Spring, Flowers, and More Flowers

Savoring the Texas spring beauty, overflowing with color...
On my recent April/May trip to Texas I saw so many wildflowers everywhere. I had plenty of practice with my camera's macro setting.

I love the spring in Texas when it is so green, and yes, temperatures are even balmy. During my visit it was mostly in the 60's and low 70's with thunderstorms rolling in one after the other, so dramatic with lightning skies. Sometimes I miss those, as in the Northwest we get mostly quiet slow drizzly rain. Right after I left at the end of May, the heat began with days of 90's, and soon all those lovely greens and colorful flowers will have burnt away to those dulled yellow and brown fields.

I tried shooting a few pix out the window as we were on a road trip to Arkansas too, and some are not too bad. Here you see a vivid yellow field of flowers. The highways were shouting with flowers all along the way.
I am still sorting through photos from my several spring trips and have much inspiration for creating new paintings.... so many colors, textures, shapes to get lost in.

Sunday Meditations, Light, Just Be, and Oceans

Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.... Kurt Cobain

This photo is of an antique crystal chandelier in the Ashland, Or Cabaret Theater.

Planning for future museum trips I found that one of our local museums has a Kurt Cobain exhibit on, he being the Seattle founder of "grunge rock". Now I never was a follower of same, but I like his quote above.

Somehow it ties in with my photo of this exquisite chandelier that I've often admired when we trek to Ashland for theater, as we did in March.

The lone candle in the dark among all the lit ones... seemed like such a metaphor. So, sending out thoughts today about...

Seeing the surrounding light outside shimmering,
No matter how dark it seems for you...
Let that light enter your eyes, your heart, your being
Join in the circle, the everlasting circle of life
And Just Be, today, Now, whoever you are ...

Peace

This photo is of beautiful Bandon Beach, Oregon from our March trip.

Gratitude for our beautiful life-giving oceans and beaches,
And all the creatures they feed, including us.

Shame and sadness on our abuses of them.
Praying for Restraint on the corporate dinosaurs who pollute,
AndWisdom for our politicians,
And the Voices of the people standing up for what is right.

Paintings, Clouds, Sea, and Rock and Art Shows

Floating among the clouds and the sea, unbound spirit, limitless space...

"Floating Among the Clouds and the Sea" , Acrylic 4"x5" Delorse Lovelady Apr2010

Ocean Inspirations
The painting above is one recently completed which was inspired by our recent travel in March to the Oregon coast, a place of breathtaking beauty. I composed the 17 syllable Haiku above to attempt to convey the expansiveness that being near the sea brings, not an easy thing to capture in words.

Here is another of my paintings inspired by this area. This one is more specific, as we stayed in a small motel on a bluff in Bandon, Oregon overlooking the sea, haystacks, and stunning sunsets. There was a set of stairs built into the bluff that we climbed down every day to get to this rugged beach. I will share more paintings and photos of this area in a future posting.

"There was a Hole in the Rock", Acrylic 4"x5" Delorse Lovelady Apr2010

Here is a photograph of this place, and as you can see, I have taken artistic liberty to use different colors and alter the actual look of it.
A June Art Show
Both of the paintings were juried/accepted into the Edmonds Art Festival miniature show which will be held from June 18-20. I was surprised and actually thought that my two other paintings entered would be more likely to be accepted into this show, as they are more colorful. You can see them here. It just goes to show, you never know! Anyway, I am pleased that two are accepted, and I will continue my exploration in the world of acrylics and mixed media, and more abstraction in my work.
Meanwhile I am planning and painting for the July Artsplash show in Edmonds sponsored by the Artists Connect. My space will be 48" x 48" plus a table for smaller items... which means I will be very busy the next couple of months!

Travels and Art
So far, my year has been full and some changes are occurring. I have withdrawn from some retreats and swaps, and instead have focused on my own art. It's good to hear myself and not get drowned in the tidal wave of following the crowd or the super-saturation of our culture...

And we have taken several trips that always provide much fuel for creativity. In fact, I just returned from a month long sojourn with my family in Texas, which included a road trip to Arkansas to hunt for diamonds... No paintings produced, however, I spent time and had fun with family and entertained myself with art journeling and sketching, esp., birds. I will share more about these travels in future posts. Stay tuned.

Fiber Fun, Peyote Beading, and Buttons

A stitch here, a bead or button there, creating with various media is fun...

