I’ve spent a lot of time exploring the grounds at Greystone Mansion. There is something about it I find soothing.

This spread was painted from two photos in the Anthropologie catalog. The style is rustic old world with crisp white linens. The left side is a bedroom, right side is a bathroom.

The top right portion was the image I had in mind while waking up. I saw a purple background with orange circles. Some circles are larger and hallow, some are smaller. Yes, I know the correct word is hollow but misspellings often happen unconsciously on purpose. I added mica flakes to the inside of the hollow circles and flakes to the outside of the solid ones. Each layer was dry before I went onto the next. This brought up things that I have thought about for years. Painting helps embed positive things.

Been eating a lot of beets lately. Their juice is purply red, like in this painting, and is hard to get off of my wooden cutting board. Painted most of this while watching reruns of House so I didn’t write much. Guess it’s better to paint than not. BTW: When I eat beets, it turns number one to a reddish orange; must be a strong natural die. Maybe I’ll use beet juice in a future painting. Or, maybe not.

Needing to detox from the noise. Blowing horns, ringing phones, people partying, and the super loud bus station turbines make it difficult to have peace. And my inner chatter is constant, too. I need quiet, both inside and out. Painting soothes me as I brush disorder onto my painting.

My nieces and I painted for hours yesterday. One of our exercises (shown above) was an abstract drawing from a still life of a coffee pot, a miniature tea pot, and a sugar canister. We also did some quick sketches from fashion magazines to loosen up. They both wanted to learn more about drawing.

Drawing is looking. I believe everyone can draw, it just takes some time to develop your skill. If you want to draw someone’s eye, look closely at it. Study the curves, the proportions of the shapes, and dark and light values. Then practice. Every time you draw, it improves your skill.

As I’m moving the brush in circles and swirls, I feel that stirring in the pit of my stomach, that butterfly feeling that something good is happening. And then I know, that whatever I am doing with my brush with whatever colors are blending together on the paper, something is lifting out of me. Painting is removing what doesn’t belong.

This was painted for Illustration Friday.

Since the journal making class, I’ve been painting in my new sketchbook. Here are a few more spreads.

This new decade started out on Jan. 2 with a journal making class in Fullerton, CA. My sister treated me to the class for my birthday. It was a sunny day at a perfect venue. The instructor set up her backyard as a classroom. We were made covers with color copies pasted to wood, sanded it down, and added a few layers of varnish. We folded watercolor paper into signatures and weaved the pages together with the cover. That night, I began painting in it. Here are some pages: