And ANOTHER one!

This one packed its bags and moved to Washington state today.  Adios, Oasis.  I will miss you.

Words. Lots of words.

I sold four paintings today.  Yep, it's true.

Still on the same roll....

Titanium White
Silver
Copper
Neutral Gray
Light Portrait Pink
Phthalocyanine Green
Deep Violet
Unbleached Titanium
Brilliant Yellow Green

This is what came with my varnish.  Woo hoo!  Definitely funky weird colors, especially all together.  Actually, I already have most of these - the pink, unbleached titanium and brilliant yellow green are new ones.

This is probably the last of its kind for the art festival:

But maybe not.

Techno savvy

Last night I went to bed wicked early because I was one hundred percent exhausted.  Just beat.  I turned out the light, stuck my cold feet under a warm poodle, and then ... tossed and turned like a ship on turbulent seas.  Huh.  Thought for sure I would be out within three seconds - four tops, but there I was, eyes wide shut.  (I don't know what that means but it sounds right.)  I was awake ALL.  NIGHT.  LONG.  Got up once to make fried eggs (and killed two enormous spiders in my bathroom -- eeeeww).  Got up once to get a notebook to make a list of things to do today.  Got up a third time to read.  There should be a nap in my immediate future, but so far - at 3:10 p.m. - I am still wide awake.

Anyway.  Getting back to why I was so exhausted.  Yesterday was a long run day.  Twelve miles that took forever.  My knees held on way longer than last time but gave out at the end nonetheless.  Lesson learned?  Maybe a full marathon in 48 days is not such a great idea.  I may downgrade to the half, and work on my speed instead.  Find another half or a 25k to run in October as well.  We are taking it under advisement.  We being me and my knees.  Surprisingly, I feel pretty good today.  I can even walk up and down stairs like a normal person.

On a totally different subject, I signed up for something quite clever.  Intuit, the company that makes Quickbooks, has created Intuit GoPayment.  There is a credit card reader that hooks on to the audio jack of your cell phone and lets you accept credit cards through your phone.  I signed up and downloaded the droid application.  Now I wait for the card reader.  In the meantime I can take a credit card payment by manually entering the card number into my phone.  If you want to experience the awesomeness factor of this yourself, send me your credit card number.  Heh heh.

So.  Even if nobody buys any of my art at the festival, I will still look technologically savvy.  Although I guess at least ONE person has to buy something so I can show off my savvyness.

I ordered more varnish on Saturday and I'm afraid some other things slipped in there too.  Probably more funky weird paint colors.  I can't wait.

Speaking of funky weird paint colors, Derek calls this Flowers of Death.  But I like it.

On a Roll

Just one of those days....

Have you ever had one of those days?  I have.  Yesterday.  A totally unexpected emotional face-plant of a day.  The tragic part is that my day started out on such a high note.  Poodle and I got up early and went for a five mile run before work, and I was going to run another seven after work.  It was going to be a very productive day, and I was planning on feeling well accomplished by the time I went to bed.

Wrong.

Was there something "off" in the air yesterday?    My train didn't just fall off the tracks, it FLEW off the tracks.  I had to go home early.  Bleh.  (As a side note, I like to listen to music while I paint and I am not embarrassed to admit I have been on a John Denver kick for about a week.  Last night, while drafting this post, John sang, "Sometimes I fly like an eagle, and sometimes I'm deep in despair."  Right there with you, pal.  That was my day in a nutshell.)

Anyway, I had some extra time on my hands yesterday and no, I did not use it to run those seven miles.  Poodle has a cut on her foot so I didn't want to take her, and I wasn't comfortable leaving her alone for that long.  Instead, I painted.  By the time I went to bed I had worked out what I hope will be a clever way to hang some of the pieces in my festival booth, had drafted a temporary business card, and there were eight paintings in the works spread all over my kitchen.

And today has been a better day.

Progress

Is it bad if I want to keep everything for myself?

And so I did.

The other one is 5x7, and this one is 12x16.  I still want to paint it BIGGER bigger, but I am rapidly running out of varnish, and I have a few pieces I need to finish before the art festival and they take priority.

I also have a bunch of framing to do.  Starting here:

Mmmm.  Shiny.

National Ice Cream Day

My sister's birthday is today.  How fortunate to have a birthday on National Ice Cream Day.  If you like ice cream.  And birthdays.

Here is a picture of our best employee, working as hard as she always does:

Sometimes I can't decide whether to fire her or give her a raise.

And here is a picture of a painting I want to paint again, only much bigger:

WAY bigger.  That would be so cool.

Painting lessons from the other day:  dropping the palette knife right into the middle of a wet painting isn't necessarily going to give you the look you are after.  And, lesson number two, god bless glass cleaner.  Took the dark green paint right out of the very light carpet.

Number one reason for wanting a bigger place to live:  not having to worry about getting dark green paint on the very light carpet.  More space = reclamation of kitchen counter; dedicated painting area with no carpet in sight; being able to paint WAY bigger.  Number two reason for wanting a bigger place to live:  I have more artwork than wall space.  And suddenly I have acquired three new pieces.  Carol Hagan sent me a fabulous giclee as a gift, and I have two (with possibly a third on the way) original paintings that came from ... eBay.  Yep, eBay.  They are awesome.  I need more walls.

