Embarrassed

So I had some friends over this weekend for dinner.
We had a great time. The food was good, the wine was good, the company was good. The table setting was horrible.
Can you think a of a worse thing than a potter who doesn't have a dinner plate for each of her guests? I was so embarrassed. So first thing Sunday morning I went out to the studio and voila! Here are 3 of the 6 plates I made for our cabinet. I wanted to make really fast ones so I stenciled the crows on. I don't have time to carve for myself....well that and the fact that me and Will are such klutzes that I know we will break them and I will have to replace them. So I wanted to make something easy to replace or add on to.

2 Bird Girls

Here is the beginning of the first of the Bird King series. As you can tell I just started and the girl on the right is a little neglected. I feel bad leaving her so unattended but I have to stop to fix dinner. We are having guests tonight for an easy but yummy dinner of peanut chicken and pesto pasta. And.....chocolate turtle cake for desert. One of my specialties I learned to make in childhood. It is a box cake all spruced up with caramel, chocolate chips and peanuts. If anyone wants the recipe I will be glad to post it. It is always a big hit and everyone always thinks it is made from scratch.

Every now and then....

I get bored. I get burned out and washed up with clay. I struggle with my images, what I want to draw, what direction I want to wander in. It is these frustrating times that I lean on my favorite vice....stories. When I get potter's block I start making up stories and shortly the images follow in a stream, a happy flashy stream of pictures.
And so this year after a fall that was wonderful and crazy but all in all very unending...I felt used up. Dry. A desert.
So I started to think up a short story about the Bird King and Queen. I have been doing images of the Bird Queen for a long time. She would appear now and then when I was working with crow or raven images. But I never really thought too much about who she was and what her story would be if I thought it out.
Well the story is coming to me and I am actually writing it. Which I don't usually do. I usually just draw and paint the ideas instead of writing them in word form. But this one
seems like a fun story to see if I can get it into a readable idea. We'll see how it turns out. In the mean time I have been drawing various characters in my sketch book. Here is one of them.



She is one of the girls that the Bird King can choose from to mate with. They are human girls so they have to dress in a mask with a beak.













Here are some with girls on a pot.

Finished Sweater

Here is Will's finished sweater!
It is unblocked in the picture so I hope it will shrink a little bit in washing.
He loves it even thought it is a bit too big.

Inspiration

My friend Janet gave me this book Water for Elephants
to read a little while ago. Recently while painting this idea came up and I started to remember a couple of scenes in the book. It really is a wonderful book and the imagery that came to mind was fantastic! I highly recommend it.

Purse for a Fundraiser / Auction

The Theatre Arts Gallery is having an Art Purse auction next month and here is my contribution. I wanted to keep it for myself.
Alas, I sent it in yesterday.

I'm Back

Finally I have something to post. Christmas was crazy and after the shows we took off to Syracuse to see Will's mom and step dad. We had a blast. I am trying to post a video of us sledding down this huge ravine. I hope I can figure it out.
This is a painting of my favorite tree in the yard. Just finished it today and because it is a study, I think it is done. I am painting in the yard as a kind of exercise to get me back into paining on a daily basis. If I make them studies it takes the pressure off of me and I feel free and light hearted about the work. I know there is serious work to be done and I am looking forward to it but in the meantime I am working out my painting muscle on some fun studies.