It's the last post of the year, and your final opportunity to enter the December Reader Giveaway!  Leave a comment on any one (or more) of December's posts to be automatically entered to win a piece of original art - FREE!  The winner (or winners) will be announced right here in the blog during the first week of January.  Ready? Set? GO!

It is the final week of the October Reader Giveaway!  Leave a comment on any blog post this month to enter.  One (or more) lucky readers will win a piece of original art - FREE!  Now THAT'S a Halloween treat! 

Congratulations to Dotty and Marta!  Wonder Mike chose your names at random as winners of the  August Reader Giveaway!  Send your mailing addresses to Wonder Mike at [email protected] and your free art will be shipped to you lickety split!  And thanks so much to all who participated.  A new contest begins next month!  Hooray!

About the art:  beginning with an old acrylic painting and a tub of black gesso, murdering the old painting to make room for the new.  Carving back through the wet gesso to reveal a spot or two of the underpainting color.  For this piece, I used no inspiration image.  Just a color palette and my Planes of the Head mannequin  - https://planesofthehead.com/products.php.  I sketched a basic shape and features with a small brush and some thinned oil paint.  Then the requisite 80 million layers of thin washes - darkening the background, highlighting the face, the flower petals, the hair.  Allowing the texture of the original painting to create a kind of old-world crackling of the skin.  OH!  A walnut-oil laden brush over wet petals to create the dripping effect.  A final layer of Gamvar gloss over the dried painting to make the darks sing.

Congratulations to Sara V.H.!  Wonder Mike selected your name at random as winner of the April Reader Giveaway.  Be on the lookout for your prize package in the mail.  And thanks to all who participated!  Hooray!

​ I am actually grateful - this ability is pretty good for keeping life from going off the rails.  But a day of leaping tall buildings, invisibility, flying or even just figuring out who done it in the crime novel we're reading would be nice.

​ Just saying.

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Here in the p-a-u-s-e there is a big grin.  In the documenting (a spreadsheet which I have kept for over a decade) I recently typed 1600.  As in 1600 paintings.  One thousand six hundred pieces of art.  And this really means something to me.

When I first began this journey from right-brained banker-type to left-brained creative, a workshop instructor, when asked how to become a good artist, said something like "There is no shortcut to being good.  Paint 400 pieces.  Then you'll be an artist.  Or, at least you'll have some clue about what you're doing.  Four hundred.  There is no other way." (I am paraphrasing for sure, this conversation having taken place looooooong ago).  I sat in that workshop and decided in that moment to paint 400.

At 400 pieces I did have a clue.  At 800 pieces I no longer cared so much what other people thought and became rather fearless.   At around 1200 pieces I sort of lost my way and totally cared about what other people thought and tried to paint for others and questioned everything.   And now, at 1600, I am back to having a clue again and not giving a whip for the thoughts of many (but caring deeply about the thoughts of a vetted few). 

So I am standing here in the pause, looking at this wall of drying paintings, wondering what the next 400 will bring and knowing knowing without a doubt that each of you, dear readers - those who read silently and anonymously, those who read and comment, those who read and share, those who maybe skip reading and go right to the art and those who take that art home with them - you are the melody to this rhythm.  Thank you, thank you.  I am so grateful. xo

Over the three weeks following that message, I met Valerie for the first time, and then said goodbye for the last time.  The incredible artist Valerie Thomson passed away in her own home yesterday.

She was a fount of knowledge, sharing her passion for plastic-free art and environmentally-gentle packing materials, paints, substrates (and even tape!) with anyone who was curious.  And she painted like the muse was in her own two  hands.  Her entire home was her studio - no space was left for anything other than art and the creating of it.  She collected art from around the world (including many of mine) and sold her paintings around the globe.  

During the last visit, I asked her what she wanted the world to know.  She said, without hesitation, "there is always room for more kindness."  And then she proceeded to give away her entire studio of art supplies and her entire collection of art.   To me and to others who responded to her messages.  This amazing woman, who had been reclusive and hermit-like for the last decade, found herself in tears over the people who said "YES!" and rushed over to meet her and help in any way possible.  And there I was, on the end of her bed, crying with her.  Over bagels with scrambled eggs, just the way she liked them.

My studio is packed from floor to ceiling now.  Canvases, boards, oil paints, oil sticks, papers, pigments, brushes and wedges.   Including several of her unfinished paintings, of which she said "finish them.  Or paint over them.  You'll know what to do."  It's a daunting thought.

From her diagnosis to her final day was just a few short weeks.  Once again, the brevity and fragility of life overwhelms me.