The Eyes Have It

I got to babysit Zoe this morning for a couple hours.  She is adorable and looks so much like her dad, my friend Jed, that it is scary.  Roxie gave her lots of kisses, and then got jealous that Momma was paying attention to someone else.  So she gave ME lots of kisses.

Skip to middle of the day -- busy busy busy busy busy.

Skip to end of middle of the day -- Christine is lying on the floor at work, all clammy and totally nauseated, pain in her guts, light-headed, tears leaking from eyes and dripping everywhere.  Derek called the good doctor, who suggested a trip to the emergency room would be in order.  As he is making a "closed early" sign for the front door, the nausea went away and I started to feel better.  I don't know if it was the nice, cold floor or the thought of how much a trip to the ER would cost that cured me.  So far, so good.  I'm still walking and talking.

Here is a funny thing I painted a couple years ago.  I found her in the sauna.

Yep, in the sauna.  Which I use as a giant closet.  Her name is "Some people say her eyes are her best feature.  Others say her eyes are her only feature."

And here is the sign I made for my festival booth.  It will look smashing when we put it in a frame.

Where does the time go?

I have not been Painting on Purpose very much lately.  And suddenly I am worried I won't have enough artwork to hang in my booth at the Festival of the Arts.  Which is 23 days from today.  Considering how busy we are at work, and how many of my paintings need to be framed, and how many hours there actually are in each day, I need to get myself together right this very minute.  How?  First I need to figure out where my booth will be located on the street, which will tell me if I need to fill the backsides of the panels as well as the inside of the actual booth.  In a minute I will go outside and ask Donna.  (Note:  Frame of Reference is currently, as we speak, co-hosting a Chamber of Commerce function outside.  I am drinking wine.  If this post goes a bit wonky, now you know why.)  By the end of the weekend I will have a better handle on my framing needs.  I want to have all the details worked out as soon as possible because the rest of July and into the first week of August are going to be crazy busy.  We have a TON of work to do, we will have Last Fridays to contend with, and we are having a big artists' reception for three artists on August 5th.  Welcome to summer in Bigfork.

Oh yeah.  And then there is the matter of this little marathon I will be running in LESS THAN TWO MONTHS!  On Sunday last I did a potentially foolish thing by doubling my long run.  It was my first double-digit run since the half marathon I ran last September.  Ten miles.  Don't even ask how long it took me because I'm not telling.  My right knee called it quits at about mile 6, and my left knee was done by mile 9.  Other than that, I felt FANTASTIC afterwards.  I love that route -- start out the back door at work, around the block and up the hill to the Nature Trail, out to Highway 209 and head east, turn north at the Ferndale Fire Hall, end up at my house where I swap out my empty water bottle for a cold one in the fridge, and then back to work.  I tried sitting in an "ice" bath at Derek's house when I picked up Roxie, but that was WAY TOO DAMN COLD!  People who do that are CRAZY!  Crazy.

Anyway.  My glass is empty so I have to go.  I will have actual pictures to post tomorrow.

Life Lessons

I haven't painted anything new in the past few days.  I have been too busy freaking out about having only TWO MONTHS to train for a marathon.  Yikes.  Hopefully the fear factor will make my legs work better.

I did learn two very important life lessons on Sunday and they are as follows:

1.  When taking the lid off a pan of steaming broccoli, there is really no need to put your thumb on it to see if it is hot.  It is.  Very.

2.  Procrastination can cause short-term memory loss.  If 10:00 p.m. rolls around and you haven't even started to make the apple pie, chances are good you may forget to put the vodka in the dough for your pie crust.  If, like me, you recover from this lapse mere seconds before it is too late, you will be okay.  Until your dog eats half the crust while unattended for a moment in the car enroute to Missoula.  But that was a different crust, therefore a different story.

Now I must google turtles to see how long it takes for their eggs to hatch, or whatever they do, and then go home to construct a turtle tent, or turtle time-share, or some kind of temporary turtle housing to mark the spot where the eggs are buried.  My mother is worried about the little buggers.

Sybil

My parents and I went up to Glacier National Park yesterday.  It was a stunning day in Western Montana, and every person in the world was in the Park.  Normally, this would mean it was crowded.  Since Going-to-the-Sun Road is only open 16 miles in from the West entrance, this means it was WICKED crowded.  We saw no wildlife.  Zero.  Zip.  Then we had lunch by the Hungry Horse Reservoir.  We saw no wildlife.  Zero.  Zip.  Then we went back home and found a turtle digging what we figure is a nest right by my driveway.  That was our wildlife sighting for the day.  The famous Wild Rocky Mountain Turtle.  Hmmm.

Sybil has been painting at my house.  I think this is a tadpole.  Does that count as a second wildlife sighting?

This is NOT what it looks like.  At least not intentionally.

And this one falls into the category of "I have no idea."

Mocha Mint