Hide me please

In other thoughts... Harper and I were playing with the states puzzle this morning.  I decided to rearrange some of them to make my family and friends within better driving distance.  Oh, and because Ohio needs some Atlantic coastline.  Now I just need to somehow fit in Arizona, California, Texas, Florida and Georgia nearby.  We might have to stack them or something.

Life Lately

My creative life has been under seige by a mountain of not-so-creative activities - house cleaning, upheaving the entire upstairs for new carpet (see photo below- who knew new carpet would be so disruptive or so much messier than I thought), finishing wedding invitations (less creative than you might imagine), and of course work. 

I did squeeze in a few creative things.  I made birthday invites for Harper's party (we invited the preschooler girls to a painting party... WOOHOO!), and started some custom orders for friends.

Carpet installation - Thank goodness that's over.

It's a party!  Harper's getting excited.

Never again will I do wedding invites.  Ok, maybe for Harper someday.  Maybe.

Having fun playing on a custom piece for a friend.

And of course, work.

I hope things settle down soon so I can have more happy art adventures up in the studio!

Not gonna happen

Growing Up

I noticed that lately she's starting to hold her pencil more like a grown up.  Well, some of the time anyway.

Wrong Address, Return to Sender

Lately I've been seeing a lot of blog posts about taking time to rest.  I woke up this morning thinking about all of the things I have on my plate and wondered which I should start with.  And then while having my tea, I saw another post about taking time to rest.  Maybe if I were someone else, I'd take the fact that all those REST messages keep showing up as some kind of sign.  BUT, for me, that's just not the messages I need right now.  When I see messages to rest, I think, gee, maybe I should, but in fact, I kind of want to yell, "BUT I'M NOT TIRED!  I DON'T WANT TO REST" like my preschooler might yell.

For me, springtime is a time of energy and doing a zillion things.  It doesn't seem to be bothering me that we're looking for a new car (a small SUV to haul stuff... YAY!), contracting for a large concrete pad with retaining wall beside our house, planning Harper's birthday party, making and addressing wedding invitations for our nephew, remodeling upstairs, working on two custom art orders, OH, and then there's the full time job and of course, Harper.  [Edited to add:  I should note here that I get more stuff done because I rarely really clean house or do laundry. We're going to have someone come to clean the house starting next week.  YAY!  And I have a mother-in-law who watches Harper during the day while I work and when we need to do stuff.  And I work from home, so I get back time in the mornings, lunch times, and evenings.]  We do rest, but I guess we just take our rest in small doses - a morning cup of tea, a movie on TV in the evening.  And that seems to be working for us right now.  GO MASSEYS!

Ok, time for some journaling doodles...

The REAL Danger of the Internet

It's the ideas, people.  The IDEAS.

Oh sure, there's those adorable, cute, small effort ideas like this one:

BUT let's say you're browsing random blogs and you see something like this:  http://johanna-vintage.blogspot.com/2012/01/kalla-bolig-liv-g-illar-ideen-med.html

And then you think, "Hey, I have one of those. I could do that."  And then four hours of frustration and cursing later when you're thinking that IDEAS should come with warning labels.  Makes me wonder if the blog linked above (since it's not in English and all) says "Don't attempt this at home, you crazy nutter."

Announcing...

My website! 

Please visit http://www.aweebitwarped.com/ to check it out.  Sure, I still have some work to do on it, but what the heck.  It told me it wanted to be announced.

I even posted some original art for sale on there on the Shop tab.  I'll be adding prints and greeting cards soon too.

I wonder...

I wonder why birds don't want to move into my little bird house?  I would totally move in.

Settling back in...

We're slowly recovering from all the sick germs and pretty much keeping things low-key.  (The Easter bunny comes on MONDAY, right?) :)

Spent the weekend settling back into the studio and trying to get things organized around here.  I promptly messed that all up by starting some new art pieces. 


Some stuff in the studio and a couple of new warm up circle flower pieces from last night.

A new piece just started.  (And sideways, thanks to Blogger.)



The view from my chair.  I'd say "let the messes begin," but it looks like I've already got that started.



Harper has been busy too.  Watercoloring paper towels seems to be her thing right now.

Oh, Artfest...

I had planned on posting about Artfest sooner, but I came home to a sick lovey...

Awwwww....

And then I got sick myself from some bug I brought home.  (No picture of me, sorry.  I'm not even remotely cute when I'm sick.)

I woke up at 3:15 AM feeling pretty miserable (did I mention that I'm whiny too when I'm sick?), so I thought I'd post the photos from Artfest instead of just being annoyed that I'm not sound asleep.

Teesha and Tracy at the opening welcome event

Workshop teachers introducing themselves

First day - journaling class with Erin Faith Allen and my table buddy Morganne

One of my journal pages - sideways for some reason

Another of my journal pages (I didn't draw the girl, I only wish that I did).  I think I'll work on this one some more and maybe even draw the girl with all the hair this time.

We snuck away at lunch time to see the sound and to collect sea glass (when you collect it from the sound is it sound glass?)

Day 2 - Stephanie Lee's Plaster Sampler class

One of my plaster and wax pieces

Day 3 - Andrea Matus's Suspended Souls class.  Didn't finish this one yet.  This is just a piece of it.  Not sure what's going to happen with it.

Did I mention that I DID finish my trades (at the hotel pre-Artfest)?

I was pretty happy to see this huge bed at my Seattle hotel.

And this dessert.

Showered and feeling more like myself again.

And the mountain came out to see me!  Seriously, when I was driving to the airport, the sight of Mt. Rainier made me a little weepy.  It always seems to come out on the last day of my trips.

I'm realizing now that I should have taken more photos - of my friends Lea and Dave and their adorable boys, of my amazing Artfest housemates Lisa, Lori and Kari, Fort Warden, of my Artfest friends, and so on... There are rumblings of another Port Townsend/Fort Warden art retreat in the works though, so next time!