The photo above and directly below are random compositions made of recycled fabric, threads, metals that I did within a machine embroidery group that I below to. These were done earlier this year. Every month we get together and experiment with new techniques on our sewing machines, and perhaps also add some hand stitching later. The top photo continues my interest in seascapes in an abstract kind of way. Both have lots of stitching in gold thread which may not show up well in the pictures. I'm anticipating framing them as mixed media art pieces.
And below are three more peyote stitch bracelets. The bottom two were taken apart and redone in April, because the first time I beaded them, they were rather "wonky" and would not lay flat. I like them better and have learned how to get the rhythm of the beading and how to get a nice flat band without the puckering. Now they need the clasps. I suppose learning new art forms is like that, keeping at it, til you get the rhythm of whatever it is, without having to think so much about each step.
And lastly, I took a button bracelet class with some sewing buddies, and here is my creation. I believe I completed this one in March, and of course, have plans to stitch up more. It's a great way to use those old or colorful buttons, if you collect them like I do...

Faces, Sketches, and Drawing Practice

Faces, faces everywhere, all so interesting, all carrying a story...
Here are a few sketches of faces from some drawing sessions earlier this year... I constantly am trying to improve and capture a moment in time....
And below, here is one that I painted on a small 5"x7" hard canvas... mixed media.

Paintings, Color, and Spring

"Color has taken possession of me; no longer do I have to chase after it. I know that it has hold of me forever... Color and I are one. I am a painter." Paul Klee

Delorse Lovelady 2010 "Oh, Give Me Color Today!" 4x6 acrylic

Paintings and Spring
I have managed to do some small paintings to enter into a local juried miniatures show, the Edmonds Art Fair that is held every year in June. I won't know til May if any of the four I am submitting will be accepted.

The top one is inspired by our yearly trek to the Skagit Valley tulip fields where we usually enjoy viewing the farmlands, beautiful vista's and sometimes, snow geese. I used my imagination this time, didn't feel like pulling out reference photos. We won't be able to go this year as April is slipping away and other plans are brewing, so here is my tribute to the colorful tulips and springtime in the Valley. However, I am enjoying the many tulips and other flowers blooming in our yard... so lovely...
The second painting is another imagination painting.... I was thinking about the distance, viewing something in the far distance, a panorama. Though not quite a desert scene (or maybe it could be?), I thought of Georgia O'Keeffe and her fascination and love of the desert, what she called the "faraway"... "a beautiful, untouched lonely feeling place", of infinite beauty and space... a place I enter in my mind sometimes in a painting like this one.

Delorse Lovelady 2010 "Somewhere in the Far Away" 4x6 Acrylic

I was disappointed that we didn't make it to the Death Valley desert as intended in March, however, instead we went on a wonderful road trip in Oregon I will soon post about...

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky. " Rabindranath Tagore

An Exotic Bird, Jubilación, and Granny D

"You have to keep the young adventurer inside your heart alive long enough for it to someday re-emerge.... Granny D
It may take some coaxing and some courage, but that person is in you always -- never growing old." Granny D

An Exotic Bird
"For me, the vast marvel is to be alive. For man, or for flowers or beast or bird, the supreme triumph is to be most vividly and perfectly alive." Al Purdy

We happened upon the wonderful parrot in the pictures on a stroll in a Portland park in July 2008. He was perched on his owner's shoulder. I have to wonder who owns who... Aren't we the ones captured by the wildness, that exotic beauty, the sumptuous colors? I couldn't resist taking several photographs. This one is for my current photoartjournal project on birds.

I will soon share more photos from a more recent trip I have been on... meanwhile...

Jubilación
I just passed my 6th anniversary of being "retired". It's hard to imagine it's been that long ago already. First let me say, I detest the words "retired" and "retirement" as they have a connotation, if not a stereotype, that seem to conjure up images of settling into a rocker for the final few days. Not that anything is wrong with sitting in a rocker, it just always seemed to me that it used to mean that life was almost over, and in our culture, you might become one of the invisible folks, the aging, that are not as revered as the youth culture.

Anyway, I happened upon the word for retirement in Spanish - it is "jubilación" -- jubilation!!! Jubilation in the English dictionary means: a feeling of or the expression of joy or exultation or shouting for joy. What a wonderful word to describe the next phase of life after work. Because, in many cases, I'm sure, people didn't do for a career what their "purpose" called them to do, but instead, perhaps as I did, fell into their line of work by accident or as a practical matter of making a living. So leaving and entering the next stage may be with some jubilación, as you become freed to do more of whatever your heart desires.

