The Creative Process

I’m currently lodged in all of the above except the red area.  I hope to get some inspiration soon.  This snow and cold weather is killing me.

Thanks to Judy and graphjam.com for this pie chart.

Off to binge eating and discouraged napping.

I HATE HGTV!

Street in Cusco, Peru – sketch

What’s HGTV you ask?  It’s a horrid channel that sucks me in and makes me waste hours and hours of time all the while incredulous at how they are able to do home makeovers for under $2,000 or how 20 somethings house hunt and every 4,000 square foot house they see isn’t big enough.

Makes me want to gag.

I live in an old building.  Ok, maybe not old by Europe’s standards, but old by US standards. Almost 100 years old. (The building, not me.) Nothing is square, plumb or level.  I have lived in the same 950 sq. ft. apartment for 22 years. One bathroom.  Small kitchen.   Me, the Husband and a large dog.  (Not the same dog.)  Change a light fixture?  Takes about 20 years and 3 tries.  One by the Husband, one by the Brother who does not read my blog and one by the Emergency Electrician who had to be called when sparks shot out of the ceiling and we tripped the circuit breaker, not just for my apartment, but for the whole building.

So how do these people on HGTV come in and redo a whole house in 3 days and under $2,000?  One of the mysteries of life I suppose.

Another mystery is will I ever get my sketchbook finished.  It’s due in less than a week and I’m not done.  Here’s a sketch I did of one of the Cusco streets with its unending steps.   I bet none of these buildings has had a makeover in hundreds of years.

Maybe I’ll wait to redo my place too.

Happy MMXI

Another year has passed.  To welcome 2011 I made my resolutions.  Lose weight.  Exercise more.  Watch TV less. Stop procrastinating.

So, as I write this, I’m eating left over lasagna & cheesecake and watching TV. Way to go, Carol!

As many of you may know, 2010 ended with a bang for us New Yorkers.  The Boxing Day Blizzard. (Which is odd, because we don’t have boxing day in the U.S.)  Snowmageddon.  The Blizzacolypse.  Whatever you called it, it was bad…and made worse by our mayor severely dropping the ball on salting and plowing.  Except of course for Times Square.  Times Square was pristine. Looked like the Sahara it was so dry.  Can’t let a little snow get in the way of tourist and entertainment dollars.

Why do people go to Times Square for New Year’s Eve?  You have to arrive 8-10 hours early to get anywhere near where the ball drops.  You’re penned in and can’t leave.  If you leave you are not allowed back in.  And the thing I’m most fixated on…how does one go to the bathroom? Are they all wearing those astronaut diapers?

Here’s a picture of a New Yorker waiting for a train.  (Some train lines stopped running for more than 2 days! Buses were stranded in the snow for a day or more. Unheard of!)

A snow covered car.  

And an inventive New Yorker on the 3 train who clearly did not own snowboots.

I have taken the opportunity of having today off to work on my sketchbook.  Of course, the due date is January 15th and I’m nowhere near done.  Perhaps I will sketch the word PROCRASTINATION and then leave the rest of the pages blank.

Here are two pages I worked on recently, a sketch of a scarf I made and a drawing of Machu Picchu:

I better stop procrastinating and get to work.  I have lots more pages to fill and very little time left.   Lucky for me there’s still lasagna and cheesecake still in the fridge!

Happy New Year to you all!

Madonna and Child…with dog

To those of you who celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas!

For those of you who don’t, Happy Festivus (for the rest of us).  If that doesn’t work for you then Happy Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or Winter Solstice (at least the days are starting to get longer).

I mailed out the above image on a Christmas card to family and friends.  Only to discover that I had sent the card TWICE to some friends (Kung) and not at all to others (Mary and Elise).  It’s probably because I did not make a list & check it twice.

I am not a list maker.  My husband makes lists all the time.  Then leaves them all over the house and forgets about them.  I try to keep all the information I need in my head, only to discover that, with all the other junk rolling around in there, oft times I forget what I’m supposed to remember.  (Or worse, I remember what I’m trying to forget.)

My sister used to be a very organized list maker.  To the point that one time she wrote a very long  list and then went shopping with it.  She got stuck at a store because she accomplished something on her list but didn’t want to cross it off said list because she DID NOT HAVE THE SAME PEN SHE WROTE THE LIST WITH.   Thank God she got over that stage of anal retentiveness.

I suppose lists are good.  Especially when sending out Christmas Cards.  I hope Santa has me on his list!  (Even if I have only been moderately good this year.)

So, to all my friends, family and blog readers.  If you got a card from me, yay.  If you didn’t, I meant to send you one.  If you got two, make sure you save it since I probably won’t send cards again for another 5 years.

Thank you for reading my blog and for all your comments on my paintings and my rants.  A special thank you to Leslie for photo-shopping this image of Madonna and Child…with dog.

Happy Holidays to all and Here’s to a Happy and Healthy 2010 2011.

First day of summer, 2008

It’s the first day of summer and already I’m too hot. I don’t do well in the heat. Unless of course I’m at a beach on a tropical isle holding a drink with an umbrella in it. But walking around the city in the heat and humidity is not for me. A friend recently said that she waits all year for this weather. I wait all year for this weather to go away.

The woman with the hat is finished. SHE looks like she likes the summer. She would probably request a table outside in one of those trendy restaurants in my neighborhood that now have seating on the sidewalk. Ugh! I would so prefer being inside in the a/c.

Today is also my sister’s birthday. And its a BIG BIRTHDAY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I’ve always said (and I’ll say it again just in case someone hasn’t heard it) that she is such an overachiever she had to have her birthday on the longest day of the year. Well, if anyone deserves a birthday on the longest day of the year it’s her. I am an underachiever and my birthday is at the end of December. The days are shorter and colder and I’m ready for bed by 9:30 pm, so it actually works out well.

A quick topic change…the wordpress blogosphere got quieter yesterday for a little while. That’s because 4 of us “wordpress” people were all together for a visit. Bonnie was up from St. Croix visiting with Judy, Mary, and me which allowed us a reason (even though we didn’t need one) to visit, eat, drink and laugh and laugh. We were only missing one person and our little gathering would have been complete. It was fun.

Now I have to go finish watching a show about how a super volcano possibly caused the plague during the dark ages.  Fascinating stuff.

Underachiev-

ing…..

I am an underachiever. Always have been. My sister is an overachiever. Always has been. Today I wanted to paint, but so far I’ve just been watching TV. TV about painting. I’m watching the craft and painting shows on TV and thinking about all the painting and crafting I want to do. I guess I’m a procrastinator too, but that’s another subject for another post.

Here’s a painting I started in class, but never finished. I have to work on the apple more to make it sharper as well as the flower and the glass. Well, I have to work on the whole thing. When I’m back on my feet and back to class I’ll finish it up. It will be interesting to compare and see what it looks like when it’s “done”. I like this painting so far. I don’t want to over work it, but it does need a little more work.

Here’s one of my favorite books: The Underachiever’s Manifesto By Ray Bennett, M.D. A favorite quote: “Going the extra mile leads to exhaustion.” Hmmm, I’m always tired so what’s up with that? But since I’m not a brain surgeon, I like the ideology of this book. Now I don’t feel badly about being an overachiever. I’VE BEEN VALIDATED!