Paintings With Soul

grownUPs journaler Toni demonstrating her understanding of contour drawing and exploring the use of positive and negative space, from this evenings art journaling workshop.     Things are settling down in the Santini household. There were no broken bones today and dinner was homemade spaghetti and meatballs. All three kids were smiley (although one's smiles were, admittedly, vicodin induced), homework completed, and animals fed and walked without complaint.   And then Mom got to escape to one of her happy places.   That being grownUP journaling classes.   We meet on the 3rd Thursday of each month for a couple hours in the evening. And tonite I savored every moment of our togetherness.   Our group was intimate (I'm not judging those who opted to stay home and watch the Tigers dominate the Yankees!) and all the more special for it.   We focused on edges, quality of line, and positive and negative spa...

The Wonder Woman cons were quivering again today, as I sat by while The Caped Crusader got a new ankle.     There's nothing like a crisis involving one of your kids to cause a total re-evaluation of what seemed important, like, 5 minutes ago.   The Caped Crusader's ankle was shattered at football practice yesterday afternoon, probably just as I hit "send" and got my newsletter into your inboxes. This was followed by a very long and late night at ER, coordinating emergency carpools for the other two kids, keeping My Better Half (stranded 1-1/2 hours away with a flat tire) up to date, and the piece-de-resistance, serving cold cerael for dinner.   The Caped Crusader will be fine, a la Steve Austin style (and the other two also survived their sub par dinner), but ultimately his demonstration of courage and tenacity in the face of an abrupt end to his beloved football season - and his mobility for the next 5 weeks - well, it gave me pa...

At this stage, anything's possible...... a view from behing my easel, all set up and ready for this afternoon's painting session.     Let me start of with a warm and sincere "thank you" to those who emailed and messaged their support after yesterday's little confession .   I am the poster child for rabid optimism. Which means that this dilemma seems impossible for me to wrap my head around and embrace.   What? no glittery rainbow? no dancing unicorns?   Nope. At least not today.   Some of the most profound discoveries come from difficult places. That doesn't mean I have to like it or even pretend it isn't happening, that I'm in an uncomfortable spot and not sure how to move on.   Apparently the plight of being lost in the creative wilderness is one shared by many. It surprises me there isn't a wild party happening in here, but maybe I've not wandered about for long enough.....   L...

"Longhorn," 6" x 16", acrylic on museum quality panel, depicting some sort of long horned cattle (I clearly do not know my bovine breds!!), a new subject matter for me! $299 to  the first one asking nicely . It's getting to be a struggle to work at my easel and feel like my dailies are fresh and valuable. I'm nearing completion of 1400 Painting a Dog a Day paintings, and I suspect the walls are closing in on me. It's not that I want to change what I'm doing - I am passionate about my job - but I do want to change what I'm doing. I have been thinking a lot about authenticity. I can ignore the niggling voices in my head and slip more challenging paintings (like the dogs and water pieces or paintings of cows) into my rotation and not say a word. But part of the whole Painting a Dog a Day project has been sharing the struggles (and victories) along the way. And while I have always been honest about many ...