Julie's Jabber

THE DAY HAS COME! New URL Address

2010-03-14T11:25:00.000-07:00

As of this very moment I won't be posting to this blog any more. My new URL is laughinghorseart.blogspot.com. Please come visit and join my followers. I would love it! HOPE TO SEE YOU THERE.

Art Tip for the Day...Sign it right

2010-03-13T07:56:00.001-08:00

This part is for women only-not anything too tricky- but have you ever wondered if it matters whether you sign your whole name on your creation or not- as far as marketing goes? Well, it does as proven by a female artist that I read about probably about 15 years ago. She did an experiment to see if it mattered whether she signed as a woman. She tried her full name, just her last name, and a made up man's name. Guess who sold the most? Well, you guessed it, ladies. Of course, the man. Not fair. After I read that article I decided that my best bet- if I didn't want to misrepresent myself all together- was to sign just my last name. I don't know, for me, if it really helped a lot as I didn't try her experiment but I thought it couldn't hurt, right? Dang. It's no fair that we can't be a woman all the way in this man's world. But, I just hate to break it to you, ladies, but from what I've learned in my "Human Heritage" class at the University of Utah-there has NEVER been a woman's world. That's right. I said it. NEVER. Never has there been a true matriarchal society. The Iroquois came close but still no banana. The women in the tribe could decide the leaders of it but the men could STILL veto her. So, we better go with the flow somewhat and that means we women have to be a little crafty. Therefore...the last name, only, is your best bet.

Okay men-you can get in here now. Your signature shouldn't ever be the only thought you put into your creative signing (because it is original to YOU only). If you want to protect your rights on your work you must put a visible date (yes, out in front pretty much-I guess a sculpture that is viewed with a 360 degree view would be an exception here) on the front AND the copyright symbol. Even though you haven't applied for a copyright-put it on there. From what I read- the copyright office takes forever to process claims and such. So, it would be a good bet that you would have plenty of time to apply for your copyright before the trial date, etc. Now this could be a Wickapedia fact as I haven't read up on copyright laws for quite a while but don't completely take my word for it.

While we're at it on the signature business-unless your signature is a world wide prize (like Van Gogh, etc.) you want people to look at your art work and say to themselves, "That's such a great work of creativity! Oh, who is it by? Julie Jacobsen". Get it? The name is less important than the work of art unless you are-repeat after me-Van Gogh or some other big time art whosit. You don't want your viewers to say, "Julie Jacobsen did this work. Now how about the art? Nice. But Julie Jacobsen is the artist". Do you get it? You don't want your name to be blatant. That brings up a whole other can of worms-framing. Let's hit that another day because it is, oh, so important.

Now, look at my examples of my signature. Notice something? The colors blend into the color scheme and yet they stand out ENOUGH. Of course they are really standing out to you as I magnified the view but if you go back in my blog you'll see many of my original works that were very successful marketing wise. If you look for the signature you can find it but you have to hunt a little. Sometimes I have changed the painting beneath my signature to have it stand out just a little more as it was too wimpy.

P. S. I forgot that today we were going to talk about drawing the viewer in. Alright, you people that looked at Dore. Hold that image/images in your mind for a day. I wrote myself a note to be sure to do it tomorrow.

Art History Moment: Okay. I heard this rumor. It could be another Wickapedia fact but I heard that Van Gogh lost a lot of marbles in his head because he would actually eat the lead paint that he painted with. Just a little here and there but nowadays you know what eating lead paint can do to you. That's right. Brain damage. Maybe I should Google that and see what the consensus is on that info. Interesting theory, isn't it.

*****URL CHANGE COMING SOON*****
Remember it will be laughinghorseart.blogspot.com in about 1 week or less.

Art tip for the Day...Get it moving

2010-03-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

What makes an image inviting? Often it's the movement involved that will pull you in more than what the subject is. As I said before-our doodles say a lot of what we are thinking deep down-how we're feeling. There is a wonderful site called mondayartday.com. They have contests each week and I'm showing you my very first entry for the topic "circus". I started out drawing a ring with elephants in it and it just was a dud. I tore it up. Then I just let myself go with the flow and things developed. A lot developed in fact. 3 drawings and I used some watercolor on one of them. All 3 are filled with movement and turmoil. What have I gone through this week? Turmoil. There you go. Reflected in my drawing.

Anyway, adding movement makes things so much more intriguing. I'm going to talk about what will make for a successful painting-bringing the viewer into a place/space where they will want to remain a while and study things-tomorrow.

Art History Moment: Have you all heard of Gustave Dore, an illustrator from the 1800's? I want you to Google his Dante's Inferno illustrations to see how Dore pulls you into the story by creating drama, etc. Dore goes along with tomorrow's tip. So keep him in mind.

*****REMINDER OF URL CHANGE*****
Remember next week, most likely, my address will be changing to laughinghorseart.blogspot.com.

Art Tip for the Day...Basics about creating distance

2010-03-11T17:45:00.000-08:00

I have this really nifty chart that will help you so much with creating distance in your paintings/drawings. There are so many little tricks that create the illusion that things are receding besides just normal perspective rules. If you use these you will be successful at it. It's self explanatory, really. I think you will understand. The only thing that puzzled me a bit was where it says overlapped and overlapping. What this means is that in the foreground the object will overlap something. That shows it is in front. The object behind and , therefore, further back will be overlapped. I had a small copy of this chart that I just put on my table next to my easel that I could refer to from time to time until I fully understood it. I hope this is helpful to someone.

Art History Moment: For any of you that are interested in the history of art you will find that when you study it you can't do it without learning about the art itself (of course), politics, culture and religion. That's what makes it so very interesting!

***REMINDER OF URL CHANGE***
Remember my new blog address will be laughinghorseart.blogspot.com. Changing probably the beginning of next week. It's partially up but not in complete working order as of yet.

Art Tip for the Day...Let's do something different and low stress

2010-03-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

Okay. I'm back. Yesterday was an extremely hard day. Just can't get over that my cat is gone. It helps to keep busy and not mope as this only makes it worse.

So, I'm moving on with more artsy stuff. When I get depressed I get busy! Do you all have a dark mug? I want you to hold it at an angle so you can see your reflection. It's going to be funky but that's half the fun. I did this years ago and you can tell by my drawing that I had a drink in the cup. This isn't necessary unless you want the reflection to blend from the mug to the drink. Anyway, get out your drawing paper and a pencil or colored pencils. Now draw what you see. Don't try to make yourself look your best. That's not the point. It's a lesson in forgetting about your nose, etc. and drawing the shapes and negative space + fluidity. Loosen up. The drawing I did was centered on the paper but you don't have to do that. Let it go off the edges but be careful about that dirty little devil, the tangent (see older posts to learn about that).

That's all there is to it.

Art History Moment: Eugene Delacroix, a French Romantic painter, was a master in the painting technique of fluidity. In looking at "Arabs Skirmishing in the Mountains" you'll see his paintings are alive with movement. Not only are the brush strokes fluid but the composition sings with motion-one element moves to another and so forth.

In keeping with the "fluid" theme go back a few days in my posts and look at the natural arch painting I did. Notice that my first attempt at it is so static. Harsh. The second painting has so much more movement and flows.

By the way.....my discussions of art history are not going to follow any sort of order. This isn't a class. This is just discussing what inspires me at the moment.

REMINDER OF URL CHANGE
Remember that my address is changing to laughinghorseart.blogspot.com. Most likely the beginning of next week.

Art Tip for the Day...Sad day for me....

2010-03-09T08:07:00.000-08:00

So sorry to not have any tip today. I'm going to have to put my cat down this morning. She's been sick with diabetes and urinary tract infections for over a year. It's been a battle trying to get her through it and I am at the point where I just can't go through this any more. I don't need to tell all of the pet lovers (especially cats) how I feel. For those of you that don't know-well, I feel awful. Back with a more cheerful tip tomorrow.

Art Tip for the Day...Don't sell your best/most meaningful work

2010-03-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

First of all I just want to say that today's samples are little "quick" paintings that I did of Gracie, my daughter, and Charlie, my son. They have helped me so much in my endeavor to get my new blog site going. It's almost done and I think it will look a lot better. After all-this page, now, is part of my maiden voyage. Anyway, Gracie works at a place called Shoplet.com in the web page and marketing department. She looks at 100's of blogs every day and writes the online blog for their company. Quite a clever lady. Charlie is Mr. Computer Know it All around our house. He's fabulous also. I just want to say a huge thank you to both of them for all their help!

Back to the main topic. As artists we are constantly trying so hard to make a buck here and there. This I have done. I mean-who wants to live in a hovel? Not me. So, it's tempting to sell or give away/donate all your original work if someone wants it. Now, I do have to say that it would be hard to turn down a million dollars but you get my point when I say that you'll be sorry if you can't look at the originals any more. This is especially true of subject matter that is near and dear to your heart. These paintings above of Gracie and Charlie were sold and I miss them but I have a lot of paintings of my kids. So I thought I could spare a few. Plus I take pictures of everything before it leaves my house. Let me repeat that-I take pictures of everything before it leaves my house. That way I have an image of them for occasions, like today. I know it's tempting to donate your best work always but that's a mistake as you won't have anything to show (and this will happen) in your home when the time comes to show off your work.

Maybe I should go into the picture taking in more detail. That's for another day. Wow. I could do this forever. I never run out of ideas. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share them.

Many of you know that I'm back in school after many years getting my Art History degree. I'm a senior. Well, pretty soon I've got to take "Senior Seminar" and it's been so long since I was really in the art history world. Of course I remember quite a bit but there's a lot I don't. I think, starting tomorrow, I'm going to add a "Art History Moment" comment to my blog. This will help me and help all of you to become a more well rounded artist. I've got to start reviewing everything, guys.

*****Blog address change reminder*****
Remember my address will be changing very soon to laughinghorseart.blogspot.com.

Art Tip for the Day...The almost chain saw massacre

2010-03-07T14:42:00.000-08:00

This was one of those sagas that went on and on for about 3 years. I'm not kidding. Chris and I wanted to have a painting for our living room. So we searched for ideas. This is what we came up with. It's a natural arch in Utah. I can't remember the name. Anyway, it's a very large painting and those can be so tough. I got it all finished and decided that it needed some animals. The photo I did it from actually had some sheep in it. Now, since I did this a lot from a magazine photo I could not claim this as original, at the time. In the photo there were some Navajos herding sheep. I was so happy with it but felt it was a tad harsh. I exhibited it at the Black Diamond Shop in Salt Lake City. One of the guys that worked there, his name is Conrad, told me that you would never see sheep in Southern Utah like that. We had an argument and I was quite ticked off. Conrad became a real star in the mountaineering world as he's the one that was up on Mount Everest and found Hillary's remains in the 1990's, I think. That's besides the point but, even though he made me so mad I learned a valuable lesson.

Back to the painting. During the space of 3 years I nearly drove myself crazy trying to paint this and that while it was on the wall. One day my husband came home from work and I was desperate. I told him to PLEASE get the chain saw and destroy it. I was going to the store and wanted to come home to the loss of a headache. Half way to the store I thought about what I could do to fix it and called in a panic at a pay phone to ask if he had. Fortunately for me he was too tired and sitting down for a while before he was going to get out the chain saw. I told him to stop and not do it!

Then I got it down and recreated the whole thing in many ways. As I said yesterday a dragon formed in the rocks slivering down the right side. There's a screaming face (probably reflected my stress over the whole thing) too. Plus other fun hidden objects. I felt that it needed some kind of framing and brought in the foreground. This was from my imagination completely. Then I decided that I wanted to put burros in it. As I worked and worked I decided to put oils on top of the acrylics to soften and add drama (lighting). I feel it's a much better painting now and it hangs over our fireplace.

