This painting was a variety of things—flowering branches, another portrait, drippy abstract—before it found it’s way here. Deciding when a piece of art is finished is, to me, one of the most difficult parts of the creative process. Lately, I’m having a hard time completing a painting. I get to the point where a painting is almost finished, and I’m happy with it in its unfinished state, and then I can’t seem to bring the whole thing together during the final stages. Often this frustration makes me take the painting in an entirely new direction, or decide to plaster over and repaint the entire thing. In this case, all of the layers of previous paintings are why I love the final piece, and I’m glad that I continued to push it it in so many new directions until it finally came together.

2012 was a busy year: We bought a house—a little 1940′s fixer upper—and we’ve been doing lots of home projects… I plan to share some updates here as we go along; We adopted a puppy a week before we moved across town. He made the entire process about 10 times more difficult—chewing his way through boxes, hiding underneath the (very scary) new house and refusing to come out even for treats; I set up a studio in our attic, and it’s still very much a work in progress. I’ve spent more time retrieving chewed on paint brushes, shredded paper towels, and gnawed on yogurt containers (which I use for paint) from my thieving puppy than I have spent getting much actual work done. Luckily, his cuteness makes up for it.

And because I’m sure you will want to see puppy pictures, meet Huxley at 4 months:

I’m in my studio painting today, and decided that it’s high time I returned to my blog.

This is just a quick post to get me going again.

A painting in progress…

I have lots to share, so I will be back soon.

I painted this last year, and never got around to sharing it. Winter is finally fading and the trees are turning green, so this painting caught my eye when I walked into my studio this morning. I went for a quick dip in the river last weekend. It was freezing and refreshing. I’m hoping the last bits of snow will melt away quickly, as the high lakes are now calling my name.

Hope you are having a lovely spring.

These little abstracts are all 12×12 on plaster. I’m working on expanding my color palette, and abstract art is such a fun way to play with new combinations. What is your favorite color, or color combo? I’d love to hear. It just might inspire my next painting.

Poppy I - 16×40 acrylic, charcoal and graphite on plastered birch

…

This is a piece that I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. It came together fairly quickly, and I was happy with it. But I have a weird compulsion with my paintings where I find it hard to stop tweaking this and that. My inner perfectionist wants everything to be just so, and often comes along to sabotage me just as I begin to feel happy with a piece. I nearly ruined it. So I stepped away from my easel for a bit and returned a few days later in a calmer state of mind and things came back together. Take that saboteur!

It hit me recently that I’ve been painting for a year, so to celebrate—and shake things up a bit—I signed up for this online workshop with Flora Bowley. We’re only four days in and so far there has been blindfolded finger painting, dancing around the studio, and yoga stretches with deep breathing. All good things. My perfectionist doesn’t quite know what to think…

I hope that your year is off to a great start. My new year began with a little road trip to Idaho to meet up with a few of the sisters. We stayed in a cozy little hotel suite, where we played ukes, indulged in lots of goodies, and laughed a lot. In fact, we laughed so much that we got a call regarding noise complaints—at 7 p.m! Not a bad ending to 2011.

Last year I decided to forgo New Year’s resolutions in favor of a word of the year, so I am doing the same for 2012. My word is expand:

Wishing you a year filled with uncontainable laughter!

I hope it’s magical.

I finally retired my beat-up clunky first snowboard, The Nitro, a few years ago, and it’s been hanging around taking up space ever since. I love to repurpose old things, and thought that it  might one day become a bench, a shelf, or maybe even a piece of wall art. But—as of this year—The Nitro was very pleased to back on the snow in a new role as a christmas tree sled. It did the job so well that it’s going to become the boards official position. I plan to paint on some snowflakes and maybe even add a bell or two to celebrate its new life.

p.s. I think I have the rss feed back up and running, but let me know if you experience any glitches.