Secret of Everything

The secret of everything-Everything IS Mental. All talent, skill, power, speed and ability is mental. Nothing is impossible. Anything is possible. There is nothing you cannot Be, Do, or Have. You can Be, Do and Have anything you want as long as you have the mind for it.

The inner World creates the Outer World. Your beliefs, intentions and emotions create your reality. Magic is causing change to occur in accordance with will. Whenever your mind focuses, your energy goes. Everything is Mind. Mind is Everything. The Universe is Mind. Mind Controls Everything. Mind is Reality. Reality is Mind. The Master of Mind is Master of Everything.

-Author Unknown

Great Quote

"the longer you spend time working on something-

loving it into being, almost-

the more you get attached. It's silly,

but you do hope they go to good homes."

-Anne Desmet

I haven't posted for a few and that is because I am in Florida visiting a best friend and designing a new web site for her! She was at my first birthday and she was nine months old...

'Fish in the City'

This is a fish that I did my art magic to last summer. I am going to do the same this summer... so you understand my gibberish...
I did a series of paintings for Marietta, OH, Tourism..go way back on my posts and you will see the article... and me with blond hair, hey I was born blond... now my hairdresser only knows the color??? I am an artist who supposedly knows color and I can't figure it out!!! heehe...
Anyhoo...this was a series of Catfish for the city to decorate and have around town for all to view and of course I created mine for the Tourism Bureau of Marietta. OH, that I had worked with... and guess what... I will be doing another for this July catfish event...

This fish form , that is a taxidermy form, I painted to look like my 'Sex and the City' fav show gals!!! My brother and sis-in-law always said I was the "Carrie" character and I totally agree... fashion , friends, and men problems.... I have all the shows on DVD and I took my 83 year old Italian Mama to see the movie and we LovEd iT!!! She is a fan, too! A Totally cool woman who has survived 3 cancers, none related, thank GOD, rectal( Farrah Fawcett) and both breasts at the same time..a total winner in my eyes!!! Her physical life is hell... that is why I am with her as close as I can be and still work in my profession. She is my Best Friend!!!

Anyway I used fish net stockings on the leg form and I gave her pearl necklace (fake) teeth and huge red lips..like mine, my signature if you know me! Also, she has a wig of curls and false eyelashes!!! Too fun and a flipper for her foot.

And the best part...I had to buy her back...she is part of my home art gallery...by the way, she is sucking on her fav cocktail...Cosmopolitan.

Another Father's Day Without You

There's something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself.

~John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, 1994

Me and Daddy-O back when I was a Senior in High School, this was Homecoming and I was on the Court! We had our Dads escort us onto the football field for the festivities. We all got to pick a rose wrapped in aluminum foil and whoever got the red rose was Queen and the yellow rose was runner up...well, with a name like Whitaker I was second to last in the line-up, so to speak, and just as I was getting the last of one of two roses to choose from, there were squeals of delight as two at the beginning of the line were the Queen and her Queen-ette. Geezzz, I never had a chance...
My Dad was a gentle soul. A quiet man, he loved to read and had always wanted to be a teacher, but could not afford to go to college. Instead, he put himself through Electrician School and worked for the power company. He made sure his children could go to school and be what they desired. He used to sit on the floor and feed our blind Yorkie with a spoon.
That was the only way she would eat.
I lived in Seattle for 5 years and wanted to buy a home there, but my Dad would never get on a plane. So, I moved back to Pittsburgh ( I had lived there while in art school) to be close to my parents in WV. So glad I did. He would call me at 5am when I was getting ready for work to tell me the weather all the time. God, I miss those calls. And to not go to the gym after work because it could snow. And then call to check on me to see if I went and if I did he would tell me how I worried him! Always Daddy's little girl... no matter how old.

It's been 10 years now and it still seems like only yesterday. And now one of my best friends is losing her Dad to lung cancer, practically overnight. Their relationship is like mine was with Daddy. She asked me to do a painting of her Dad in his favorite chair with his boy, Harley, his pug (who is always by his side!)
I was honored...This is going to be a tough one.

If tears could build a stairway

And Memories a lane...

I'd walk right up to Heaven

And bring you home again...

...Miss you Daddy...

Something New

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark in the hopeless swaps of the not-quite, the not-yet, and the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish in lonely frustration for the life you deserved and have never been able to reach. The world you desire can be won. It exists.. it is real.. it is possible.. it's yours."

— Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged)

Wonderful quote!

This painting is a new direction for me, I never paint abstracts. I need to branch out more in the exploration with my art. It makes the journey so much more alive for me. I am trying some of the gel and modeling paste mediums and working more with color and texture. This piece started with color applied to the board and then I added several glazes just to experiment. Finally, I added the paste to my color and used a knife and my fingers to apply it.

I am happy with the result. It gives me a happy feeling from the colors I chose.

Now on to the studio to finish a commissioned piece...a house portrait of one of the historical homes in Marietta, OH. It sits along the river, and they have a magnificent view. I will post it probably Sunday or Monday!

Think About It...

“To love is to suffer. To avoid suffering, one must not love. But then, one suffers from not loving. Therefore, to love is to suffer; not to love is to suffer; to suffer is to suffer. To be happy is to love. To be happy, then, is to suffer, but suffering makes one unhappy. Therefore, to be happy, one must love or love to suffer or suffer from too much happiness.”