The big lesson I learned from that little twerp, Conrad, is that it's so important to research everything-including the plants, animals, etc. If you don't then there is always going to be a "Conrad" that will make your blood boil. We artists have a hard time taking criticism from people that we feel don't know art. My husband has made me mad on a regular basis throughout all the years but, you know what? He's usually right and it's mostly about structures and perspective. Darn him. Good thing as I would have made a fool of myself many times over.

So, there you go. The famous Chain Saw Story! Ta da!

P. S. Notice something else weird? The sheep were too big. See. I told you. Lots of lessons from this painting.

Incidentally there are some other great lessons in this painting but that's for another day.

*****REMINDER ABOUT UPCOMING ADDRESS CHANGE*****
Changing soon to laughinghorseart.blogspot.com.

Art Tip for the Day...You can make blaa items fun

2010-03-06T13:14:00.000-08:00

My husband and I just celebrated our 26th anniversary! It was on Wednesday. To celebrate we spent the night at Sundance Ski resort (you know where the Sundance Film Festival originated) that is up Provo Canyon in Utah. No, we didn't see Robert Redford. It was so beautiful. Loved the restaurant and our room was to die for. We didn't want to leave. It had all the extras: fireplace with wood to light, lovely natural soaps, woodsie smell inside all the time, and etc., etc. Then we went snowshoeing right below Mount Timpanogos. It was glorious and we didn't want to come home but here we are now.....

So, after that little ditty I will proceed with the Tip of the Day. I love to hide things in my paintings. It's especially nice when you feel the shapes are a little boring. I don't know about you but some of them I see all the time on my walls and it's so entertaining to look and see where I've hidden something. Added bonus: it's fun for others and they like to hear the stories behind them. The painting at the top is of our cat that died. It was so sad but she hung herself from her collar. If you look really close I've written "buy break away collars" right on the collar in the painting. Under closer examination you'll see that my leaves at the top are in the shape of cats and there's even one being teased by a dog.

Do you have this happen? There are some days that I have to put my hand up on the side of my face so I won't see my paintings. That's usually when I'm tired. I see all the parts that I think aren't successful. If it goes on long enough I will even get out the paint brush and fix it. Even with it still hanging on the wall. I almost fell backwards down the stairs once trying to fix one. Pretty scary. Did I ever tell you the story about my painting and the chain saw...........? Tomorrow.

For all of you that don't like cats or think this is a dumb bell subject matter-then so sorry. Tomorrow's painting has a scary dragon in it.

*****Another reminder of URL change coming up*****
My new address will be laughinghorseart.blogspot.com. I'll just keep posting this until I can get the transformation finished.

Art Tip for the Day..."Working" tools

2010-03-05T08:49:00.000-08:00

When I say working-I mean that they WORK well. They work great and I've been using these tools for years and years. The item on the left, as you probably already guessed, is a palette. This is the one that I use for my ACRYLICS and works soooooo much better than a throw away or reusable white one (that is hard to clean, you know). It's essentially a piece of glass that my husband cut for me and good 'ol duct tape to keep it safe. You can tell by how shabby it is that I use it a lot. It's not very big-just about 8" x 10". That way I can carry it around and put it in an art bin so easily. Now, here's the great part-the glass is so easy to clean. All you have to use is your palette knife or razor blade after it's dry. Or you can just squirt it with water and let it sit while you're washing your brushes (yes, EVERY TIME or the acrylics will eat the bristles and it must be with a cleaner). I even lay paper towel on it and squirt the water on top. Then all I have to do is just swish it around and throw it away. Then it usually takes one more quick wipe. Love it. Love it.

The other is a cut piece of levis used to wipe off my brushes. This is how I thought of this: my son was throwing away a bunch of pants that weren't even worth giving to the good will. But he thought they would be great for me to use with my art. I told him that I usually used t shirts but he said I could at least wipe off most of the paint on the denim. So he cut them all up for me and they have lasted a very long time. I'm giving Kip the credit for this brilliant discovery. They're great because of the rough grain of the material. It takes off more paint than a cotton rag and I always use it when I'm done and want to get off most of the paint before I wash the brushes.

Just some simple ideas that make the painting process so much more enjoyable (I always despised trying to clean off those stupid reusable palettes and they never got very clean).

Oh....Last point about the palette. Why do I have a gray piece of paper underneath it? Because gray is the perfect mixing background. The colors are more true if you use that. I'm always very careful to try and keep that part dry but it does need changing every once in a while (not very often).

*****PLEASE NOTE*****

I will be changing my URL (blogger address) fairly soon. My daughter, the computer wizard, deemed it necessary as juliesjabber doesn't fit into what I'm doing these days. So, it's going to be laughinghorseart.blogspot.com. It makes more sense since that's my logo and it makes me smile just to look at it. I hope it does for you also!

Remember if you have a great tip...won't you please share it with all of us? That is if you feel you can. All of us in the creative world just love to learn new things because a good artist/creative person should never stop the learning process or their creations will become stale.

Art Tip for the Day...I can see the forest for the trees

2010-03-04T08:50:00.000-08:00

Now that I've posted so many of my blunders I thought I would display and talk about one of my successful paintings. I know it's not an original concept but it was a commission for someone. This is a painting of Deseret Livestock Ranch in Utah-the largest ranch in the state. One of my best friends' family used to own it and I spent many happy hours riding horses there. We stayed in the little white house.

Enough of that nostalgia. After painting for many years I discovered the great attributes of a filbert brush while working on this painting. In fact I had to have several sizes. I liked the filbert so much. As you can see I had a lot of leaves to do. Two things I want to talk about here.

The first is-when you mix up your paint for the leaves don't mix it to an even color. Let little bits of different colors appear throughout. Also you can have small sparkles of light (different brightnesses). This is especially true for leaves in the foreground. Also, grass and whatever you paint that is alive. It can apply to other things but today I'm really talking about leaves. So, when you apply the paint let the different colors peak out somewhat. It adds life to the painting.

The second is-try to hold your brush as loosely as possible and stand back. In fact-way back if you can. You can attach a stick to the end of the brush and get very far away. If you are close and tight you won't be able to see the leaves for the trees (get it-like the forest, etc.-too close and involved when you should relax and detach some). You might want to get tight on a few leaves that are really close to give more of a feeling for what kind of tree this is but not necessarily.

Okay. Go out and pick your switch-I mean stick.

Art Tip for the Day...As promised-Sometimes you have to ruin it!

2010-03-03T07:29:00.001-08:00

Just making good on my promise here. One of the things I like to do from time to time is show you how I CAN fail. No artist really wants to do that. We want to show the world that we are fully capable but I don't know any artist that really feels that way. A lot of us feel like impostors and the world will find out about it if we aren't careful. I'm just getting it out there now. I can't do everything possible in art-but I'll try my best to be successful.

Well, onto the tip. What I left off yesterday is: sometimes you have to ruin a painting/art venture to make it work. This really applied to yesterday's painting. Remember I said that it was getting to the point that I really just didn't like it. At the worst point (where I was ready to ask my husband to take out the chain saw-another story, another time) I decided to put a veil over it. For those who don't know what a veil is-it's a kind of cloudy wash put all over the area you want to change or create atmosphere, more layers to work on, etc. It's very useful for pushing things back, like mountains. In the case of the my painting it helped me to get rid of the stark tightness that was developing and that I couldn't see beyond. It helped me to look at it in a new way and try different things. Let me just put it this way-IT HELPED A LOT. At the bad stage I showed the painting to a neighbor and she probably thought what an idiot I was. I wish I could have gotten her back to see how it was transformed. Too bad I can't show you how it looked at the bad stage.

BUT I can show you one that is like that and it's the star painting for today. This is a painting of me at Lake Powell. We hiked into the most beautiful side area called Moqui Falls (not sure of the spelling now). I did this painting quite a while ago and have never been satisfied with it. I worked and worked on it. The other day I remembered the old mantra: sometimes, etc. Another little ditty by Bob Rumel, again, by the way. So, here you go. What I have done is globbed on a thick veil....well, just, actually colors-lots of cool dark colors-on the rocks in the foreground and middle ground. It's hard to see the difference as this photo didn't turn out that great but you get the idea, I hope. It might be a while before I can get this painting to the successful point. But remember what I said before-it's okay to throw it away or cut it up and use it for an interesting under painting for smaller paintings or whatever. The point is-it's okay to fail and learn.

What did you learn today? Sometimes you have to ruin it to make it work! Have courage. Be brave. Throw that veil on or whatever you have to do. That reminds me of something else you can do.........

Oh, by the way-sorry for the extra poor photo of this unsuccessful, as yet (see I have hope still) painting.

Art Tip of the Day....So your portraits/people look like Martians

2010-03-02T09:08:00.000-08:00

One of the best tips I got from my great teacher, Robert Rumel, is about the eyes. You know, I never even thought about the fact that eyes don't always show a reflection of light until Robert pointed it out to me. Think about a bathtub when it's in low light....say you have lit candles around it. Now, do you see a big shimmer of white light? Not a chance. The reflected light, if any, will be gentle and probably have some color to it. Now take away the candles and let the very low natural light be observed and you really don't see much, if any, reflections.

It's the same with our eyes and that's why I am showing you, today, the portrait I did of my daughter with her friend when they were 3. This was a very difficult painting because in the photo I took I could hardly see their eyes because of the shadows. In fact that's where the charm lay in the whole composition. The contrast of going from deep shadow to bright sunlight makes it very intriguing. In fact one could say that it is a use of the technique called chiaroscuro-made famous by such masters as Rembrandt and Caravaggio (they differed in that Rembrandt's light dissolves into the form-whereas Caravaggio's hits something solid). But I digress. Back to the point I'm trying to make by showing you my painting.

As I was coming towards the end of this painting I kept wanting to perk these little girls up by bringing life to their eyes by way of reflections. Every time I did that I would stand back and think, "Yuck. I just don't like this painting at all." Finally I gave up and let the composition as a whole bring the much needed life to this painting. In my diligence to put in the eyes so they would be recognizable I forgot all about the charm of the painting-the drama created by light. That's when I gave in and only put in the reflections that would actually happen. Then it became a success and only then.

ALSO, it's not going to be the same reflected light in both or all of the eyes. Remember that as that's another key to making this person come alive. Plus the shapes of the light and placement on the eyes will be different. This means you really have to observe and if you can't get it from your photograph then have someone stand in similar light and observe what's going on.

Part of the problem I was having was being too tight. I just hated the painting and then a little thought came into my mind......which will be the topic for tomorrow's tip of the day. Now you will just have to wait until then.

Now, of course, if you are doing something in a more illustrative or abstract style these rules need not apply. All of this goes out the window. But if you want realistic people you should, definitely, follow these rules.

Oh, I should add that if you could see the original painting you would see that the light in the eyes are not matching.

Art Tip for the Day....BORING-This drawing is BORING!

2010-03-01T09:31:00.000-08:00

I don't even want to have this be the main drawing for my blog today because it is, well, BORING. I just want you all to see the difference between a tight, boring, drawing and some loose and "dig deep" drawings. These drawings have a lot going for them. One, the bag lady, isn't exactly fashion magazine worthy but it has heart and interest. I would much rather gaze at her all day than the boring bird drawing that I did from one of my own photographs (remember? keep it original even if it's boring). The drawing of the angel and the little girl on the school steps has plenty of "dig deep" in it. It came from the depths of my memories of feeling like an outcast, often, in grade school. I'm sure many of you can relate to the feeling of having someone be on your side. Especially we artsie types (bad English, I know, but I didn't say I was an English major either). My couple that has the middle eastern flavor (I say flavor because I know it's not a correct representation....it's just what came out of me that day) has personality and movement. The composition is definitely one that keeps the eye moving back to what is important-i.e. the soul of the drawing as represented in the eyes).

Now, don't you agree that the birds are, well, you know. I did that in 1997 and it still stops me when I look at that sketch book. I always say what a cruddy one it is. Plus I didn't even bother to spray any "fix" on it. So, it's all smudged.

