Plot Twist!

Isn't that just a fabulous sentiment? It's how I feel about my entire life, every aspect of it. Whether I'm trying to lose weight, or paint the rest of the frustrating Queen of Hearts, or move out of this state, this is something I know to be true.

It all starts with a day dream and a wish for change, for something more, doesn't it?

I realize I spend a lot of time in my head, in my own world, in my dreams. I think that is why I am a painter. These gardens for my Alice series, I've walked them a thousand times in my head. These creatures I create? Those, too, are my new friends.

Speaking of which, meet Frank!

Frank wishes he was a household brownie. He would love to have a house to call his own, where he could clean and bake wonderful things. Yet, every time he gets a chance to jump in, somehow that darn tail gets in his way! Dishes tumble and crack, pans of cookies go flying, laundry is dumped into the mud! Poor, poor Frank!

I loved pulling out my oils for these creatures (taken from the sketches I made earlier.) Frank was the second creature I painted in, Mandy is the first:

Mandy is afraid of the dark. She's also afraid of water. And bright lights, and... well, Mandy is afraid of most everything. Luckily, she has her best friend, Mr. Snooks (the teddy bear) and he gives her the courage to face things, because she's never alone. Just don't make any loud noises, OK?

Drawing creatures is really enjoyable to me. I'm thinking long and hard about whether they are another diversion from my strong focus on complicated and detailed fairy tale paintings, or if they are a legitimate side focus for me to continue developing. I'm leaning towards development, but I need to be careful, and I acknowledge that. For now, I'm painting the rest of them, and then seeing how I feel. I rather like each and every one of them, they each have a story!

Something to think about, I suppose. Something I never saw coming. I suppose you could call this a plot twist!

Doodles

Just this past week, I suffered a two-day migraine. It's very frustrating when you can't do any of the things you normally would. I've had migraines since I was very young, and I have always just sort of accepted them, but this time I actually had plans and I saw how I had to back out and let others down because of it. I felt very guilty.

On the business side, I was all set to paint in the white rabbit on my Queen of Hearts painting:

I even took my picture with the canvas, just as pain was sneaking in behind my right eye, but I didn't know it was going to be a migraine:

About 20 minutes after that picture, I realized it was a migraine and took something. An hour later I was in my bedroom, miserable, and nothing I took helped. It was a weird one, lasting two days and nothing really knocking it. I lost time, progress on work, and let people down.

It finally let up yesterday morning, but I had a sort of migraine hangover. I couldn't focus right, even though my brain was clamoring for me to get working on my Queen as soon as possible. I didn't want to mess her up, though.

So, since it was the weekend anyway and I'm not supposed to be working-working, I decided to do some sketching-doodling fun instead! I used to doodle monsters, all sorts of monsters. I called them guardians, and I once had the idea that I'd make them out of clay (about 20 years ago.) They'd be the little gargoyle friend that you put next to or under your bed and they would chase all the other monsters away because they were special. I had all sorts of sketches, but they are long lost now. I probably threw them away!

Well, I started doodling again and thinking about them while I did. Drawing little monsters is easy and fun for me, and I decided I'll do a painting of some of the best ones (not all of them turn out to be red carpet worthy *ahem*) in oil or acrylic. Here is one from last night:

I am having people suggest CUTE animal body parts and I'm combining them into monsters. This one is Bird, Sloth, Cat, Rabbit, and Duck. My son didn't like her, and said she was creepy.  Me? I like her.

I'm going to do more today, and see what happens. Maybe I'll revisit my clay idea if I can figure out which clay to use, and more as a figurine than something to give a little kid (I had envisioned something about six inches tall and substantial, but now I'm imagining something smaller and shelf-worthy instead!) Hopefully, no more migraines will hit and I can work on my queen this coming week.

I have no news about whether we're moving. It all got messed up by human error, and now we're waiting on pins and needles to see if all is lost or not. We really want to move, so cross your fingers for us! We should know over the next two weeks (but then, they've been saying that for the past seven weeks and I've been going nuts!)