Winter Respite

Psalm 40:5

Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders you have done.
The things you planned for us no one can recount to you;
were I to speak and tell of them they would be too many to declare.

I took this picture today from our upstairs front porch, looking out into the south pasture. A beautiful, spring-like day here in the middle of winter. Two nights ago it got down to 24°. The temperature today was in the high 70’s. In four days it’s supposed to get down to below freezing again.

Ahh, winter in Shreveport; if you don’t like the weather, just wait a day or two.

Jam Session

Just had to share this photo of my husband, Paul, and our blue tick hound, Henry. Right this minute Paul is in the next room playing the heck out of an acoustic 6-string that our friend bj gave him a few months ago. Some funky, bluesy improv. Now a little Peter Frampton cover. Now a little Lynnrd Skynnrd and some more delta blues.

He calls it just messin' around. I love it! Thanks, beej!

Live Creatively, Friends!

Galatians 6:1-6 (from The Message translation)

Live creatively, friends. If someone falls into sin, forgivingly restore him, saving your critical comments for yourself. You might be needing forgiveness before the day's out. Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law. If you think you are too good for that, you are badly deceived.

Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life.

Be very sure now, you who have been trained to a self-sufficient maturity, that you enter into a generous common life with those who have trained you, sharing all the good things that you have and experience.

I was thinking a lot about new year resolutions today, and about new habits I really want to try to cultivate. I’ve realized that as I’ve gotten older, my resolutions are now not so much about career goals. Been there, done that. I don’t mean that in a bad way, mind you; I've gotten to make a good living with my art and design and photography and typographic skills for almost 30 years and I’m sincerely grateful for that and still loving it!

The resolutions which are the most important to me nowadays are about more personal things. More about striving to be encouraging and uplifting and comforting to others whenever God presents me the opportunity. So here’s one more resolution for 2008:

I’m going to write an actual note of encouragement or thanks to someone every Saturday, and send it by snail mail. In this day of texting and email, how special and cool it is to get a material piece of personal correspondence in our actual, non-virtual mailbox! Especially when it’s out of the blue from someone totally unexpected. Am I right, or am I right?

And in closing, here’s an excerpt from my reading this week out of my little antique book of devotionals:

There is so much to be set right in the world, there are so many to be led and helped and comforted, that we must continually come in contact with such in our daily life. Let us only take care, that, by the glance being turned inward, or strained onward, or lost in vacant reverie, we do not miss our turn of service, and pass by those to whom we might have been sent on an errand straight from God.

– Elizabeth Charles


Look up and now down; look forward and not back; look out and not in; and lend a hand.

– Edward E. Hale

Christmas Memories ...

I was uploading photos off my camera today and I laughed when I saw this one I took a few weeks ago when I was getting ready to set up this little antique nativity. I had set all the little figures out on the kitchen table and got distracted by something or other (this happens WAY too often, lately!) When I walked back in the kitchen, here was Ray, the giant village cat, joining the little group adoring our little Lord Jesus asleep in the hay.

New Year Goals, continued ...

Midwinter Moon acrylic on gessobord work in progress

Forgive my very short post today, but it’s late, it’s been a busy day, and I’m very sleepy ...

Here’s one more thing I’m going to accomplish in 2008:

Transform one of the deserted rooms upstairs into an inviting, comfy, cozy guest room. Paul’s parents are planning to visit in July, so this one has a very specific deadline. I’ll break this one down into subgoals with deadline dates, and it will be fun to photograph the progress.

Sweet dreams, everyone!

The hibernating blog awakens ...

Midwinter Moon - work in progress, acrylic on 26 x 20 cradled Gessobord.

The inspiration for this new painting was the breathtakingly splendid moon which was just rising through the trees down the road when I took Trixie out for her post-dinner jaunt on Christmas Eve. Since winter officially began on December 21, technically I guess this would be an Early Winter Moon, but I've always been particularly fond of words starting with “mid-” ... midsummer, midair, midstream, mid-afternoon snack, etc., so I chose Midwinter Moon for the title. Artist's perogative.

In her Greywaren Art blog post of a few days ago, Maggie Stiefvater sets forth a great example of practical, real-world new year goal-setting. Here are two of my artist-blog-related goals for this year (tune in tomorrow for some non-blog-related goals, including some more art-related ones):

1. Paint or draw every day. EVERY day. This is do-able, so I’m determined to do it, no excuses. Period.

2. Post a blog entry every day I’m not away from home, even if it’s only one sentence. or one word. or only a picture. every day.

3. Finish at least one 12 x 16 or larger painting every week.

There. I’ve shared these goals on the world wide web, so I guess they’re official!

And now, back to watching the Twilight Zone marathon with my husband and a bowl of popcorn, 2 dogs and 3 cats. (On these freezing nights the whole menagerie tends to gather where the heavy-duty space heater is, which at the moment is in front of the tv.) One of my favorites is just coming on: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet with a pre-Star Trek William Shatner.

Happy New Year, all!

Neighborhood Watch - the original!

Neighborhood Watch @2007 Karen Mathison Schmidt
16 x 20 • acrylic on cradled gessobord • sides painted dark umber
gloss varnish for protection & ease of cleaning
SOLD


Well, we’re fast approaching another new year (they just keep on coming, don’t they?) so I’ve been doing my best to muster up the gumption to put the finishing touches on projects I started months ago and tie up all those loose creative ends for this year. I think this was the only painting I had left unfinished, and now it’s done!

This one has a kind of a retro, illustration-y feel to it that I really like; I started the painting back when we were still living in town ... this is our Trixie keeping an eye on things on our corner. She was really good at letting me know if any unauthorized persons (or dogs, or cats, or squirrels) were passing by. Even out here in the country where she and Henry can actually go outside just about any time they feel like it, she still loves looking out the windows.

Here’s a detail of the picture:


Thanks to all of you who keep checking in ... I’ve been a little lazy lately when it comes to my blogging. Also, I’ve been blog-tagged by fellow artist blogger Helen Read (thanks, Helen!) so look for my response to that soon!