The main point of today's entry is that letting it flow, letting the muse in side take over, is what it's all about in art. Our audience is not dumb. Intuitively they seek something that they can connect with. Even if you never show these drawings to anyone you will know, yourself, if you have dug deep each and every time you come across them. DON'T rip them out as they are a constant reminder of what you have and have not been successful with. Well, unless they are too embarrassing for words. I mean, after all, we don't want the world to realize that we actually have the most bizarre thoughts sometimes or can't, actually, draw a nose.

Art Tip for the Day...I Aint Got No Satisfaction

2010-02-25T08:53:00.000-08:00

So, you've finished your painting and it just doesn't do it for you. What went wrong? Why isn't it a masterpiece? Well, I want you to turn that painting upside down again. Now. Stand back and forget about the subject matter. Start looking at shapes.

1. Do you have interesting negative spaces?
2. Is it bottom heavy?
3. Top heavy?
4. Or, worse yet, all centered in the middle?
5. Any tangents?
6. looking at the color distribution
A. Is the color consistent? Say, you have a bright red wheelbarrow-you could put a little
red highlight on the person's hair, a red reflection in the puddle on the sidewalk.
Color distribution is important.
B. Does one color overwhelm everything? Or maybe the yellow you picked out for the
lemons in the wheelbarrow just looks all wrong. You knew something was off. This is the problem and you can fix it.
This is all conjecture, remember.

There are probably other questions you could ask yourself. And by the way, I find this the best way to figure out what is going wrong with your basic drawing of something. Hands become just shapes that you can deal with. Look at the negative space around them. Sometimes all you need to do is copy that negative space that should look right.

Okay, now you have found out the problems in your painting. You have a battle plan and can get to work fixing everything.

*Just a side note from yesterday....I forgot to mention that you can try to get permission to copy from the creator of the image. They might say they don't care a hoot that you using their photo exactly and you are going to sign your name to it. But GET IT IN WRITING if you plan to do anything public with this painting-like sell, exhibit, pass it down in the family for inheritance purposes. I did a painting of a house from a very old postcard. I did my best to contact the company but they had gone out of business years before I came along and wanted to do a painting using their image. But, again, be sure to document it in your files the process you took to try to do the right thing. At least you can show the world that you tried. As you can tell I will give you some of my professional expertise in the commercial world of the business of selling, etc., your art. That is what I know of it. I'm not an expert on this, guys. That's why I'm not a lawyer.

**Another side note...I won't be posting any tips until, most likely, on Monday as I'm going to go help take care of my grandson and it's out of state. Plus I wouldn't be able to concentrate anyway-even if I did have a laptop to take with.

Art Tip for the Day...It's Mine!

2010-02-24T11:57:00.000-08:00

Well, it is mine or so I KNOW about my original images (Not this image above and I'll get into that in a little bit). That was kind of a rude title, wasn't it? But it got your attention right away, I bet.

The topic for today is keeping your art original by trying your hardest to use your own original images-photos, drawings, etc.. I know it's so easy to find a very cool picture and paint it but you have to be careful. We, as artists, are always borrowing. Borrowing from this place and that. I don't think there are too many that can paint an animal from memory, right? So, we are always having to look at pictures and who expects you to live in Africa where you could have a handy opportunity to take a picture of a wildebeest. I know we don't have one at our zoo. Anyway, that's why artists usually have overflowing files that they call "morgues" (not my idea). Depressing name but I guess you could look at it this way-dead images, images that YOU don't own. You have to respect the person who created the image by not copying it exactly and putting your name on it. It's just not fair (sound like the sand pile gang?). But it's not. The photographer got the photo of the wildebeest because he actually went to Africa.

Or how about those of you that copy someone else's painting and call that your own design (by signing it, remember?). For one thing it's kind of a rut/bad habit to get into. I know it's hard to come up with your own ideas but you can do it and you'll get good at it-WITH PRACTICE. You know you can copy a painting or someone's photo (I'm not a lawyer here but this is the way it works, I'm quite sure) if you sign your name and then give credit to the original person or magazine, etc. So for example you would put: Your name, after Van Gogh. Then that's okay. If you scroll back in my blog you'll come to the dancers that I drew out of the newspaper. I put that it was someone else's orginal idea. Get it?

Now you get to read about dummy me but I was a young dummy so I can be forgiven. That doesn't mean I didn't have to follow the rules. I didn't know what I was doing when I was a senior in high school. This was in the 1970's (don't count back on your fingers to guess how old I am) when "black is beautiful" was one of the popular catch phrases. There was a fabulous article with pictures. Did I tell you about this before? I don't think so but if I did-please bare with me. Anyway, I painted the painting that you see above of the lovely African American lady. It was quite good, I thought. So I decided to enter it in an art show. To my chagrin it was recognized from the article and rejected. Drat. I missed out on the whole art show and felt quite dumb about the whole thing.

So, get what I'm saying? Remember me when you are tempted to take credit for someone else's idea-IT'S MINE. There. Now you would want the same for you, wouldn't you? Right guys?

Oh, and I should add that this painting is a classic example of using bad art supplies. I mean-look at the yellowed finish all around her. I guess I wasn't too accomplished at putting on finishes either as you can still see the original blue underneath. I used a Liquitex finish and I would sure like to know how to get it off without hurting the painting. I'll have to look into that at another time. For now it's back to the basement it's going to go. Also, I used the awful canvas board and in addition to the stolen image it's warped. Lovely. Just lovely.

Yikes I just read back on this and what a blow hard I am.

How do you feel about this blog? Does it help? Is there anything I can help you with? Please let me hear your comments. I'd love to hear from you.

Art tip for the Day...Move like a race car-VROOOM

2010-02-23T09:36:00.000-08:00

Well, this isn't exactly one tip. It's a very cool exercise that is especially great for you (and me) tight drawing/painting types. What I want you to do is to pretend that you are on a trip to, say, San Francisco, and you're riding on a cable car. You will never get a chance to ever visit again in your life and you forgot you camera. Did I say that you have always wanted to do one of those street scenes that have lots of goodies in it? Now, you have 5 minutes, only, to draw everything you see. You want all the details-buildings, signs, people, animals, etc. Because you're a creative type I know you can do this-pick some place in your home or where ever you are and apply this little story mindset to it. Set the timer for 5 minutes and draw EVERYTHING you see as fast as you can. It's amazing how much you will get in. Remember that you need every detail that you can possibly fit in-words, the crack in the wall, the food on the plates, etc. I purposely chose some of those cluttered areas in my house and, yes, I did leave the dishes in the sink for that extra detail that will be needed. No, I'm not a slob.

Is your house pristine and do you live in a sterile environment? Then use my photos. It's better when you do it from a live area but these photos will work. I can't think of too many places that would fit that description-except a jail...hmmmm...not fun. Anyway, you can use my creative photos. You probably already know this but if you double click on the photo you can make it very large. Oh, I should mention that tomorrow we are going to talk about not using other people's photos for your own creative work and then signing it as yours-like you thought up the whole idea yourself. Here will come one of my dandy little life experiences that you can learn from. Drat. I have so many of those but I won't be stingy and keep all those humiliating stories to myself (not always that bad). I want you to see that I'm an artist that can fail and learn from my mistakes (hopefully). That way you will have hope that you can reach the pinnacle of artdom some day (will you let me know what it's like when you get there?).

Extra credit-use color for the exercise. Or why don't you try the moving transportation with someone else driving, of course!

There. All you tight types-don't you just feel free? Try not to get a headache over this. It doesn't matter. It does not have to be a masterpiece to show the world. Remember what I said...YOU CAN THROW IT AWAY.

Art tip for the Day...Ask yourself why you do art

2010-02-22T07:58:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm sorry this is just a little tidbit today but I've got my midterm tonight-must study and not goof off (well, this is fun and could be considered a goof off).

Anyway, this is important. Why do you do this? Is it because you feel pressured to fulfill a talent? Is it because you love the way it makes you feel free? Is it because you need to earn money and think this will do it? What is the reason? Knowing the reason will help to guide you. If it's a negative one then you can try to figure out if there is a better reason for it behind that. When I did this quite a few years ago I had a list of about 10 things that made me realize how much it added to my life. At the same time you could be thinking about if this is a healthy thing. Am I obsessed with this and ignore my family? When I quit doing this full time in 1999 I was getting to the point that I was thinking about it constantly. It became an obsession and ceased to have joy involved in it. I was really trying to make money and figure out what people would buy (I can tell you why Van Gogh cut off his ear-FRUSTRATION). Not a good mind set, let me tell you. That's when I went to work at a dental lab for 8 years and did a little art here and there. I have to say that that long break was good for me. You get into a style rut and this freed me from that. Now I'm comfortable to do things that I like and I hope that will show in my creations these days. Doing the mosaic hearts last year brought me so much satisfaction. If you look at my horse and cat painting that I'm working on (back a few post pages) you can see that, indeed, this painting brings me joy. My 2 favorite animals in a great setting with lovely flowers. Do I care that someone might ask why I'm doing something so trite as horses, cats and flowers? Not a whit. I'm thinking of naming this "Julie's Paradise" (I would need to add my family but too late now). Maybe I could call it that and add "and behind the bush is her family".

Study time.

Art tip for the Day....Relax, dig deep and let it happen!

2010-02-21T12:16:00.000-08:00

As I was in church today I pulled out my sketch book fully intending on working on a photo of my daughter, Gracie, when she was little. I thought I'd get warmed up (you know, with the circles I talked about before). Well, I ended up staying with the circles because pretty soon I started to see a bird forming. Then I went with that. I wanted you to see the end result. I've also included a few other of my "free" sketches. Actually I do have to relax a lot to do this but sometimes it kind of hurts in a sense. I don't know if you know what I mean but it's like something inside takes over and I have to let that something flow. I guess you can call it like a trance (no! that's toooo icky) or just into an artist's zone. I'm still listening to church but I am doing something.

As you can see in the others it almost looks like I changed my direction part way through the sketch. This often happens with the most imaginative ones. Notice also the different perspectives. If I sat down to do a snowman I would do like any 2nd grader-plop plop plop-3 circles in a row. In this snowman sketch it just came out of I don't KNOW where! The same with the other sketch. I think I started out with cloud like shapes. NOW this is where you really get to know me. See how I like to pull out of the design groups of people/creatures? Notice that they are so close and cozy? Even loving? Well, that's how I really am. I'm a cozy type of person and I absolutely love my family. I have always encouraged our children to be close. I hope that radiates from all of us. I know my husband is that way.

Back to the bird......I, also, never would have chosen this view of a bird. I wouldn't have felt like I could do it without a picture (contrary to what nonartists believe-no, we can't draw everything without a picture.....whoops! I gave our secret away. Sorry, fellow artists).

The lesson in all of this is that if you let it flow you will find abilities in yourself that will take over if you will only let them.

Today's Art Tip! Rubbing Alcohol-an acrylic painter's best buddy

2010-02-20T09:38:00.000-08:00

Okay. This isn't complicated at all but something good to know. If you like to use acrylic paints and make a mistake it will come off very easily with rubbing alcohol. It the paint is very thick try scraping it first to get some of it off. Since it's acrylics it should kind of pull and snap off as it's essentially a plastic. Then use the rubbing alcohol to get the rest. It it won't scrape then you'll have to go over and over it. Be very careful not to let it drip on the rest of your painting. Of course, if there are oils on top you will have to use a paint thinner to get that layer off first. Mistakes aren't fun but without them we would never learn. I had an art consultant, Laura Stamps, that said she used to keep a notebook to write down all her mistakes throughout the year. Then at the end of the year she would review it and see what she had learned. I think this is an excellent idea-trouble is that I would be going into my second volume by the end of the first month. I should be almost perfect by now, shouldn't I? Hmmm. Well, not so, not so.

