Pink Coyote

Winners + New Work

While I was pilfering purloining* old candy from the Halloween bag, ("I think it's time to throw this thing out while everyone is at the park...oooooh-Crunch bar!"), I used random.org to pick two winners for the prints!

CROW goes to Heather of Bumblebird

OWL is for Gem of Droplets of Devotion

Send me an email with your shipping address so I can send you your goods, m'dames!

Thank you all for playing! I will be doing a card giveaway this week, so come back and play again and try your luck at the wheel of fortune.

It's been a long weekend of parenting and cleaning up around here, leaving me low on resources. The too much information version includes me drinking a bit of Guinness to replenish my milk supply, after using a homeopathic remedy for a sore throat that left me all dried up! I have had to resurrect this milk from the dead twice now! The good news is that no caffeine + fenugreek + plenty of B vitamins + beer = abundant milk for the baby goddess. At eight months, she still won't take a bottle, so I do the straw trick or give her fluids with a dropper, slip raw milk into her porridge...shenanigans, basically. She did show some promise on the Nuby sippy cup today (Thank you Julia). I'm taking a workshop here on Friday to learn more about healthy prep of food beyond pureed mush. Three years of solids for Miles, and one memory gone missing means I'm reinventing the food wheel here!

It's all good. Deep breath.

I'm elated to have had a clock rotation or two to work in the studio and begin a new series I've been anxious to get started on.  This piece is the first to be finished. 

 

Pink Fox, 6x6 on cradled birch board, 2009.

I tried to talk (and paint) her into any color but pink and she wouldn't hear it. Something she said about the heart...

Fox is so prominent for me right now. I feel she represents what is growing in my world, in our world. She brings enchanting stories of possibility with her, of the healing energy that makes giant creative leaps possible. In our tribe, Fox is a symbol of family, and the unity and commitment we share as a group. This little one carries a message of what we can experience when we gather together in sacred trust and kinship. I sense that she is off into the woods to have a secret tryst with her comrades, to share stories and learn about herself and the world by communing with her friends.

Prints are in the shop and the original is going to hang around a bit until I feel I've heard all she has to say. I feel a postcard in the making, too.

Aho! This is my offering to you! Be well this chilly week...

*p.s. I want to thank Amy Dolich for expanding my vocabulary.

Shop Update: Cards!

 

I've added little note cards to the animama shop! I'm really proud of them. The color is really vibrant and the card stock nice and heavy. You can buy them individually or in a 4 card pack with a little ribbon to be much more cost-efficient. Click on the photos to go straight to the listing!

 

Thank you all for coming here and being *with* me on my creative journey as a mom and artist. I'm full of gratitude that I have you to share my goodies with... 

Nalu + Pono

 

On the fridge, torn from an old Communication  Arts magazine.

Nalu inspires me to practice *letting it be*. In Hawaiian, it means wave-but spiritually, it translates as "ride the wave". Riding the wave is an aspect I hope to grow more skilled at with practice. Pono is balance, like a surfer on a board. Having a husband who learned to surf when he was very young means that water metaphors come up often when we're discussing how to make life work for us. In Tao, water flows around it's obstacles, never complaining about the rocks in its way. It just just gracefully finds where it is meant to go, carving out a path when necessary and travelling well-worn canyons easily.

Adding more beauty in my work space is helping me flow through it happily. I've enjoyed bringing color and organization to the area where I spend time trying to meet self-imposed deadlines. I find that I stay in my seat and get the work done when I have inspiring things around. It surprises me that I've just gotten around to this task, but I suppose things unfold in their own time.

I'm so happy with this fabric! It's Bird on a Wire in raspberry, by Echino.

  

I got half a yard spontaneously when a different print I ordered wasn't available- and it wasn't quite enough to cover my little table, so I improvised and sewed some flaxy linen all around it. It's a nice, heavy upholstery weight printed linen, so I think it works well. It also comes in an oilcloth, wouldn't that be fun for a picnic table?

Just going with the flow over here. :)

 

C'Mon In: Part One

I've got it together and assembled some pics of the room I work in! I've been doing more sewing than painting this week, but I'll soon share some painting action. Welcome to my space!

Bit of Kelly Rae up on the wall to remind me, among other things, to Do The Thing You Didn't Think You Could.

 

That owl that keeps me company while I'm working during the wee hours? He left me a little present out under the peach tree last week, just as I was setting out to tidy this room up.

 

Some Joel Dewberry fabric in the peek through space between my dropcloth table cover. It had to be made of something I didn't care if I splattered paint all over, because that's exactly what's going to happen when I get back to work this weekend! I just sewed a velcro strip to the top of the fabric hem and put the sticky kind along the table's edge.

 

I painted some hideous shelves headed for Goodwill and made them new. I love how shiny they are-the dry time on high gloss was worth it.

 

 

That's a piece of crown moulding B tacked to a wall for me to set my paints on and keep them off of my work surface. I painted it green with some old house paint mixed together. :)

 

My favorite accessory. Sewing for friends and the kids balances my painting and gives me lots of different ways to play around wih color and texture. This more affordable model Bernina was a gift from my parents a couple of years ago and it has climbed the list of my top 25 things I wouldn't leave behind in a fire. I love this machine! And she's also a very self-starting and forgiving friend. Did I tell you it's called a Sewing Computer and not a sewing machine? Fancy.

 

Um...do you get that I love green yet? I'd paint the walls green if I could make sense of it.

 

Miles has his own little table and chair next to my desk, complete with jar o' lollipops!

 

 

Patient elf learned to roll over and prop up on her hands when we were away on vacation to Escondido. The wristlets I so love are beginning to form.

The hardest thing about bringing you in here is that I'm the type of hostess who gets too caught up in the little details (read: dusting the baseboards) that visitors could care less about. The result is that it takes me forever to get my space just so! So I've promised myself to take some snaps when it's in action so you can get a feel for how it functions rather than how it looks when it's clean. Which. is. never.

More to come in a couple of days-have a lovely weekend!