Getting back on track

Lately I have taken a little mini break from painting. It happened because I was very disappointed in a painting that I had high hopes for. One that I planned, and sketched and noodled with for ages before I even put any water or color on the paper. So I need to get that energy and inspiration back and it is often difficult for me. I may try again with the same subject but I may not. Before I tackled the above mentioned painting I had finished a couple of others which I somehow neglected here. So for what it's worth here are the "orphans" that got shoved aside as I disciplined that "problem child." 

As you can see I seem to be a bit obsessed with the evening sky and lovely luna.

Half Dome Moonrise

Moon & Stars

Well *that* didn't last long!

As some of you already know I have left Pinterest. Well, I am still there in that I have a page but only because I can't figure out out to totally delete the account. It was late when I decided and I have not delved into it further. It was for two reasons. One being that it is a huge sucker-upper of time and there is talk out there that it is not so great because of things to do with copyright. If you are truly interested in the whys and wherefores of my thoughts you can read a little about it here. That was enough for me to say nay to it. I have enough trouble keeping myself from spending all my time on Facebook and Twitter instead of doing the things that need to be done in *real life* to be doing that so sorry to all of you that love  Pinterest and to those that started to follow me but it is not happening.

At least not now.

Back to painting. Or Twitter. Or Facebook. No, painting. Yeah. Painting.

It was inevitable

Last night I finally buckled. I sucked in to Pinterest. I had several invitations from people including Mr. O but had decided it was too cluttered and another time-sucker. Well. Mr O pointed out that it is also another avenue of self-promotion. That was all I needed to hear. I will say that I did not join without kicking and screaming a bit but it is kind of cool. Now I just need to get more than three of my paintings up there and stop pinning useless but lovely other things.

I am getting a little braver in the self-promotion dept. Yesterday I asked Jimmy Akingbola to tweet about my Etsy shop. It was kind of a reciprocal back scratching thing. He asked me in a DM to tweet about is event and I thought, hmmmm. Sure. But there is an Opportunity here. He is a sweety and always replies to my tweets so I went for it and almost immediately my stats jumped to double.  I definitely got the better deal as he has thousands of followers and I only have a handful.

So, now that the grand kitties are back with there "parents" I can get back to the studio and paint again. That is if Pinterest will let me. :/ And with that I must quote my friend Lee Monts here:

Lee A. Monts: I saw a poster that said "Being an artist is 3% talent and 97% not being distracted by the internet"!

Life goes on…

Sorry for the long absence. Last weekend we woke up on Saturday morning to find that my car had been vandalized. The rear window was smashed and a fairly expensive item was stolen, which shouldn't have been in there anyway but when you live in what you think is a safe neighborhood you tend to get be a little too trusting. Needless to say it was quite upsetting. Fortunately my boys (husband and son) are quite savvy with repairs and my car is back to normal again. Good thing because our insurance deductible was more than the cost of the window replacement. Life goes on, right?

I am still fairly obsessed with the fun of colorful skies and trees silhouetted against them. I have never felt very good about my tree portrayal but I think I am improving and it is fun practicing. I owe a lot of this to my good friend Ange who takes some great pictures of the woods at sunset. Very inspirational. Here are the latest in the "Tanglewood" series:

Tanglewood IV

Tanglewood V