Okay, so I have to explain the pic. While going through old family photos I came across this one that's a real gem. It's 17 year old me, my brother, John, and niece, Melissa. This is before I became a rich and famous artist! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!! Fooled you on that one, didn't I? Well, I am telling the truth that it is indeed me before many many years of all my mistakes AND successes. If only I would have had the wisdom that I have now.

Art Tip for the Day...I explain my Underpainting method with examples

2010-02-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

Underpaintings, the solid base. I wanted to return to the underpainting topic again because I feel like they are so magical. Until I used them my paintings seemed flat and lifeless (to me, anyway). In this entry I thought it would be very useful to discuss one of my most successful paintings/prints: "America's Favorite City". It's actually California Street in San Francisco. I'm sure you guessed that. I really went to town on this one but it took some careful planning. I noticed and you will also that there are quite a few white buildings in this painting. I thought I would give each one a different u. p. (thanks for the break...I can't type underpainting over and over as my poor cracked and sore finger tips from the dry heat in Utah are furious today and the typing doesn't help at all). Okay, now, I can really get picky in my planning and this accounts for my prices. I put a lot of serious thought in everything I do. Look at the white buildings that are located about midsection. I gave them a red orange o. c. Moving back in perspective I used yellow ochre, pink, orange, etc. Now, in the foreground there is so much boring boring pavement. This o. p. actually looked like molten lava. Now I want you to know that that's why I love acrylics because after I laid in the o. p's. I began with very think layers on top-being careful to allow a little touch of the o. p. to show through. As you can see the white buildings definitely are stars in their own right-plus the pavement is far from boring. Later in the painting I used oils (remember oils on TOP of acrylics-not the other way around).

Okay, so I added another one of my paintings at the top of this blog because I remembered that I had a picture of it before (with just u. p.) and after (finished). This is "The McCune Mansion"-a gorgeous old mansion in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah. I've posted this before but many of you probably didn't see it. It just illustrates my technique perfectly. So, I had to include it.

You can cleverly lead the eye back in perspective by using sequentially cooler and cooler u. p. colors. I did that with green trees in another painting. I started out with red and ended up with a purple. It really works, you guys! But you have to have patience and use a little planning. The benefits are enormous (and I really like to get the job done fast in everything I do...so I had to make myself hunker down and focus).

Oh, just so you don't think I'm the genius that thought this up I want you to know that my art teacher, Robert Rumel, suggested the brilliant u. p's. years ago. I just took that and ran with it farther than I think he thought I'd do. Thanks again, Robert!

Art tip for the day...Yes, you can freeze them!

2010-02-18T14:27:00.000-08:00

This is a great idea for those of you that don't know it already. Just put your oils in a plastic container with a lid and pop them in the freezer. Then when you want to paint next time take them out to defrost. I often put them on a heat vent for about 10 minutes or so. Putting them outside on a sunny day works also. Just be careful not to forget them as they will not be as good if they are baked. If you forget them over and over, of course, they will be not great at all. But I do this all the time. It's so great and my oils last a long time. It doesn't work with acrylics because they are really a plastic and, well, it just doesn't work-let's just leave it at that.

Art Tip for the Day...You Get What You Pay for, you know-Buy Quality Materials!

2010-02-17T12:40:00.000-08:00

Buy the best materials that you can afford. I can't stress this enough. You may not like the painting of the beach ball today but someday someone might and they'll be very sad if the paint was not artist quality and that it's painted on a canvas board that warped. Think forever or as close as you can get to that. Also, when you use good quality materials it makes you feel like you really have a purpose in this venture-what you're doing is important to you and the world. It makes you sit up straighter and feel confident in what you're doing.

Be careful to get paper that is acid free. The only time I give this some leeway is in doing doodles. You know doodles can happen anywhere. They could occur in the phone book, your school notebook, etc. You get what I mean about this.

During the '70's when the "black is beautiful" movement really picked up steam "Life Magazine" ran a fabulous article with the coolest photos ever of gorgeous African Americans. I was in high school and decided to paint one of a young woman. Well, even when I look at it now I think, "dang but that's a good painting...even if I do say so myself" BUT the tragedy of that painting is that: 1. I used a cheapy canvas board
2. I used a bad finish
I do get points for using Liquitex acrylics, my favorite and still is. Too bad it doesn't look all that great now.

As a side note I would never say that this is an original painting and take credit for the image of the woman. I would love to show this in my post but I don't want to get in trouble with copyright infringement. How about if we talk about that tomorrow, okay? It's study time around here.

Art tip for the day...That Dirty Little Devil-the TANGENT!

2010-02-16T08:56:00.001-08:00

So, yesterday my sister, Carrie, and I worked on fixing her blog to bring it up to professional standards (we're just learning and trying so hard). Her blog, in case you're interested, is foryourrromsonly2.blogspot.com (they do faux painting, murals and general painting). Anyway, the object was to get a nice picture of her and her husband on there. We found an older one that was just perfect except for the fact that it looked like a balloon was growing out of her head when we cut off a lot of unnecessary junk on the side of the image. We decided that it would be better to leave the balloon there and Photoshop out the other distracting stuff because they balloons are fun in it. The point of this whole long drawn out story is: tangents. A tangent is something that is comical or just awful/icky feeling in a composition. You know. Haven't you all seen a picture where it looks like someone has a hat on their head but it's really the light fixture up above? Or it could be just that someone's hand is right next to the edge of the picture and it creates tension. It would have been better if the hand would have either gone off the edge of the image or pulled back away from the edge. Sometimes these tangents can be so subtle that you really have to hunt for them. But they can ruin a lovely painting because they make the viewer uncomfortable. They probably wouldn't pick that as the culprit of their uneasiness but something is definitely not quite right about it. If you have a composition that's just not working look to see if you have a tangent somewhere.

I've included a few of our family treasures in this post. We have an ongoing joke at our house. It's the "Bad Picture Album". My mom and I started it years ago. It's a collection of the worst photos that we or others (we take contributions but we are very strict about them being truly bad) have taken. There are some lulus in there. The 2 featured today are definitely tangents. The first is of my mother (she has a lot of the pictures in the album) taken by my stepfather. At first glance it looks like she has a Hitler mustache but we realize that it's really the plant. The other picture taken at Yellowstone looks like the deer is carrying her baby in her mouth. These are not purposely taken. They just happened to work out that way. I bet you have some of them yourselves. Okay, so they're the comical kind, right? I can think of one picture of mine that has a tangent but it's not a crucial problem. Look on the left of "Grace-Afternoon Nap". See her hand? Her knuckle is right on the edge. I decided that it wasn't that big of a deal and didn't warrant me redoing anything (which would have been a nightmare) and it's been a very popular painting. The tangent really only happens when it's in a frame-like at my house-so you won't see it....nanny nanny na na.

Okay, get my point here? Paintings not working? Paintings not selling? Could be the tangent's fault.

Now I really really have to get to my studying. I have a midterm next Monday and I want to study during the day because I love watching the Olympics at night and don't want to miss. By the way....Zacke Lund in the Skeleton is one of my best friend's nephew. Root for him, okay? He was the one that was kicked out of the 2002 Olympics when he was at the top of his game because of using Rogaine. That was awful and very unjust. He is a gem.

Oh, by the way. That really is an awful picture of my mother besides the tangent. She really is a pretty older women. Sorry, Mom but she's 93 and won't really know. Actually I think she would think it's funny.

Daily Art Tip...Underpaintings Can Make Life a lot Easier!

2010-02-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

All of you that are terrified of a white canvas...I'm talking about all of us that are artists. We've all been there in the studio or at school (even scarier) and sat for the longest time without thinking of a thing to paint. They should play the Jaws theme while we're looking at it. Don't do this to yourself! Put an underpainting on it first. It can be almost any color. I like to use brilliant colors and usually the complimentary ones. This does take bravery as it's hard to visualize what to do with it and makes it a bit tricky to paint over. If you aren't that brave put down a pastel of that or do like the masters and use a brown underpainting. Just get something on there right away. Now-no subject matter? How about the doodles? What have we been talking about these past few days? The doodles can give you the best and most original ideas.

Art tip for the day...Turn that Painting UPSIDE DOWN!

2010-02-14T11:12:00.000-08:00

Well, this is a real life saver sometimes. If you're painting isn't working out or just doesn't have pizazz-turn it upside down and you will be able to see what's not working. Are the colors presented in a consistent way, is the composition too dominant in one area, is it top heavy, etc.? You will be able to see it almost every time. Also, you know how it's hard to get something right sometimes. If you look at it in a totally different way you'll see it. A face turned upside down isn't really processed in our brains as that. Our brain sees shapes. So paint or draw the shapes around the troubled area. Then when you turn it around you'll be so surprised to see that it looks so much better and maybe, even, just right.

So, see this painting up above? Well, it's just half of it. I couldn't for the life of me figure out what was bugging me about the feet. When I turned it around I realized that the feet were just right but the color wasn't. The black boots blend into the shadows too much and it makes the feet look too big. I tried to lighten the boots to no avail. So, I realize now that I need to change the color. I'm thinking red or light blue. The red would be good (but kind of unrealistic, don't you think?) as it's a warm color and would stand out from the cool shadows. Although the light blue might work out just as well because it would lighten it up. Grrrrr. These types of problems can really be a challenge. This painting was a prize winner (I think I got second place in the Murray art show) but didn't make it to the top. It could be that one thing that's just not right-the shoes. I'm going to talk about the "one wrong thing" another day.

By the way-these are my sons, Charlie, Kip, and Cliff. Actually it was really 3 strange men that I took a picture of at the closing ceremonies for the 2002 Olympics here in Utah. They were so cute but I got to thinking that the painting would mean more if I put someone in it that I know. These are not perfect portraits, by the way, as I wasn't going for that.

Art tip for the day...It's Okay to Give Up but Reconfigure if you can!

2010-02-13T09:05:00.001-08:00

It's OKAY to throw away your painting if you don't like it. As artists we always hate to do that. It's like you have to chop off our arm to part with one. This is another tip from my art teacher, Robert Rumel. I learned how to do this. In fact there are probably some garbage men with some of my paintings that I put on top of the trash (or they may have squished them and called it good). My sister was working on a painting of a swamp in the south and got sick of it. She put it out for trash but changed her mind. When she went out there it was gone! But you do have to be careful. Consider whether you can cut it down and save some of the good elements. If it's canvas it can always be re stretched. Back to the garbage men's paintings-There's one that I did of my husband in high school with his old Rocket car. I wish I could get it back and save that part. It was just the scenery we didn't like.

Another thing you can do is cut it up into smaller pieces and use what you've done as underpainting. That works out quite well because you will get some elements that you like and you might want to include them in your new painting. Or you can just paint over the whole thing but you have to be careful if you do. You can't paint over acrylics with oils. It will peel off. So, you would have to continue with oils (you can paint over acrylic with oils just fine as long as they are a nonslick finish type).

Tomorrow I'll tell you about one painting I did resurrect. That will be my tip of the day as it includes some new ideas.

Today's Art Tip...Always Think of Yourself as an Aritist!

2010-02-12T10:06:00.000-08:00

Always consider yourself an artist. Don't doubt as to whether you are or not. You create, don't you? My best teacher, Robert Rumel, always had us start our art class with a blank piece of paper. On it we had to write "I am an artist" 10 times. Then do circles all over it in a conscious way. This was called our affirmations. It affirmed that we are, indeed, artists. Sometimes it needs to be drilled into our heads-by ourselves-our worst critic.

Today's Art Tip...Doodle and Sketch!

2010-02-11T08:16:00.000-08:00

Hi every creative person out there. I just thought as I was an art teacher for 11 years I should share some of my wisdom...daily, if I can.