But, as with any change in life there is what I call the "land of in-between" where you have one foot in the past and one stepping forward into the unknown. I remember vividly my last work day having stayed late to "finish" things up, feel that completion, while everyone else had gone home. I had the card key pass that I left for a manager on her chair, then hesitated as I walked out the door for the last time without the key, knowing I would never go back in. I was closing the door on that world, a thirty-four year career, and walking into an unknown world.

There is that one moment of trusting the momentum of the step forward, and releasing the energy in the foot stuck in the past that propels you into the new. And suddenly, in a step, a blink... life is different. And you might wonder why you resisted at all. And you might realize that there you are, everything you were and are, is still there, the adventurer, the artist, the person with experiences that have prepared you with tools, still there. New and different, but still the same after all... we are such paradoxes. And that land of in-between is always with us as we shapeshift from one phase of life to another...
Granny D
Here's an interesting life story of "Granny D" who just passed on at 100, what an inspiring woman. I read about Doris Haddock a couple of years ago and was so impressed. She walked 3200 miles across the country at 89 years of age just to make a point, stand up for her beliefs and educate people along the way about campaign finance reform. And she even ran for the Senate at 94. Her autobiography, written with Dennis Burke, is being republished soon, "My Bohemian Century" with the subtitle "You're Never Too Old to Raise a Little Hell." Don't you just love that? It's on my list to read. And, we are SO, never TOO old if we stay awake to our possibilities........

Here's a You-Tube about her; copyright the Boston Globe and filmmakers:



And another; copyright Arts Alliance America and filmmakers:

Morning, Sunlight and a Blog Tip

"Morning has broken like the first morning... Mine is the sunlight... " Cat Stevens
Popcorn Sky Morning
The photo in this artwork is one I lucked into quickly one day as we were out and about several months ago. I am always taken in with capturing light and cloud formations whether painting or photographing. This is one of my favorite cloud formations, I call it a popcorn sky or a Georgia O'keeffe kind of sky since she painted them. I played around with words and a favorite song, a meditation of sorts, and various art materials to inspire my creation. It's a page that I'll bind into a book full of altered photographs.

I am taking an online class from LK Ludwig about techniques for using your photos in your artwork... very fun... Perfect timing for me as I have been in a very introspective phase, a time for changes and examining choices, and what better way than to sort through old photos and take new ones too.

Another Blog Tip
Did you ever land on a blog or website that looked interesting, then found yourself waiting while your computer seemed to be in an endless loop of cranking and loading up their site? I have and I can say, I won't wait around too long... I'm not sure what "too long" is, but I do know, it's annoying and the average person just isn't going to linger.

SO, here's a nifty thing I ran across recently... a way to test your blog and see just how fast it loads up. When I tested mine, it was running a good 18-20 seconds to load the page. After looking at the test results data, I made a couple of adjustments: 1) decreased the number of posts showing on a page to 5 instead of 30, and 2) removed a cute little sidebar enviro icon that was chewing up loading time. Results: my blog page now loads up in 5-8 seconds, I try it at different times.

So, here's the link to Pingdom for this free test (and I am totally not affiliated with them). Just enter your URL and click test now. You'll get a report showing how long each item takes and the total.
I'm beginning to feel nerdy.... but I hope this is useful for you.

Paintings, Two Art Shows, and Self Portraits

“Your life is an island separated from all other islands and continents...

Delorse Lovelady 2010 Passage Through the Islands 5x7 Acrylic

"...Regardless of how many boats you send to other shores or how many ships arrive upon your shores, you yourself are an island separated by its own pains, secluded in its happiness” Kahlil Gibran

Behind the Painting
Do you ever wonder what might have been in the mind of an artist when looking at a work? Well, I am not so much a literal painter as a metaphorical one. The quote describes a bit of what I was contemplating when I painted the "Passage Through the Islands", a scene from my imagination but not unlike scenery I have viewed in the Northwest... basically that we are all self-contained separate islands floating past each other though still connected in the cosmic soup...

Local Miniature/Small Painting Show

You are invited to the First Annual Miniature/Small Painting Art Show at Gallery North featuring 65 Northwest and other artist's work. I'll have 3 mixed media/acrylic paintings in the show including the one above, "Passage Through the Islands."