-Woody Allen

Go Check this Give-A-Way

My friend Audrey @ The Magic, Miracles and Joy of an Artist is having a great Give-A-Way on her blog! Three things could be yours!!! But hopefully, they'll be MINE!!! Hurry, before time runs out....

My Diva

Oh ...What a gal! This is my Diva Woman, my muse, my woman for all women. Yes, she has an A-T-T-I-T-U-D-E with her head cocked and that hair in some sort of beehive shape...not to mention her hands on those ample hips. And her chest could feed a nursery full of starving babies! She's got it all. She will be placed in my studio and I will put some of my jewelry on her, a lady can never have too much jewelry!

Anyhoo, I created this buxom gal in my ceramics class. I sculpted her in clay and after she dried out a bit, I hollowed her out so she would not explode in the kiln. Then I got to glaze her and I just went with it, flying by the seat of my muse. And I am really pleased with the play of colors. You really can't see how rich those colors are by my picture. Her side view was way too much so I just stuck with a front and back view!

Watermelon Award!!!

A big hug and thank you to Lynda @ Butterfly Dreams for this Watermelon Award! It just makes me feel so good to receive an award from a fellow blogger! I am supposed to list six things I love...really hard to narrow it down, but here goes...

1. Cool mornings to wake up to and the sounds of nature for my alarm clock

2. Seeing the smiles on my little pet's faces just because I am there

3. The smell of oil paints and turpentine

4. A glass of Shiraz and a good read

5. Gallery openings

6. Knowing I made someone smile

And now to pass this on to six of my peers...that is a toughy, too.

1.http://adrisart.blogspot.com

2.http://www.papermoonies.blogspot.com

3. brillescintille

4. JolieArt

5. The Willows Nest

6. Michele Lynch Art Blog

Thank You!!!

Thank you so much Julie-ann of Heavenleigh Art of for giving me this beautiful award. I am always so excited to be blessed to receive awards from my peers!!! It truly makes me feel that at least my blog has touched someone, and that is what this is all about for me. Now I am supposed to nominate eight blogs or more...and that is always the hard part, since I want to award everyone!!!

1: Folk Art by Campbell Jane

2: PJ's Talking

3: Vintage Palette Art

4: Blogger (Blogspot) - 365catladies

5: Love Is My Religion

6: ENCHANTED INSPIRATIONS

7: Veronica Diago

8: Amariah Rauscher

Go and visit these wonderful blogs! And thank you again, Julie-ann.

Repeat Performance

Love looks not with the eyes,

but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid

painted blind.

-William Shakespeare, Mid-Summer Night's Dream, 1595

This is an oil painting of mine that I posted several months ago. I only thought it proper to show it again with this lovely quote. I am a big quote freak. I have books with quotes and when I read or hear one I like, I write it down and it goes into my quote stash.

This painting is called "The Kiss" and I painted it in an oil painting class I was taking. It was a study in oils, took forever! All the glazes, impatiently waiting for it to dry so I could continue! But I really loved the result and I framed it in an elaborate, ornate gold frame!

I think I need to get back to oils again and while they are drying, I could paint my acrylic paintings. One of my all time fav smells is oil paints and turpentine! I know, weird, huh...but it is true!!! I don't know, maybe it is soothing or calming for me, my own "aromatherapy."

"Something To Crow About"

This was my final painting in my acrylic class last night. I will really miss everyone, wish it could go on every week. We had the best art instructor I think I have ever had! I was fortunate to have her when I took my drawing class. Everyone who takes a class with her, even if they know nothing about art, finds it a rewarding experience.

This painting is 16" x 20" and painted on canvas board. I used acrylics and gel medium, and I glued a small bottle cap "brooch" that I made from jewelry that I create. Way back in super early posts, I had another much smaller painting with the same name. So, using that theme, here is version 2. The crow whispering to her ear has a little piece of paper from a Hershey Kiss chocolate (one of my addiction-afflictions) that says appropriately, "kiss".

My Latest Class Assignment

Well, I think I finally stepped outside the box, actually for me, it is more like stepping out of the box and into The Emerald City (Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore, that Emerald City!). I always wanted to try to paint with color and just go with my gut feeling, but was afraid to go there, afraid of failing. By the reaction of my peers in class and my professor, I think I made a breakthrough!!!

First, I drew a simple shape of the dog's silhouette and then pasted old telephone pages over the shape. Next, I painted simple brush strokes with mars black and l loved the simplicity of it. I wish I had taken a picture. But, I thought I needed to add texture and color, since that is what my acrylic class is all about. Then... it just started to come together and I kept going until I felt it was finished. The final step was stamping "woof" on his belly area.

Just Me

I am what I am

That's all I can be.

No more, no less,

What you're seeing

Is me!

-???

I love this quote...sounds like a Dr. Seuss line, he is pure genius, grew up on his books. It is me for sure. Is it you, also??? So many times we try to be something we are not. I have...only to get frustrated and realize that I was trying to be something else, maybe this version I had in my head, some image I conjured up of the perfect me. Oh well, that ALWAYS led to disappointment in myself, making far too many goals and not conquering them one at a time, but trying to be a super star. I have been reevaluating my life and contributions I have made with it, I guess turning 50 last week brought reality in my face, so to speak. I do have lots of regrets, wish I could do many things over, given what I have learned from life, but life doesn't work that way. We only have one life to live and we need to live it fully , every day... and not have regrets. Maybe it is time for a new chapter in my journal...the next 50 ...I will have no regrets, I will live my life with passion and have a lust for life...care to join me on life's journey???

I am just me, no more, no less. And, that is okay with me.