Try to sketch as much as possible. Keep the sketches (even the ones that you do in the phone book) if they are cool ones. They're so fun to look back on and they will give you ideas for other projects. I used to bribe my young art students to bring their "doodles". I put an envelope in the back of their sketch books so they could save them. The prize was chintzy, candy, but they loved it. It also was a good way to measure how they were feeling-I cared a lot about them. I hope they still have those sketch books as they will be treasures....plus there are a lot of great drawing exercises that we did.

Oh, the type of pen I use is one that will sketch. Don't use a heavy duty gel pen. Don't use a pencil because it forces you to draw freely and that way your sketches won't look overworked.

Do you have any great art tips? I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU! So would other artists who are always searching for the right ideas to improve their art. These tips could be for any type-such as painting, photography, sculpture, etc. You get the idea, right?

What I do in church when I should be listening (I am I am)

2010-02-10T12:34:00.000-08:00

So, here you go. Here's what I do to help myself listen better. Honestly I really do pay attention a lot better this way as I don't fall asleep. Plus I have these nifty little pics in my sketch book (that Cliff gave me....thank you very much, Cliff). I've been working on my painting downstairs in the dungeon but here's something new to all of you guys-even though some of these are actually fairly old.

Oh, I need to add that these are not perfect perspective and resemblance wise either as they are what they are....SKETCHES...get it?

Okay. I'm back to what I should be spending my free time on

2010-01-27T19:18:00.001-08:00

Last night I got my oil paints out of the freezer (yes-you can freeze your oil paints and it works out very nifty but not acrylics) and let them defrost. I forced myself to tackle the dreaded California poppies. Got my Ipod going so I had some great music and put paint brush to canvas. I thought you'd enjoy seeing what is happening with that.

I can only stand working on the poppies just so long. So I turned myself around to my other easel and worked on the hollyhock painting that has been sitting almost as long as the horse painting. It was so fun! I just have to get myself going and then I'm hooked. So, I got them out tonight and I'm going to get going again. I've told myself that I only have to work on the poppies for a short while. There's no hurry. I don't have to make it a torture painting.

Now I also want to do a china mosaic for above the kitchen sink but I've been stuck on getting the right color of orange for it. Just haven't found the right dish to smash (although I could use a good smashing right now to relieve some stress). I must get to the D. I. (Deseret Industries) and start searching through the stacks. At $1 a plate it's such a great deal.

'

All you "Sun Sneezers" out there....you know who you are....I'm calling you in to admit it.....

2010-01-15T09:50:00.000-08:00

(Explanation of Kitty's picture at the end of this entry....it ties in, you guys!)

Okay. Today I did it again and I'll explain in my email that I sent to some friends and family. Any of you out there that do this? Do you know someone that does? Let's just do a little survey on my blog. I find it fascinating! I know this isn't save the world stuff here but it's something different than what you hear on the Nightly News. Nightly News guys....are you listening?

Well, this is something I find interesting. I've told Chris several times that I sneeze when I look at the sun or any other bright light. It's usually great because, you know, sometimes you can't sneeze and it's miserable. But we "sun sneezers" can get that sneeze out almost any time we want by looking quickly at a bright light. The sun is the best. Today I looked on the internet to see if this is a true condition and, if it does, what causes it. I know there is one other person on this planet that has it and his name is Ray. One time in Roosevelt Jr. High art class I noticed Ray (I don't remember anything else about him) looking out the window and kind of sniffling. Then he sneezed. I asked him if this was true of him and he said yes. He's the only person I know of that has that-at this point.

So, it is a real physical condition and her are a few articles to prove it (nanny nanny na na, Chris). You might think I'm weird but I think I'm special!

http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/aug97/865380242.Me.r.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20227041.400-why-some-people-sneeze-when-the-sun-comes-out.html?full=true. This is the best article, I think.

Okay. From reading this article I'm wondering now-if any of you that have it (you know who you are)-do you also have restless leg syndrome? I have both. Could this be a connection to the fact that our nerve wiring in our brain is different from most? Could this suggest a tie in to show that, eventually, there could be a cure for restless leg? How many of you have Raynaud's like me? That's a nerve related autoimmune disease. It's not inherited. Or is it?

Just getting a little scientific on you all. I always knew I was special and now I'm proving it. All you other "photic sneezers" can be in my special group and put a star on your forehead. Or maybe it should be a sun!

Oh, another thing here. The reason why my kitty's pic is on this is because in one of the articles it says that in Japan they did a study that showed that CATS do this. No wonder I love kitties! We have something in common.

Well, I am just on a rollllllllllll

2010-01-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

I am feeling so lucky today! I sold my first item on Ebay-my archaeology book. Yahoo. I needed that. You know it makes you feel down right lucky when you have a little success. So, since I'm on a roll I started looking through the cupboards in the basement. We have this very snazzy Canon Eos Elan II camera that is just collecting dust. So, I just got myself going and put that on. Whoohooo! This could be my new job. Well, I'm sure that I would have to run out of good stuff sometime soon. So, I won't quit my day job (and what is that?). Hmmmm.

Just posting a few works of mine

2009-12-21T19:30:00.000-08:00

I decided to post a few of my paintings not see on my blog. I hope you'll enjoy them.

WHOOPS! Not a popular blog subject

2009-12-16T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone. Well, I see posting the Santa pictures was not such a good idea as far as general interest goes. I lost a follower! Drat. Oh, well. I know I need to post some things that are more on the line of something else. I'm just getting through the holidays and then I'll get back to creative enterprises. My cat has been so sick on and off for the last year with diabetes. Now she's having other problems and I'm at my wits end with this. Hopefully things will settle down some in January (fingers crossed and toes and whatever else I can cross).

Just a quick post....I've been so busy

2009-12-13T08:35:00.000-08:00

Hi. I just wanted to show you a part of our Christmas tradition. Ever since our oldest was 18 months old we have saved and display all the Santa Claus pictures. Our kids have loved it! We do too. It shows so much of what's going on with them in their lives. Last year, I think, was the last with them all together and it was digitally put together...boo hoo. But that's okay. They have to grow up sometime. Drat.

We had fun last week but it was soooo busy!

2009-12-01T15:23:00.001-08:00

Well, Cliff and Lorien (Bumpkin and Lolly as I call them) are going to have a baby in May and we are soooo happy about it! It was so fun to have them here and rub Lolly's tummy. She's so slender there's only a slight baby bump and I mean SLIGHT. You'd never know from looking at her that there's a healthy baby in there. Next week they're finding out what they are having but none of us really cares. We just want to see that baby!

Kip was here also and it was so fun to see Brandon, our little grandson. What a cutie pie he is and we love him. Kip is the best father. We're so proud of him. Drat they had to go home. It's just too quiet around here without Brandon zooming the cars around and laughing

Uncle Charlie, as usual, had too much fun playing with Brandon. I mean-how can you help it? He's too cute? Char has always been so wonderful with kids and they love him. I always thought he should be a pediatrician but he has other plans.

A photo of the happy day!

2009-11-25T22:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was the day for Gracie's wedding to Dave. It was a gorgeous November day and totally unexpected good weather. We lucked out big time. The only negative remark I have is that the bathroom situation at the Rehearsal Hall- Sundance, Utah, (where the reception was held) was ridiculous. They're outside and not close to the building. Not good with ladies and their high heels. They really need to build some in the building. Other than that, though, it was perfect. I wish I could rerun all the highlights of the day. Probably the best part was the sealing ceremony in the Salt Lake Temple. It was so spiritual and I wish that everyone could have witnessed it.

THIS Makes me so happy...Hope it does with you also

2009-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

Well, you know me. I haven't done my homework yet but I will! I have spent about 3 hours trying to get our new/used car cleaned for our up coming event (Gracie's wedding on the 24th!). Actually it's my in-laws car and we decided to buy it since Marge passed away in March, Tom went to a care center. So it's our "go to the cabin" car.

BUT I just had to post this picture of Gracie in Kenya about 2 years ago. It makes me happy every time I see it and realize what a fabulous daughter I have. In fact I have 3 fabulous sons too. So, that's where a lot of my time and effort goes too and it should. After all, being a successful mother is one of life's blessings. I know I can't pat myself on the back yet because this life isn't over for me but so far they have turned out better than I ever could have dreamed. Lucky lucky me.

Two Wonderful Pics of Two Fantastic Events!

2009-11-02T10:09:00.000-08:00

Just had to post these 2 very quick as I've got a midterm in a few days to really get busy studying for. Cliff and Lorien got married on Novemeber 1st in Baltimore in a beautiful little and old chapel on the McDaniels College campus. It was so romantic and fun to be there to see this happen. The ceremony was very romantic and they had a nice reception following. The cake was actually vegan and I think it's probably the best I've ever had...sooooo delicious!

Then we went through the Washington D. C. Temple with Gracie and Dave. Grace was going through for the first time. I'm so glad we were able to experience that. It was very special also.

Close up of the McCune Mansion-front door-separate painting

2009-10-26T15:43:00.000-07:00

Alrighty. I found it.

2009-10-26T15:06:00.001-07:00

Okay, don't tell anyone I'm not doing my homework right now....naughty

2009-10-26T14:44:00.000-07:00

I thought those of you that got a kick out of seeing my painting steps for the Egyptian Theater painting would like to see one that is even more shocking. So, here is the McCune Mansion in Salt Lake City. It's a gorgeous old mansion built around 1900 by the McCunes. It's up on a hill very close to the State Capitol building. What I could gather from my in depth researching (as I told you already that I love to do) the McCune's Mansion is sort of a "nanny nanny na na" to the Mormons. As if to say, "Look at us. We have a prettier building and it's high enough to look down on you guys". After it went out of their family's hands it became the McCune Music Academy and many of the older generation took music lessons there. As you will see in the final painting I put a little girl climbing the stairs with her violin. Aparently Mrs. McCune sent her builder all over the world to get the finest materials. There is a whole second set of roof tiles to replace any broken ones. I believe that the roof tiles are from Holland. She incorporated many styles also from all over the world in her plans. Now it is a reception center and I heard that Debbie Reynolds filmed a made for t. v. movie in there. It's only the inside. As for ghosts there have been reports of children giggling in the ballroom upstairs. After a lot of hard work in trying to find a buyer I sold it to Philip McCarthy and owns the mansion now (that buy enabled us to go to the closing ceremonies of the Olympics and then some). He was one of the owners of the Salt Lake Tribune (not any more). A few years ago I went to a wedding reception and there by the front door is my painting.

Oh, the painting in the back ground is "Hot Date" and I'll post the final painting of that one also. Cliff, my son, is in that. It's the garden district of New Orleans.

Jeez, I uploaded the under painting example. Now I've got to search. Not doing homework....I'm really a bad girl but I'm kind of doing it while I'm uploading things (I know...I'm a dumb bell).

My painting method presented in all it's strange glory

2009-10-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought some of you might enjoy hearing about this commission I did quite a while ago for Rob King, the owner of Rainbow Gardens in Ogden, Utah. Rainbow Gardens is probably the biggest gift shop I've ever seen and started by Rob's family many years ago. Rob King asked me to do a painting commemorating the old Egyptian Theater in downtown Ogden built by his grandfather back when the grand movie theaters were so prevalent in the country. Back in the 1950's when Rob was a boy he had gone to the Saturday matinee every week. He loved the old place. Shortly before he commissioned this painting the old theater had been thoroughly restored back to all its glory. They had pulled out wall paneling and found all the original colors, etc. It was a labor of love. Unique to this theater was that the ceiling was pierced to allow light to shine through when the house lights were out to make it appear like the setting of the movie screen was out doors just like a drive in movie. The starry light would twinkle in the dark navy blue heavens.

I was honored to do this painting. It truly would be a labor of love. As usual I got to work right away researching the building. I interviewed as many people that I could to find out any insights that would give a good feel of what I needed to convey to the viewers. I always try to see if there are any ghosts-friendly or bad. Nothing came to mind about that.