Gallery North

508 Main Street

Edmonds, WA 98020
SHOW DATES: March 1 - 30, 2010

HOURS: Mondays-Saturdays 10-6pm
Sundays 11-5pm

Artist's Reception: MARCH 7 from 1-4pm - refreshments served
Edmond's Art Walk: MARCH 18 from 5-8pm

An Artist's Self Portrait

“A portrait is a painting with something wrong with the mouth.” John Singer Sargent

I don't ordinarily consider myself a portrait or figure painter... however, recently I took up the challenge of the Art House for artists to do self portraits, and I painted it in my latest experimental medium of acrylics. I used a reference favorite photo of my smiley happy self and painted it in a somewhat realistic style. I look so in-the-pink! But then, I guess sometimes I am...

Delorse Self Portrait 8x10 acrylic

It is definitely challenging to paint portraits, particularly of yourself. You have to really look and take in all the details, the little line here or there, that didn't used to be there. And, after all, we are ever changing, not static beings. There are hundreds of expressions and ways that we all have looked over a lifetime. Which one is the real you? Well, they all are, and we are just perfect in our imperfections at any stage. However, I do like the Sargent quote, because it seems to sum up what most people think when looking at any portrait, that it needs a little something on the mouth, or maybe the nose could be different... So, no that painting is not an exact replica of me, but it wasn't meant to be, and I could never do it anyway. I don't know that anyone could truly capture an exact replica of a person. Painting portraits or self portraits from my view is more about trying to capture just a moment or a sense of that person...

I finished it just barely in time to mail it off to Art House this past Monday on March 1, to be displayed in Brooklyn in April, and be added to a book collection of artist self portraits. If you haven't visited the Art House, it hosts quite an array of artist projects that sound quite fun. You can also post some of your art there.

Trip to Canada, Experimental Painting and A Blog Tip

"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul. " John Muir Canada
We took another short British Columbia trip recently as I was recouperating from cold and sinus, it was wonderful soaking in an outdoor hot springs and walking on this peaceful lake. Although friends warned of lengthy border crossings, there were none, we were over the border in 5 minutes. Actually, you can google a webcam of each crossing, which I did before we left.
We took a side trip to the Hemlock Valley and the river area above which is a wildlife refuge, and a particular favorite spot for eagles since the river is filled with salmon spawning at certain times of the year. The beach was littered with bones, I love taking pictures of bones. They are evocative for me. It was a crispy cold beautiful sunny day, creating the darkest shadows, stark contrasts against the lit areas and the hidden areas... and the stillness and peace inbetween... nature is so soothing.
I was fascinated with this particular tree, the undulating shapes, the new twiggy growths sprouting everywhere headed straight up towards the sun. I must have taken at least a dozen pictures to satisfy myself. Of all the shapes, the undulating wavy shapes are my favorite, and then circles too. I can see a wave pattern in the branches along the ground. An art instructor once told me that each artist needed to discover which shape resonated the most for them, that O'Keeffe had done that. Here is a quote I like about shapes from her book "Some Memories of Drawings":

"I realized that I had things in my head not like what I had been taught - not like what I had seen - shapes and ideas so familiar to me that it hadn't occurred to me to put them down. I decided to stop painting, to put away everything I had done, and to start to say the things that were my own."

Experimental Painting
This mixed media acrylic piece I started probably 3 or 4 months ago, and was almost done with it. But it was one of those where I still didn't get that "I'm finished - it's done" feeling. Do you get that? That nagging little voice saying, it wants something else, what is it? I'm new to abstracts and have to listen harder to hear what it wants me to do. After a critique last week, I added a bit more white highlight at the top to what I already had. Then a few very light strokes to unify and now I'm done and I like it's organic feel. It's called "Rising". Notice the undulating shapes and movements, and circles.....
A Blog Tip
For those who use Blogger, they have added two new gadgets you may want to try. One allows you to add a Search Box which I thought might be convenient for me too if I wanted to find something from the past. The second gadget allows you to create separate Pages, almost like a website, with a "Home" Page too, making for easy navigating. Look at the top of my blog, and you'll see what I mean, I've moved something out of my sidebar into a separate page. I have several others in mind, but I have to think about it first. To find these new gadgets, go to your Layout, then look under the Header, where it says "Add gadgets". When you click on that you will find these two new ones at the top of their list.