks, a table for shipping, a supply room, a sink. Cabinets, and fluffy chairs. 

Ahhh, some day, perhaps! (If you post or have posted a picture of your studio/workspace, I'd love to see it!)

In other news I didn't get my Halloween painting finished because I was pulling my studio back together and out of the rest of the house, but I did finally start in on the boot! Working on the checkered squares, I think I learned something that will help me go forward in acrylic painting with more speed... I hope. 

Current progress on Halloween kittens painting. 

I layered and then walked away. When I came back hours later, I realized I loved the effect. This is important because I'm a mixer. I want to smooth everything out to get it to work, and layering feels choppy. Yet, with something like acrylics where the drying time is dramatically different from oils, mixing is simply asking for a migraine. I do it, but I know this is what is holding up my progress and costing me so much time. I like the way the checkers came out. If I can sort of adapt to layering and being OK with the choppy nature of it, I may finally be able to speed up my own process. Wouldn't that be grand?

 I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!