I was set to dig in. First off I took many photos at the time of day that I feel sets off a building the best-when the shadows are the most interesting. Then I did a quick color sketch to show to Rob-just to make sure he liked the composition, etc. (I often sell those color sketches as they have a freshness that's quite delightful) My paintings always start with a brilliant under painting-usually the complimentary color of the final color but not always. It's especially noticeable in the view with the children that are crossing the street. I put layer upon layer with acrylics and then switch to oils to get the glazed colors and lighting that sets the mood I want to achieve. Each little brick is meticulously laid in. It's enough to permanently cross your eyes. Fortunately for me my husband is an electrician and he often strikes a deal with the wreckers to get unusual finds-such as my hospital operating room light that I often paint by. It's the best light there is for painting dark areas.

Often I have the most uncanny experiences that are quite eerie. When I finished this painting Rob couldn't believe that I had put an old green woodie station wagon in the front of the theater. I just threw it in there because I thought it added interest and dated the scene to the 1950's (along with the marquee). Rob said that his grandfather that had built the theater used to drop him off in the same kind of car and it was GREEN! How could I ever have known that? Strange right?

Well, I hope you'll enjoy seeing my method. It's not for the faint of heart. You have to be a "painting tough" to accomplish this technique.

The Promised "Fateful Drawing"

2009-10-19T20:35:00.000-07:00

Okay everyone. Here is the drawing I was talking about in my post about 9/11. I haven't looked at it in a long time and so wasn't clear about the details in it. But remember that I did this 2 days before 9/11. It kind of gives you the creeps, doesn't it? I had no idea what was going to happen. Also this is NOT my style. I don't know where it came from. I really think when I paint there's something inside that comes from somewhere else. I know there are plenty of artists that feel that way. By the way-a friend of mine said to look up Joel 2:4 in the Bible. Look that up and you'll see what she means about that too. Twilight Zone time...doo doo doo doo.

Well, I might as well dig up a few more drawings, right?

2009-10-16T09:22:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how cool Photoshop is! I have Photoshop Elements also. Do I sound like a commercial? But it is fun. As I was adjusting the Laguna Beach drawing I slid one of the levers to the right and voile!......color that is so fitting for this piece. I actually did a painting of this and sold it but I thought it never fully reached the mood of the drawing at all. I guess it's because the drawing was so fresh. Plus I kind of like the descriptions I used to remind me of certain things for a future painting. Once in a while I will have a painting that I finish and say, "Oh, it's okay but not my best." I even (dare I say it?) have thrown paintings away. There's a few garbage men somewhere that have a few of these. One is a portrait of my husband and his old beat up "Rocket" car. Drat. I wish I had that one back. Luckily I'm a real stickler for taking pictures of everything before it goes out the door (unless it's so awful I can't stand it...there's a few of those). Anyway, I like these drawings-especially the one of Cliff in his Halloween greaser outfit. It's so Cliff. The other drawing of the dancers I just did one Sunday when I was bored. This struck me as very fluid. I did another one and maybe I'll post that one some time. If anyone would like to see my 9/11 prediction painting just let me know and I'll dig it up out of my files.

REPEAT AFTER ME....Too much of a good thing.......

2009-10-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Alright. So, you can't throw rice at a wedding any more because of rodents. What do I have growing outside in copious quantities? Lavender. So I practically cleaned off all the blossoms from our 4 plants in front of our house. Then I put the bag in the laundry room next to the ceiling heat vent to let it all dry. Doing this was pretty good but not all of the flowers fell off the stems. So I had to remove them all. You just wouldn't believe what this did to me! My left nostril has run and run. Plus I've been sneezing constantly. It was so potent that I had to double bag it. And Gracie was afraid that it wouldn't be fragrant enough to throw at the wedding. I don't care if I ever smell that again. In fact I kept thinking of the Wicked Witch of the East saying, "Poppies will make you sleep. Nice poppies. Sllllleeeeep." Well, these were just as bad in another way. Oh what a mother won't do for her darling daughter soon to be married.

Gepettos-Have you been there? If not you should...YUM!

2009-10-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

Charlie will be 25 on Monday......a quarter of a century! We had to go out and celebrate at our favorite pizza place in SLC. It's a blast to the past in the 60's-complete with the woodsie feeling and old posters. They even have live music on Friday and Saturday nights. Just thinking about the pizza makes me want to go eat another piece but good sense will prevent me since it's bedtime and I do have some willpower.

How's this for a scary picture?

2009-10-06T19:40:00.000-07:00

I bet a lot of you don't know where this is. It's the entrance we went through to get to the World Trade Center Mall. It's kind of a lousy picture and I even tried to lighten it but it just wouldn't work out. I think the picture wants to be eery looking. Anyway, we stayed there 3 weeks before 9/11 in the Embassy Suites Hotel across the street. It was a gorgeous contemporary style hotel. We loved it. For a week we were in and out of this area to go on the subway, up in the World Trade Center, eating, etc. I remember thinking how beautiful this area was and what a shame it would be if something happened to it (I understand that it's still there, thank goodness). How lucky we were to not be there on that fateful day. Even now I get the chills just thinking about it. When we went on top of the World Trade Center at night Gracie kept saying to me, "Mom, what if you had to jump off this building? What if you had to take a zip line from this building to the next?" I finally said, "If you don't stop saying that I will throw you off this building!" I had the creeps. The ironic twist to the whole thing is that when we got home and I went back to work I told people that I worked with, "If you want a really safe place to stay in NYC you should stay in the financial district!" Wow, so weird.

The funny thing about it is that a few days before 9/11 I was doing some free style paintings (very unusual for me) and I did one of strange looking people outside of some buildings and big birds flying around in the sky (I haven't looked at it for quite a while and should to get this straight). There was fire around everything and the figures had very tragic looks on their faces (some even had horse heads...a la Picasso). I was bothered by all the fighting in Ireland. It was at the time when the children were being harassed as they walked to school. I remember thinking how terrible it was. I was so upset over this and felt like the feelings in this painting really reflected that. So.....a few days after that...boom! It really appears that I had a premonition to what was going to happen.

I am a journal writer. I think journals serve so many purposes. One of these is that I think some day my grandchildren, etc. will find it interesting to see what my actual viewpoint is on the happenings in the world. So, of course, I wrote all about 9/11 and then continued to report regularly what was happening-things like, "It's now the 7th day and the fires are still burning. They haven't found anyone alive." That's just an example and probably not my exact words. One night I had a dream that I was standing on an island with a lot of people where the World Trade Center was situated. People were crying and hysterical. I looked out at the ocean and all of a sudden 1950 style Cadillacs in all different pastel colors started popping up in the water. The people that had died in the Trade Center were in them drinking lemon aides with smiles on their faces-as if to say that everything was all right after all and they weren't suffering any more. I think it was a spiritual way of setting my mind at peace.

Okay, well, I've avoided doing my homework for as long as possible. I really have to get back in there and start reading about arrowheads and such.

Just a little scary story.........

Happy Birthday to me and all that jazzzzzzzz

2009-10-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

Okay. As you can see I celebrated my bday. As usual Chris got me my favorite cake: marzipan. If you haven't tasted it-well you've got to! It's so delicious. Charlie and I pigged out on it all week.

I transplanted a mother in law tongue plant and, whoa, what a surprise I found. It was in one of those self watering pots. I kept thinking it was drinking up so much water all the time. When I pulled the plant out of the pot I discovered why.....there was a monster living at the bottom! Actually it was a huge fat root that looked like a snake curled up in the bottom of the pot. On the end of it was a little plant starting at the BOTTOM! It was kind of creepy in a Star Wars kind of icky way. Remember the garbage room on the space ship where Luke, Princess Leia and Chewbacca are hiding in and a snake/monster is in the water? Then the walls start closing in? That's what it looked like to me...the monster in the water. There was only about a tablespoon of dirt in the whole thing. Bizarre.

I had to also include some of my experimental photos from today. I just love the way the sun shines through glass on our counter behind the sink. In fact I thought one of the photos would be a good subject for a kind of abstract painting. Cool, right?

A lighter side to my art

2009-09-25T08:04:00.000-07:00

So, I thought I'd show a little of what I do when I'm not being a strict disciplinarian with my methods. I love to sketch-especially in church. Just thought I'd put a few of these up. Remember that they are just free sketches and not perfect by any means. I think doodling really shows a person's personality and can reveal a good deal of their mental outlook. When I taught art classes, adults and kids, for 11 years I always had them bring doodles. I bribed the kids with a treat if they would bring anything that they had fooled around with. Then in the back of their sketch book I had them paste an envelope to keep those doodles in. You never know when you will need a fresh idea and this is one way to get it. How many of you have doodled on your notebooks in jr. high in years past? Any of you wish you still had that notebook to look at? I wish I had mine. Back then the big thing was a denim one that we would cover with doodles. But I digress. I am a big believer in keeping the flow of art coming through to the paper constantly. It's also a good way to keep yourself warmed up for doing bigger projects.

Another note I took my first archaeology midterm yesterday. I have never studied so hard for a test in my life. I'm glad I did. It was very tricky and we'll see how I did. I don't care if I am older and this is not going to be a big career boost in my life now-I'm going to try my hardest to get good grades.

We also got our tickets to fly back to see Cliff and Lorien get married November 1st. We are so excited to have Lorien be a part of our family. She's such a cutie! Cliff is so happy and this makes us very happy. We will also go through the Washington D. C. temple with Gracie and Dave for Gracie's first time. That's another highlight in my life. Well life is way busy but never a dull moment and that makes for good times.

Flowers, fruit and the necessary instruction on how to look at my photos...drat

2009-09-19T18:18:00.000-07:00

Okay. You all know by now that nothing goes onto this blog the way I want it to. So, to see the order of my mosaic heart production start at the bottom and then go to the top.

Now, for something a bit more refreshing....gorgeous summer fruit (Grandpa J's pears!) and flowers from our garden. Actually the pears are more like "Charlie's pears" because Grandpa didn't have anything to do with them this season-except own the property and he planted them many years ago. So we can pat Char on the back for all the spraying. Oh, that's right...I'm sure we have to count Jan and Mat's pruning and cleanup. So let's call them "Jan and Mat and Charlie's pears", okay? This has been probably the most productive garden year ever. We personally have picked at least 150 cucumbers. I'm actually quite sick of them. I took them to my neighbors and said, "I KNOW you want these cucumbers". One neighbor only wanted a few today and I told her that she could only have some if she took all of them in the basket. But I've done a lot of canning and that's something that hasn't been happening around here for a long time.

What it all looks like

2009-09-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

Well, today Charlie took some pictures of me working on my hearts. It's not as good as a tutorial but you can all see my studio plus the painting I've been working on for, let me see, about 4 years or so-2 of my favorite animals-horses and cats. Plus it's a California scene-hence the California poppies all around the edge. I have other paintings in progress also but I've got to get back to them sometime and I will.

So, I hope you will enjoy seeing all the junk in my studio. It's a nifty place for creating just about anything you want.

GET THE CONNECTION!

2009-09-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

Okay, one and all.....look at my paintings on the left (part of my Etsy shop). Notice the little girl eating the green apple on the left (hopefully that picture has come up as they rotate...if not check out my Etsy shop). Now look at my daughter getting married. They are one and the same. Gracie at 3 and Gracie at 22. Whew! I just looked and thought, "Man, they grow up fast!"

This is for all you bloggers that think you can keep them at home for the rest of their lives. Well, you can't. I always like to think of the old classic "The Prophet" by Gibrahn (I think that's the right name). He talks about how you can't live in your children's castles in the sky. Well, it goes something like that. Essentially, we have our dreams and our children will have theirs. We are not meant to be a part of their lives forever. It makes one pause and think, doesn't it?

