WHAT WORKSHOP???

OK, OK, everybody just calm down.

Actually this first workshop started out as one planned and organized by Shreveport artist Robin Clauson, for her current students, where I would teach as a guest artist. Which is why I didn't really advertise it in any big way. A few weeks ago we decided we would have it here in my studio ... fun! If this one goes well (which I feel sure it will!) we will put together some more which will be open to anyone, and then I will be sure to let all my blog readers and everyone on the email list from my website know all the details!

On a side note, lately I've not been cruising the art blogs as much as I usually do, and I just found out that at the beginning of this month Carol Marine’s house and studio near Austin burned down due to an out-of-control forest fire! Wow, I can’t even imagine what that must feel like. Everyone in her family was safe, but still, to lose all your home stuff and work stuff in one fell swoop ... It’s pretty uplifting to read on her blog how family, friends, students and blog followers rallied around them, giving emotional and financial support, and now -- talk about making lemononade out of lemons-- this weekend they’re moving to beautiful Eugene, Oregon, where, for some time I gather, they have been wanting to move to live and work.

You go, Carol!

Excitement!

Hey, we have 22 people signed up for my workshop next week ... woo-hoo!

Ray’s so excited he can hardly stand it.

Stop and smell the spider lilies

I’m still plugging away at my studio spruce-up; I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and “after” pics are coming soon. Meanwhile, the spider lilies are in full bloom ... a sure sign that fall is upon us!

I love this overlapping of seasons, with the summer-blooming crepe myrtle lingering to meet the fall-blooming spider lilies.

We should all take a page out of Roadie and Blue’s book, taking time out of their busy schedules (so many squirrels to be chased, so many tennis balls to be fetched, so many holes to be dug, so many bones to be chewed, so many naps to be taken ... whew! a pooch’s work is never done) to stop and smell the spider lilies.

Beautiful weather and fall cleaning ...

Last weekend, after weeks of drought and temps in the 100’s, a cool front came through bringing a couple of days of much-needed and prayed-for steady rain (here’s how badly we needed the rain: Saturday, our first full day of rain, I went to town for a day off from “puppy duty,” to do some browsing in my favorite shops and stores, get my hair cut and pick up some groceries, and everyone was walking around without their umbrellas, dashing from car to store, from store to car and saying, “Isn’t this wonderful!” and “Isn’t this great!”)

Now the sun is out, but the cooler weather is lingering ... just heavenly! Rest assured that I am not under the delusion that we’ve seen the last of the hot weather for this year (this is Louisiana, remember) but for now we have all the windows open, there’s a cool breeze blowing the curtains around, and I’m embracing the blessing of our unusual-for-this-early-in-September fall weather!

 Now that I’m finished with the poster project I was working on, I’m deep into clearing out, sorting through, organizing and generally sprucing up my work space. This project has kind of expanded to include not only my studio, but the whole upstairs. We basically live on the first floor of this old house, and the upstairs has been serving as mostly just storage and my working area since we started fixing the house up ... until now!

In my last post I showed you some pics of my studio. Keeping in mind that with most organizing projects, things have to look worse before they get better, here are, not my "After" photos, but my “looking-worse-before-things-get-better” photos.

This is what my studio looks like now.

This is the room next to my studio, where I’m unpacking boxes that haven’t been opened since we moved in four years ago, and sorting things into four categories: Keep, Toss, Recycle, and Donate.

Toss is a really fun category, because then I get to throw something off the balcony into the big orange dumpster.

And here, out in the hall, is where I’m going through approximately one gazillion books, organizing and deciding with Paul which 12% we want to keep and which 88% we want to give away. Whew! Hey, here’s a funny thing I discovered: 12% of one gazillion is still one gazillion.

And here’s something I just noticed, too. In the four photos in this post of the inside upstairs of our house, not one has a cat in it. Amazing!

A Louisiana wildflower garden plus planning for fall

Summer is fast coming to a close (except for all this 100-plus-degree weather!) and even though I haven’t been posting new paintings lately, I’m busy gearing up for fall.

I finally got a Facebook page up for my art, and I uploaded the images for my Landscape Paintings and Animal Paintings albums ... you can click on the “Like” button over to the right at the top of this blog to become a “fan” of my art there.

This week I’m finishing up some graphic design work for a poster, flyers and program for a women’s outreach event at our church in October, then I’ll get started on some major cleaning out (think “Spring Cleaning,” only in September) in preparation for a painting workshop I’ll be leading here on October 1.

The workshop is actually being organized and hosted by Robin Clawson, an artist here in Shreveport who teaches classes on an ongoing basis, who asked me if I would like to be a guest artist for a Saturday workshop. When we were hammering out the details yesterday we realized we hadn’t discussed location, so I said, why not here in my studio? So that’s what we’re going to do and I’m SO EXCITED! A lot of you have asked me when I’m going to start teaching workshops; this first workshop is mainly for Robin’s current students, but it will let me get my feet wet, so to speak, and soon I plan to start teaching workshops open to anyone.

So. Right now my studio/office looks like this ...

... complete with Ray, wondering what in the world I’m doing over here in the corner.

I realize it doesn’t look TOO messy in these pictures; that’s because it’s a spacious room with the mess all pushed over to the corners. Just wait ’til I show you the “after” photos!

A hard morning’s work ...

Here’s Roadie, almost 10 months old, still very much a puppy (a 65-pound puppy), napping on Andy’s bed, exhausted from a morning chock-full of puppy projects ...

... like this ...

... and this (notice how he made a little house with a chimney 

out of paper towels ... what a creative pooch!) ...

... and this ...

 ... and this.

After a morning as full of productive creativity as this, 

it’s no wonder he needs a nap!

I think I need one, too.

The teeny dogs next door

Our next-door neighbors have been away for a few days, taking their kids to the beach for a last hoorah of the summer before school starts tomorrow, and while they were gone we’ve been going over several times a day to take care of these cutie-patooties.

This is Miley, the miniature dachshund, who is a little over two years old and weighs maybe eight pounds. Just about every day she comes over to our back fence and gives our big dogs a good talking to, reminding them that they better just stay in their own yard if they know what’s good for ’em.

Here are Peanut and Champ, also miniature dachshunds, six months old and both just as full of beans as they can be. They’re waiting for their after-going-out-in-the-yard treat.

Champ is a long-haired mini, just beautiful. Here he is out in the yard, letting the wind blow in his hair:

I wonder what’s going on in his little bean-filled head.

And here’s little old Ramona, the chihuahua, about thirteen years old. Hard to get a close-up without my zoom lens. She values her privacy.

On the art front, my sister finally talked me into getting on Facebook, so I’ve been reading articles on how artists can promote their art on a Facebook page that is separate from their personal pages. Still trying to figure all that out, but I’m getting there!

I’ll put a link when I have it ready.

Later!