Veiled

Veiled, original abstract oil painting, 8"x10", $100

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                                                                   Click here to buy

White Rose, Wilting

Original oil painting, $150, oil on canvas board, 10"x8"

                                                                   Click here to buy.

Not yet!, 2.27.15

This week, we had quite a scare. I won't go into details, but lets just say that after I got a phone call from my son saying that grandpa was very sick, I immediately began to think, "Okay, this is it.". You know that feeling? I mean, most of us know, at some point we will have to face the loss of our parents. But you don't ever really think about it until something happens. We've had some near misses with my dad over the last several years, so the thought has presented itself to me more often than I would like, for sure. But this time, I really thought, "This is it." And, then thoughts like, " That was the last Christmas, that was the last birthday, the last Thanksgiving, etc. Okay, I saw him two days ago, we visited with my mom, Sister, Peanut and Baby G. (the lights of his life) for a while. I kissed him goodbye. Okay, I feel good about that. (I get to see him more often now that we live closer.)  But what about my kids? They have to deal with another loss so soon? How will they deal with that? Grandpa has always been there. Who will we seek advice from when our car is acting up? Who do we call when we have a question about a cut of meat (he was a meat cutter for 40+ years)? Who will tell stories at the table at family dinner nights and holidays? Who will be around to hug pregnant bellies?! Those are his jobs! No one else can fill his shoes."  Man, that was a long drive to the hospital.

From top left: Eddie's and Dad's baby pictures- you can tell they're related, right?!; our family of five, circa 1967ish; Dad and baby G.; Dad and Little Man

But, he is fine. Thank goodness! It was a very fluke set of circumstances that led to his emergency situation. And, chances are, it won't happen again. But, even though he is fine, I feel like I need to tell the world (or maybe just the few people who read this!) how important he is to our family. He was a very strict dad, for sure. But, be had a lot on his plate to provide for a family of five on a meat cutter's salary, so it's understandable that he didn't want to have to deal with misbehaving kids, unnecessary noise, messes, etc. He was also a little distant. He didn't show his emotions very often. (If you knew his mother, the person I refer to as 'Mean Grandma', you would know why!) But, as I've gotten older, I realize that his strictness was just because he  had high expectations for us (me and my brother and sister). It is because of his high expectations that we ended up the way we did- respectable, hard working, law abiding, caring people. And, as I've gotten older, I have seen him soften (considerably!). He is an amazing Grandpa and Great Grandpa. He is EXTREMELY proud of his grand kids and tells them and shows them often. So, when I see him with them, I just think "That's how he really wanted to be with us, when we were kids". I'm so fortunate to have been able to witness that.

And I'm looking forward to much more time to witness my dad at his best. I told him the other day that we thought this was "it" and he responded, "Not yet!". Perfect answer.

Have a great day. Go hug your dad!  Juli

Statue of Nude Woman

Acrylic painting, statue of a nude woman, $100, 16x12in
Click here to buy

Baby Was Here

Click here to buy, (8"x10"), $100, oil on canvas board

Balance

Balance, 24" x 36", acrylic on stretched canvas, $400, click here to buy

 And then.... I played! With paint :)  We watched a Gerhard Richter documentary last night and I guess it inspired me. Suddenly I felt the urge to "wipe" my painting of  Sister in Richter style and 'scrape' rather than wipe. And this is the result.

I kinda like it! I've never done anything like this before (I have been known to cut a painting into pieces, though,  if I don't like it!) so I'm not quite sure if it's finished. I'll have to look at it for a few days to decide. I do have a title, though...'Veiled'.

Then, I returned to the painting I started a week or so ago and 'finished' it. This is the result:

 "Ehhh" was my first thought. But even though it was just "Ehhh", I listed it on Etsy and set it up to be listed on Daily Paintworks. Then... I started scraping again. Yep! I think I'm liking this scraping thing! I would put it a step above finger painting, but still. I painted for two hours straight and it felt like 20 minutes. Fun!  This is the result.

 I don't think this one is finished, but, again, I'm going to look at it for a few days to figure it out. I know I'm going to work on the bottom half a little more. (Oh, and yes, I deleted the listing from Etsy and Daily Paintworks!) The title for this one... 'Ten Years'.