Oh for pete's sake! I did it again

2009-09-02T13:48:00.000-07:00

Alright already! I do not mean I love the site of the old house! How did this happen? Are you all loving my blunders? Everyone loves it around here when I make ridiculous mistakes. In fact it's added many years of good laughing material. So, okay. Go ahead and laugh at me. I guess it makes it all worthwhile if everyone is having fun (ha ha ha.....waaaaaa).

Love this site! You SHOULD give it a look!

2009-09-02T13:37:00.000-07:00

http://bestplacesofworld.blogspot.com/

Well, I don't know which way this is going to go on my blog but you've got to check this out! I love to view places that are totally unusual and you should too! Okay, I know....too many explanation points. I guess I just have to do it because today is such a lackluster day as I'm studying for my math test. Plus it's really a nice day outside and I am feeling a tad depressed about yet another day goes by and we're not spending any by a lake or an ocean. Waaaa.

Okay. It could be a lot worse. I could be living in our old house watching the back hoes shoveling away at our front yard. Now I remember how much I hated (yes, it needs to be this strong) that stupid busy street. Where we are is on a delightfully quiet street where I can hear the birds sing without the competition of sirens whizzing by. Oh how happy I feel now! I guess I'll go fold some clothes and study some more. What? Waaaaaaaa!!!!!

The Biggest News Around This Place Is..........

2009-08-30T22:10:00.000-07:00

Gracie and Dave are engaged! They are getting married on the 28th of November and we are thrilled. There isn't much to tell about it yet as nothing, except for the photographer, is figured out. More to come.

Other than that my brain is absolutely fried tonight from working on my math homework. Oh excuse me...did I say math? I mean my puzzle homework. I have to somehow make this fun because it's really not too fun at all yet. Thank goodness for Charlie's help or I would be sunk. Tonight I think we had both had it and it just became comical as he was trying not to give me the answers. He's a real tax master but that's what I need. Studying archeology is a real treat compared to my other homework.

I am enjoying the ride on Trax-even though it's so early in the morning twice a week. It's just thrilling to Chris to see me be the one that has to get up so early. After all for the last year I have been thoroughly enjoying myself staying up late and reading. I don't think I've read this many books in years! Love it.

Finishing up the last hearts and Do you like them?

2009-08-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Okay. School starts tomorrow. I can't believe I'm really going back this time and haven't been there since 1974. Yikes. Aging myself. Oh well-it says I'm a grandma in my profile and I'm very proud of that! Anyway, I had to finish up some projects that just are not going to wait until a more convenient time. Little by little they all got done. 3 of the hearts were so complicated and hard. But I think they turned out nifty. I don't want to say what 2 of them are for yet because I don't want to reveal my plan. 2 are for sale. I do have a painting that I've been working on for a long time. It's going to get done but not in time for the Murray City art show, I'm afraid. Well, there's always next year.

Proof positive that it's definitely worth it to nag your kids into taking piano

2009-08-09T23:40:00.000-07:00

Well, it's so lovely to see Gracie enjoying the piano as much as she is. It really took with Charlie also. I hope Cliff and Kip will fall back into it some day but one never knows as a parent.

Well, we went on the hike and man oh man was it gorgeous!

2009-08-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

This has to be one of my top favorite things to do in the summer. So, I will now share some current and gorgeous new photos of the famous Albion Basin in Alta, Utah.

The spelling made good

2009-07-29T10:34:00.000-07:00

Okay. Just a short post to say that I found out the correct spelling for the Albion Basin. That's for all of you that now want to Google it and look at more out of this world pics (like I just did). I'm not kidding...it's unreal!

No, I show 4 colors

2009-07-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I went back and counted. There are actually 4 colors of Indian Paintbrush flowers. Just in case you are saying, "Julie, you think you are so smart-you can't even count."

Here's also a few old pics from our cabin. Another paradise in the Uintah mountains. You're probably wondering why I am sitting here at the computer and not in the mountains right now. Yea, I'm wondering that too.

We go back in time to show some Albian Basin pics

2009-07-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Well, it's that time of the year...July...when the Albian (not sure of this spelling...yikes) Basin is at its peak. We're going to go there in a few days but I thought I would post a few pics that I took at least 3 years or so ago. I'm not kidding-this place is super fantastic. It's the only place that I know of that has more than just a few colors of Indian Paintbrush flowers. I show 3 colors here but there are also white ones. Soooo gorgeous!

A Cold Dip in the Lake for Char and Other Thoughts

2009-07-10T22:28:00.000-07:00

Well it's summer time and that means the cabin! It's so beautiful up there at this time of the year. By up there I mean the Uintah Mountains. By our cabin is a small pond that is so cold when you jump in that it kicks you in the chest...then you breath. Char braved it last weekend while I cleaned the cabin and Chris took some photos. It's a good idea to have someone with you when you take the plunge to make sure you're safe. Char said it was extremely cold but he had a lot of fun.

So we had a fun family party last night and here's a few shots of us at Suzanne's house. We haven't had a family reunion like this on my side of the family for ages. Everyone was there except Cliff, Kip, Yuki, Brandon and Grace. It was great!

Lots more pictures to post but I need to edit them first. Something to do later.

A few more Capitol Building pictures plus my painting

2009-06-29T20:50:00.001-07:00

This and That

2009-06-29T08:45:00.001-07:00

Well, I don't have a lot of time this morning but thought I would post a few pics of what I've been doing. First of all my sisters, great niece and I had a very fun lunch at a great new (to us) Mexican restaurant. I don't remember the exact name but it's on 13th South and about 3rd West in Salt Lake City. It was like being in Mexico. Very yummy food and fun old time Mex atmosphere.

We had a fun Father's Day dinner with our fam. This could be the last time that we do that with Tom, my father-in-law but you never know. These old people have a way of bouncing back. He hasn't been doing too well lately. Poor guy.

Last Friday I went to the Utah State Capitol as part of a church activity with our 10 and 11 year old girls. If you haven't been there for a while I suggest you need to do it. It is so gorgeous. They restored a glass floor in the center of the main area and a mural that once had sea gulls flying in it is once again showing the originals. We took a tour and that was very fun.

BACK I go......way back!

2009-06-24T21:06:00.000-07:00

Way back in 1974 I quit going to school and had less than a year to finish! I can't believe how many of us are out there (woman gives up schooling so husband can further career). I could just kick myself! So now I don't have anything preventing me from finishing it. I checked into what I needed and it turns out that it won't be that bad. If I take 2 classes a semester and skip summers I will finish in 2 years. I'm going to get my Art History degree...FINALLY. The only thing that has me very anxious is that the degree requires math now. Of course it's algebra and I was always horrible at that. I'm going to have to take a prerequisite class so I can grasp the other concepts. Sounds awful, doesn't it? I don't care. I'm GOING to do it and starting this fall. Actually classes start in August...gulp. I'm starting with math and something else. I haven't decided what that will be. So get ready for new adventure stories. This is going to be good.

P. S. I had to add a picture to make it more interesting and I just love this one that Gracie took several years ago. I hope you like it.

Okay, so this is stupid

2009-06-14T16:05:00.000-07:00

Well, someone said that they couldn't post a comment on my blog. So I thought I would just see if it's impossible to be a follower. Well, I actually made MYSELF a follower-which looks quite strange-like I love myself. It really isn't that, really! I just was experimenting again and did something I didn't intend to do. Oh well. Another thing to laugh about and that's quite precious!

Organic Eggs

2009-06-14T09:33:00.001-07:00

Hi everyone! This morning I found an interesting sight that talks about the difference between organic eggs and the supermarket kind. If you go to that sight you can read all about it and see my comments about the organic ones that we have tried. http://cleanerplateclub.wordpress.com/2007/06/19/the-great-scrambled-egg-taste-test-aka-the-taste-of-gold/#comment-7873. Believe me it's worth a look as it opened my eyes. I always thought the way they keep the chickens in those little tiny cages is so cruel and hurts me to think about it. That's also the way they keep them for the packaged boneless skinless chickens, I believe. I don't even want to read about the handling of cattle or I won't be able to eat beef anymore.

So why do I have a picture of flowers in this post? It's because it's gardening season again and I'm loving it! Our roses are so gorgeous due to the tons of rain but some are really getting mildew on the leaves. I always battle that due to the sprinklers that have to water the lawn also. Some day we'll solve that problem when we can redo the sprinkler system.

We had a great time with my mom and father-in-law, Tom, last Sunday. Unfortunately Tom really started a downward spiral after that. Charlie said maybe it was the meat that we served-it was so tough. Or it could have been the gravy that Chris put steak sauce in. Oh well. At least we tried. But we got some great photos of Mom with Charlie at the piano. It was the first time she had been to our house since last November. I was very excited-even though it was so hard to get her into the house. Chris and Charlie had to carry her up the stairs in the wheel chair. So, it's not something we can do very often and I have to have them help me. I wish it wasn't like that but that's life, you know.

Would you like to see one of my previous house paintings?

2009-05-28T21:40:00.000-07:00

This is the McCune Mansion in Salt Lake City. I did it probably about 10 years ago.

Continuation of my revery

2009-05-28T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, as you can see I just can't seem to get the pictures into the right place but I will get there, eventually. I also noticed a misspelling after I published but, oh well, I think you get what I was trying to say and I don't want to have to rewrite everything. I promise I'll be more careful.

Back to the beauty of my discovery.....I really would love to do a painting of this but we'll see. I'm still working on 2 other paintings and have my mosaic hearts going at the same time.

All in good time.

Well, I still haven't figured out the picture thing

2009-05-28T21:30:00.000-07:00

Contrasts-Some fun things and some not so fun

2009-05-28T20:53:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this is where I talk about some good things and some bad things about taking care of my mother. Those of you that have never cared for an elderly parent have no idea of what the adventure will be like. I am here to enlighten your very experience.

Which do you want to hear about first? Oh, you say the bad things, so you'll be prepared? Well, alright. Let me just throw in a little picture for you to study-maybe for a future test. Better take notes. Oh, and I won't put any yucky bad thing in my blog. Nobody wants to hear or see about that. Besides I don't want to ruin ALL the surprises you have in store.

Sooooo. If you decide that you don't want to do your parent's laundry and would rather have the care center do it you might want to watch over the clothes. I've heard tales of clothes winding up on the wrong people. I mean, do you really want your dad to wear a pink t shirt? I don't THINK so. So, one day I pulled out all of my mom's clothes-she has a lot- and took pictures of all of them. That was after I labeled every last one that my sister hadn't done already. This is not an easy job. Especially when your parent is yelling at you wondering what you are doing and why aren't you entertaining them. This killed my already ailing back.

Moving all the stuff out of the retirement home (now that she's permanently in the full nursing care center) has gone on for 3 months, if you can believe it. We even had grand notions of taking her bedroom set that no one wanted to a used furniture store. We located a store and sent them an email with lovely pics of it. Each time we tried so hard to get it over to the store something would happen to prevent it. Finally on Tuesday we thought we could finally do it. Of course the shop was not going to be open long enough. Drat. We just could not work it out. So we all felt the Deseret Industries would happily receive it. We just plain old didn't care anymore!

Okay, I just can't wait to tell you all about the good thing I discovered while driving on the street just north of the care center! Hidden by luscious foliage is a gorgeous Victorian type 3 story mansion. I just couldn't believe it! So, I had to bring my camera and take some pictures. Then to make things even better I discovered (which I should know by now) how wonderful it is to put them onto Photoshop and be able to work with them. I WISH I had had this years ago when I was doing all my house paintings. It would have saved me a ton of time. I can zoom in on any detail and see what is there. I don't have to go back to the house and take more detailed photos. Shadows can be lightened and darkened again after I've found out the information in the structure that I need. So, I am in heaven over this new discovery.

Plus I felt like I was in the Secret Garden. There were so many garden areas that sparkled with fairy light or were mystery in their velvetly darkness. I am not kidding. It is so wonderful.

WELL....somebody had to do it!

