My LIttle Creative Blocks...

No word of a lie. I have been creatively blocked for two weeks now. First one block came down with pneumonia and had to see a doctor. (Can you say clingy?) Just as he is getting over it, the second one came down with a cough that sounds like a cross between a trained seal and a vacuum cleaner. Makes it hard to concentrate on much of anything. But I am making a comeback!

Glad to report though I am hosting a Christmas Tea and Art Show for my nearest and dearest friends on Dec 11. They will be subjected to all of the paintings I can hang on my walls as well as my decadent Christmas treats. I'm looking forward to it. I hope they are as well!

What Colour is your Palette Part Three

Not many art workshops will wring you out like a sponge then fill you back up to bursting. I found that to be the case with Claudia's. A lot of us had more than one afternoon filled with frustration only to be elated to hear the rest of the class ooh and aah over some amazing masterpiece that fled our brushes to appear magically on canvas.

The most common comment about the whole week was the fact that we learned to mix colours we'd only ever seen before in bottles or tubes. My favourite color for the week became a warm black (black mixed with magenta). You can see it on most of my paintings which I will post later. I've had some issues with getting good lighting to take pictures in!

I'm very excited this week for three friends of mine who all have new books released.
Clare McCarthy with The Hurleyville Taxi: Two Thousand Pounds of Bacon and Bone
Anouska Fry with Sebastian and the Spider King
Alyxandra Harvey with Hearts at Stake
Congratulations to you all!

Now that the week of painting and fun has ended, what is next for me? A little Christmas tea and show for friends and more work on writing and submitting novels. And maybe a bit more painting. Christmas is coming after all....

What Colour is Your Palette Day 3

I have to say it's been an exhausting week! I'm not even sure how many canvases I've created but the colours I've learned to make this week are astounding! I have to say I never thought I'd be painting on a black canvas. I have worked from different backgrounds but never black. What an eye popper I made today but you can't see it. Sorry. It's going to be a gift for someone who might see it!

It's so easy to get frustrated when you try to force something to appear on your canvas that just isn't meant to be there. I should know that lesson from writing and from previous paintings but sometimes . . . sometimes you just want something to be perfect that isn't meant to be. Its funny how many incredible paintings have occured when we're not even trying! Many thanks to Claudia for having a great sense of humour and compassion!

Our wonderful Chef Monti is keeping us fed well and a gem to point out all the items on the menu with wheat so I don't make myself ill without intention! Kudos to his gluten free chocolate cake.

Two more days to go. I will really miss this when it is done.

What colour is your Palette? Workshop

This week I am in an abstract acrylic workshop led by the energetic Claudia Mccabe. Who was brought to us by Emilia at Maggiolly Art Supplies. www.maggiollyart.com. Five full days of painting until I collapse. What a dream come true! Day One covered the basics. Colour, mixing colour, and painting until quittin' time. Came home feeling drained yet exhilarated all at the same time!

Today is Day Two. I'm already itching to get back to the studio and start puttering. This time I'll remember to take pictures!

Whew!

I have been diligent this past couple weeks about getting a first draft of my new novel Padded Walls completed. Not due to some wonderful deadline and publishing date - I wish! - but due to my taking a week off. I'm dropping out of the rat race and attending a painting workshop for an entire week! Since I've never done anything like this before I'm VERY excited!

One whole week with no work, no writing (Yeah, right!), and no kids.
Just me slapping around lots of paint which sounds kind of naughty actually.
Hope I don't end up sticking paint brushes in my coffee again, that tastes so bad . . .

So, for the rest of this week I'll be editing, cleaning house, submitting my novels, and getting the rest of the toys I need for my workshop. Well, the order of that might change a bit here and there. Shopping is a lot more fun than working! But it will get done!

Thanks again to Brian Henry who taught a fun class for the Headwaters Writers' Guild on plotting short stories and novels. It's a good sign when you can walk away from a workshop and be totally inspired to write or paint!
Ciao!

Brian Henry Workshop

Ah, nothing is better than spending a post-Halloween day in a writing workshop learning how to craft short stories and plot novels. The fun part is that everyone's minds were still in morbid mode. Crows, murders, and mayhem topped the list of prompts we all devised. We all came away with a few more things to write about and places to submit our musings to.

I stayed up late Halloween night working on my third novel - Padded Walls. I am glad to say the first rough copy is done. That will now be followed by another hundred or so edits, readings, and re-readings until the can't squeeze out another drop of blood. In the meantime, I plan to revise a little on my first two novels and submit, submit, submit.

Stay tuned. I'll keep you up to date on how it's going...