Hope you're having a great weekend!  Juli

Palette Knife Bottles and a Heart

Click here to purchase, $80 (10 x 8)
This painting was part of a series of bottle paintings.  As an experiment, I completed the entire painting using only a palette knife. 

Posting some paintings-Thanks for your patience!, 2.19.15

Please excuse the monotony of seeing some old paintings posted here. Since I've re-joined Daily Paint Works and they pull the paintings to post each day from my blog, I'll need to post one each day until they are all featured. Thanks for your patience!

Complimentary bottles, $100.00, 8 x 10, click here to buy

In other news, we've had quite a few snow days this week, so I had some bonus days to play with my grandsons and spend time with Sister and Eddie, so it's been a good week! (Well, minus the two day long headache I had on Monday and Tuesday. That was no fun.) I was also pretty bummed out that Little Man got stuck at school this weekend because of the snow. Better safe than sorry, though.

But, we did have a little birthday party for Eddie on Sunday, I finished a painting for my sister's birthday on Monday, I finished a custom order onesie for a customer in California on Tuesday and spent some much needed time at home paying bills, posting new listings on Etsy and getting the Daily Paintworks page set up on Wednesday. So, not only has it been a fun week, but also a productive one! It's all about balance, right? Oh, and at night, M. and I have been continuing our Mad Men marathon. And with snow days, I can stay up later and watch more episodes. Woohoo! Yes, I know. It's actually the third Mad Men marathon we've had in the past 14 months. I guess we really need to get a life! haha!

I'll leave you with some pictures from my week :)

Eddie's first birthday, 1989. All of my mom and dad's grandkids had the same first birthday cake, made by my mom.

Eddie's 27th birthday, 2015. Peanut was so proud of the cake he made for him :)

And then the snow moved in. I'm lucky to have a husband who actually likes to shovel snow. You can barely see him there to the right of the tree, shoveling away!

My sister's birthday gift from me. She LOVES dachshunds!

Snow time with Peanut :)

Have a great weekend!  Juli

Color flop, 2.6.15

Well, I said I would be documenting my daily/weekly painting and that there would, inevitably, be some flops. Well, here's an example of a flop. Before explaining, though, I thought I would show you where I was trying to head with the portrait of Sister and Peanut.

This portrait of Little man, age 3, is one that I'm pretty proud of. I completed it in college, so I had the added advantage of constant critiquing by my instructor, which, I'm sure, helped. I remember really wanting to loosen up with my brushstrokes and play with color. It ended up feeling a little like painting with watercolor. It was a lot of fun and I liked the end result.

Well, the portrait of Sister didn't go quite as well. (Maybe because I don't paint portraits very often.) It's not awful. It's obvious that I played with color. But it just doesn't work. I'm happy with parts of it, but the shadows are the wrong color and the contrast is too great. It would be salvageable, as this is just the first coat of color (other than a thin wash of flesh tone), but then I realized that I didn't leave enough room at the bottom for Peanut's little face. Dang! So, it will be wiped off, covered with gesso and turned into something else. I'll give this a go again sometime, but when a painting fails, I have to revert back to familiar ground (flowers, animals, bottles, etc.) to gain momentum again. Painting faces, especially faces of people you know very well, is really kind of stressful because it's very important (at least to me) that you capture their personality. I think that comes from how you handle the paint and how you handle the features, especially the eyes. In this painting, I'm happy with the nose and the mouth. But those aren't Sister's eyes. It's hard to explain, but they just aren't.

I'll be playing around with portraits every so often, but don't expect any beauties anytime soon! haha (It will take a lot of practice, as portraits are my weak area). Hopefully you don't mind seeing the "wipers" (Carol Marine's word!) before they're wiped :)

Sister- under-painting

Sister- under-painting plus a thin wash of color

Colorful Sister!

In other, completely unrelated, news... I had a great doctor's appointment today. ( I bet not many people say that!) She just got certified in functional medicine and I couldn't be happier about it. This means that, in addition to traditional treatments, she will also be recommending/prescribing alternative treatments and considering medical issues from the root cause (prevention), rather than just treating a problem by prescribing medicine. She's running tons of new tests (nutritional screenings, food allergy/sensitivity tests, celiac tests, etc.) on me to hopefully, finally, figure out what is causing my chronic digestive issues. It will be such a relief. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

The weather is supposed to be great in our neck of the woods- mostly sunny and 60 degrees- so have a great weekend!   Juli