2009-05-16T23:45:00.000-07:00

Okay. One of Chris' favorite things to do (besides getting a sledge hammer and tearing things out) is to rent big big tools/toys and go to town with them. Today he rented a boom so he could trim the pine tree in the front of our house and the pine tree in the back (actually our neighbors...we only trimmed our side...with their permission). What a huge mess it was to clean up. In fact there are still branches all over the backyard that need to be sawed into pieces. My job was to clean up the front yard (10 bags later). But it was great to be out in the sun and not inside on such a great day. Then we finished the evening off by going out to dinner at one of our old time favorites, Little America. The food never tasted better!

I'm still figuring this out!

2009-05-03T10:07:00.000-07:00

Well, I still can't get the pictures where they are supposed to be. So I'll just throw a few more in from Easter.....ta da!

I try a new venue....ETSY

2009-05-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Okay. So, I decided to try putting my hearts on Ebay and told Gracie about it. She said that a site called Etsy would be a lot better. No, I don't know what Etsy means or where they got the name. Anyway, it's a site/store that sells original art, etc. If you key in "mosaic hearts" you can find my first item. It's Hester Prynne from "The Scarlet Letter". I had to pick a shop name-so I picked laughinghorse. I'm sure no one will remember that I have a laughing horse design that I put next to my signature on one of my paintings. It's the painting I did of the lion at the Utah state capitol building. I never realized that that would come in handy some day.

I'm hoping that this will be a good thing for me. When you think about it it will be seen by people all over the world. I'm going to add more of them next week. Plus I'm going to put my prints on there as that could be a good way of selling them. Keep your fingers crossed. It sure is a lot easier than calling and pestering people. That's what got me burned out on my art business before.

Other than that....the newest thing for this week is that we got Tom settled into the Sunrise care center. I think it will be a good thing for him and a lot easier for the family. Just for fun on Easter I took some pictures of some of us frosting Jan's cookies on Easter. This is the last picture taken of Tom while living permanently in his house. Very sad.

Day 11 of my prison sentence...breaking out today!

2009-04-27T08:23:00.000-07:00

Well, I have about had it with staying home and not driving. The dr. told me I could drive after 7 days and then I looked at the hospital instructions and they said it has to be 10. So, not wanting to get sued (in case of accident) I decided I would tough it out. Anything, almost, sounds good to do. I must admit that I feel very fortunate that I don't have a job I have to get time off from. That's a good thing.

I just talked to the nurse and asked if I could, at least, please please lift over 10 lbs. for the next 6 weeks (more like 5 now, thank goodness). She said in a deadpan voice, "What do you want to pick up that's over 10 lbs.?" I said, "My cat. She weighs 15 lbs." She said, "Why?" I said, hopefully, "Because I'm the one that really does things with her...like bringing her up to feed her." She said, "Can't you feel her in the basement?" Well, there was no talking this lady into this. Drat. She's too good of a nurse (remember the old time nurses at school that wouldn't let you go out to play when you really really wanted to and had a few crusted over chicken poxes?). Oh well. I tried, Kitty.

At least I'm getting better at things on the computer and I'm trying to relearn my Spanish-plus learn Italian so we can go on our canceled trip to Italy. Aren't I a great Pollyana?

2009-04-24T07:54:00.000-07:00

You may think that I really AM nuts when you see the photo below but we had just come across the old silverware. I couldn't believe it but one of the old sterling silver spoons was in the collection-worn down and jagged at the tip from digging in the garden. I just can't believe we did those things. We did. Carrie and I spent many hours alone while our mom worked in the '60's. This was our delinquent behavior-our, now a days, would have been, doing drugs. Harmless, I'm sure you are thinking BUT look where it led too. Parents take note. You too could have lost or ruined silverware because of leaving your kids during the day while you work. My mom was lucky. This was about as bad as it got.

Okay, at this point I just went plain old nuts

2009-04-24T07:47:00.000-07:00

I don't want to keep you waiting

2009-04-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

So, I promised you this story about the @#! doll and my sister, Carrie. Brother, after 9 years of dealing with care centers and retirement homes with our mother we have had it. I can't count how many times we have had to go into her apartment in the retirement home to clean and organize it from top to bottom. The usual drill is that Suzanne and I spend 1 or 2 days of this-while Carrie takes Mom to her house and keeps her entertained for the night. I don't know which is the worst job. Suzanne and I have laughed ourselves to death (our defense mechanism) but it really is the pits!

Anyone that has gone through this can tell you that it's a case of you try, then you try, then you try some more, and more but you still can't make things work. It is SO stressful. I bet every 6 months we have had to reevaluate it all (should we move her? she might die! should we keep her here? she will burn down the building! let's keep her here? she loves it! let's just not think about it today....too depressing).

So, you are looking at a very stressed group of individuals....namely Suzanne, Carrie, my brother, John and I. We try so hard to get things figured out but it's hard. Everyone tries in their own way to make it work but John lives out of state and Carrie is far away. Sometimes we get a little crabby.

That's what I'm leading up to. Now our mother has to stay in a long term care facility (old time nursing care made to sound sweet). We are faced with all this stuff AGAIN that we have to go through but it has to really be pared down to, like, almost nothing. Add to that that we have been constantly faced with the fact that we're the grownups now. It's sad to go through the old pictures and realize that things really will never be the same again.

I was quite put upon and grumpy the last time the 3 of us did the pack, sort, etc. Carrie got there first and I snapped. She snapped. We cried, hugged and then decided that we'd had it. Just handy, right then, was the @#! doll. We took out our frustrations and vengeance on it. It was very satisfying but after about a week we decided to take it down. It really doesn't look good for the manager to show the apartment when there's a murdered doll on the wall.

So, I have to admit that I have felt at times that a bolt of lightening is going to strike us all down because we deserve it for being naughty like kids. But for those of you that might judge us as rotten children try to go through this without losing your mind occasionally. We learned early on in life, through our childhood trials, that laughter gets you through and sometimes (+#@! doll ) it proves to be a great healer. Okay....old cliche here..."Laughter is the BEST medicine". We do that a lot and believe me there is PLENTY to laugh about in this situation.

2009-04-23T18:44:00.000-07:00

Okay I'm home now

2009-04-20T08:51:00.000-07:00

So, I had my operation and I'm recovering at home. Because the dr. could do microscopic surgery I only have an incision that is about 2 inches long. It's unbelievable that I could be on the mend so soon after surgery but I am. It's so hard for me to lay around most of the day. Sitting is the worst and I shouldn't even be sitting at this computer for long at all because I will pay for it. I have my broken china hearts that haven't been finished sitting on the counter and every once in a while I walk by them. Then I pick up the Exacto knife and scrape off some grout that didn't get whiped off. This gives me some satisfaction at least. Thank goodness the weather is nice because I can go outside for a little walk (I stress little because I can't overdo).

So, what else is ocupying my mind? My mom in the care center and my father-in-law that needs to go to a care center. I talk with so many people my age that are going through the same guilt producing experience. It's just awful but our parents are living way longer these days. Unfortunately medical science hasn't caught up with the quality aspect of the longevity. I'm hoping they will get that down by the time Chris and I are old. I don't want to burden my kids.

My journey with my mom started probably 9 years ago-at least my journey with retirement homes and care centers. It has been a rocky one to say the least. When we got her into the retirement home we had to give away her dog and cat. Now if that didn't make us feel like dirty dogs I don't know what else would.....well there were plently of those nasty little circumstances to come up. I won't share with the world some of the yuckier ones but I will tell you that we have tried and tried and tried to keep her in the retirement home. Probably every 6 months, at least, my sisters, brother and I torture ourselves with wondering what to do with her. We have done everything possible to keep her where she loves being. But with these oldsters you try and try...then try some more and you wonder why you can't fix the problem. Well, you just can't. Eventually my mom fell and broke her hip about 5 years ago. Then last fall she broke her wrist. Then her leg. Each time we had successfully helped her to transition into St. Joseph's Villa care center. Then we successfully got her back to the Parklane retirement home. Each time she progressivly has gone down hill. Now she's in there for good. Not only that but she's in long term care (full nursing). But this lady rallies! We never thought she would walk again but she is with a walker. That's the stage we're at right now.

Okay, my back hurts. Time to walk around.

Next time: The exciting episodes of cleaning my mom's apartment and what treasures we beheld. Bonus story: How my sister and I got into a fight, then stabbed the #@#! doll.

2009-04-16T04:29:00.000-07:00

2009-04-15T18:59:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't written for a while....I better do it!

2009-04-15T18:33:00.000-07:00

Well, I don't know when I can get back to this because....ta da....I have to have back surgery tomorrow. After a long time going to the chiropractor and physical therapy I decided (at Chris' urging) to get an MRI. Low and behold I have a cyst on my spine. Because it's causing me a great deal of pain in my lower back, right hip and down my right leg I've decided I should just go for it and git 'er done. The cyst squeezes on the sciatic nerve and that's what is causing a lot of the problems. I'm thinking that so many years of sitting at the dental lab working was not good for me at all. I'm wondering if this is work related. Thank goodness I don't have to worry about that anymore since I'm not employed by Arrowhead Dental Lab now.

So, that brings me back to what I'm doing these days to try and earn money-namely my broken china mosaic hearts. I posted a close up view of one of my most complicated ones. Now I'm going to throw in a few pics of some of the others. I'm not sure if I explained this before in my earlier post but each one is named after a famous herione in literature. So, they have special meaning. The close up heart represented Meg March from "Little Women". I thought this would be such an easy task as there are thousands of worthy women to enjoy reading about. BUT (a huge but) I soon realized that I have to worry about copyright infringement. So, needless to say, I've had to research my subjects well and try to keep to the later 1800's and early 1900's-trying not to have anything too current. I would love to work on getting some approval from more recent authors but I will have to see to that later.

I'm not too great at placing the photos in my blog yet sooooo please forgive me.

Okay, I'm better than most moms on the computer

2009-03-31T20:54:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my second post and it has been so hard to get to the new post spot. I can't believe it. I finally did it, though. What a ridiculous time this has been. Lots of not so fun things happening like taking care of my mom and father-in-law. Right in the middle of that I found out that I have to have back surgery.

In the meantime I have been having so much fun making my broken china mosaic hearts. I'm hoping to get some kind of art business going since I'm out of work right now. Last time I tried very hard for 16 years and it didn't work out all the way. I gave up and got a job at a dental lab for 8 years. It's funny how life seems to do things to you that you think are unfair but it's really preparing you for something that you will be doing in the future. Because I worked at the lab I learned how to use small power tools. Perfection was expected. So, I had to do my best. I did things with gold that I never thought I could do at all. I never could see myself as an artist in 3 dimensional mediums. I learned that I love to do that. It's very different from painting and gives a different kind of satisfaction to my work. My mind has absolutely gone crazy with creativity. I never felt like a really creative artist before but my mind has changed.

Today I just had so much fun at the thrift store buying all different kinds of china. Then I took it home and smashed it all (talk about good therapy!). I counted 54 different paper plates on my art table containing all sorts of patterns and colors-just waiting for me to put them to good use.

I've always loved jigsaw puzzles and this really satisfies that need. It's also so relaxing to work on the mosaics while listening to books on tape or music. Don't be jealous of me everyone because I am playing with my work. I don't know if this will last for long but I'm enjoying it while I can!

Can't get enough of this fun fun fun....NOT!

2009-03-21T22:48:00.000-07:00

Okay. So this is the very beginning of my blog. I'm starting this because I'm tired of trying to send pictures by email on Qwest.com and only having the space for exactly ONE big picture. I hope this will solve that problem and it could be a lot of fun also. And I like to write, anyway. So this could be a perfect fit for me after all. I hope everyone will enjoy reading and seeing about my world over here in such an exciting place called Murray, Utah. Well, I'm sure it's not as exciting as say, Iraq or any of those hot spots right now. But it's exciting sometimes. I'm planning to share that excitement with all of you.