Such a tease...

I'm working on several new paintings at the moment. They are taking me longer than normal to complete because, as some of you know, I have been hijacked by the knitting fairies. More on THAT later.

For now I will just tell you the titles of the paintings (which are subject the whims of my imagination)…
Shorebird Convention
Bixby Bridge
Around the Bend 
Greener Pastures II
Castle Moonrise 


That's all for now. As soon as they're done and photographed by my wonderful husband I will post them for your opinions. But that will probably to happen until we return from our upcoming road trip to Yosemite and Bodega Bay. I'm hoping to gather more painting inspiration from this trip.

Meanwhile, here's packing to do and I can hear the knitting fairies calling to me "finish this sweater!"

Off the Grid (not me but the painting)

So today I changed my cover image again...(after all I need to keep it fresh) with a painting that I have not added to Etsy yet. I was not sure it would be popular because I have a lot of similar paintings in my "Island" series. Well I was wrong. A bunch of people like it and I put out a plea for a title since I was out of ideas. There were lots of great suggestions but the one I liked best came from Jessica, a dear and long time family friend whom I adore. Jessica had several good ideas herself but this was my favorite.
So next up in my shop will be…

"Off the Grid"

Etsy Conversations

My lovely friend Angela of Angela Holden Design has started a podcast called Etsy Conversations. (You may remember Angela from the Handsome Bob movie podcast where she interviewed Irene and I about Thomagination.) I was honored to be her first guest on the Etsy Conversations Podcast.

If you have an Etsy Shop and would like to talk about it (and possibly get more traffic/sales) Angela would love to hear from you. She is anxious for more shop owners to interview. Don't be shy. If *I* can do it anyone can. It is just like talking on the phone to a friend and I promise Angela is a delight and will not bite.

You can hear my interview it is HERE.

Spring Sale

I apologize for the brevity and lack of imagination but I am a little side-tracked at the moment since we are visiting the grandchildren this weekend. But I wanted to post this information about my sale at the Etsy Shop so here we go...

Mother's Day is coming up soon. That is all for now. 

Chalk, Cheerios & Choo Choo trains

I bet THAT got your attention. After a week of having our two adorable grandchildren visiting those are the remnants that I am too lazy to put away just yet. Ten month old Molly is mostly responsible for the Cheerios that I keep finding under foot and Colin who is nearly four filled our living room floor with trains (they actually belong to his grampa aka "PapaDon")  so they are still scattered about. He also decorated our patio with chalk drawings and "assigned parking" for our cars in the driveway. Needless to say I miss them already and they only left Wednesday. Sigh.

So, now that the baby crib out of my studio I promise you will see some new paintings here.

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.