Distrust

“If your eyes are blinded with your worries, you cannot see the beauty of the sunset.”
–Krishnamurti

 
Distrust
2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor on Strathmore Textured ATC

I am calling this one “Distrust”, in my window series theme, The  Soul of a Woman.  Some of us know this feeling.  We’ve been hurt or abused and although we still look out at the world, we are hesitant to let anyone in.  We protect ourselves against the possibility of being hurt again.  The cold steel of this train window is strongly bolted against the outside elements.  Ooooo, a little too deep for such a small painting, eh? 


The texture of this paper seems to lend itself to the feel of an old steel train.  Fun stuff to paint on.

Krishnamurti (May 12, 1895–February 17, 1986) was a renowned writer and speaker on philosophical and spiritual subjects. His subject matter included: psychological revolution, the nature of the mind, meditation, human relationships, and bringing about positive change in society. He constantly stressed the need for a revolution in the psyche of every human being and emphasized that such revolution cannot be brought about by any external entity, be it religious, political, or social.  more…

Strawberries and First Flight Lesson

“There are two ways of exerting one’s strength: one is pushing down, the other is pulling up.”
– Booker T. Washington

 
Strawberries
4″ x 4″ Watercolor

This was fun to do.  I painted the little seeds with yellow acrylic, before I painted the watercolor.  I just am not any good with masking fluid.  It’s too gummy.   I used a wax resist one time and didn’t do much better with it.  I like the control I have with acrylic and an itty bitty brush. 


What an experience I had last night! I definitely need to journal about this experience. If I could draw my first lesson, I’d draw a giant, complicated instrument panel and a 2″ female student pilot. I haven’t been in a plane since my intro flight on Dec. 9 and it was amazing how much stuff they pack in to that Cessna 172 that I am supposed to remember.   I aced my FAA written test, but I felt like my brain had gone blank when I looked at all of those dials, gauges, knobs and switches.

But beyond the sense of being overwhelmed by the cockpit instruments, the experience was so cool! My brain retained things about flight that made maneuvers and their corresponding reactions feel right, if that makes sense. I wasn’t even scared when my CFI stalled the plane, because I understood how to get out of it. Steep turns are a little spooky and I taxi like a drunk driver, but I’ll get the hang of those things. 


When I got back to my truck and started to leave the airport, I heard myself say, “I just flew an airplane.”  But nobody was there to hear me, so when I got to the WalMart checkout person, 30 minutes later and she said, “How are you?” I heard it again.  “I just flew an airplane.”

I just had to tell somebody!
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About Booker T. Washington

Booker T. Washington, the influential American educator, was the first African-American to be invited to the White House; he also had tea with Queen Victoria. He was born in slavery in Virginia in 1856. After emancipation, he worked in the salt mines. When he learned of a school that would accept former slaves, he walked much of the 400 miles to get there. He became an outspoken advocate of education and hard work for African-Americans and founded Tuskegee University. He died in 1915.

Grumpy Cat

“With a short dash down the runway, the machine lifted into the air and was flying.  It was only a flight of twelve seconds, and it was uncertain, wavy, creepy sort of flight at best; but it was a real flight at last and not a glide.”
–Orville Wright, first flight of a heavier-than-air aircraft

 
Grumpy Kitty
5.5″ x 7.5″ Watercolor

This is my friend, Mary’s cat.  When Mary saw this, she said, “Beth you made Caroline look like she was saying “Are you still after me with that thing.” ” (the camera)
I sketched the cat with pencil, then painted all the leaves in, using just the brush.  It looked intimidating, but it was way fun!  I painted Caroline after all the leaves were done.    I really enjoyed doing this, painting the leaves willy-nilly.  I just made sure to paint them smaller as they got farther away.  I also tried to give the forward leaves a little more detail.
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“Faith is the main ingredient that combats fear.  As long as faith is bigger than your fears, you will always triumph.”
–Marcy Blochowiak, from No Glass Ceiling, Just Blue Sky – A Woman’s Guide to Building Great Teams

If the winds stay down, I am taking my first flying lesson after work today!  I’m a little nervous, but totally excited!  That’s why I posted the flying quote and the fear quote.  I am so lucky, as a 53 year old woman, to have the opportunity to learn how to fly.  Life just couldn’t be better!  (Picture me wiggling my butt) 

Marcy Blochowiak is CEO Marketing Director with World Financial Group, a member of the Aegon Group. WFG is a financial services marketing company headquartered in Duluth, GA with offices worldwide. She is also a co-founder of the company’s “Women’s Initiative,” a bold strategy for maximizing the unprecedented opportunity women now have.
Marcy leads her organization by example and her philosophy is simple. People want to duplicate success. Give them a master copy worth duplicating. Be the best you can be. Lead from the front.
For more information, please visit www.MarcyBlochowiak.com or e-mail her
directly at
MarcyWFG@yahoo.com. You can also find out more about women in business at www.TheCompanyofWomen.com

An Open Heart

“The be-all and end-all of life should not be to get rich, but to enrich the world.”
– Bertie Charles Forbes

 

An Open Heart
2.5″ x 3.5″ Watercolor on Strathmore Textured ATC

If I was to stay with my window project theme of a woman’s emotions, I would say this one is an open heart.  Maybe she is a little gray and not as shiny as she once was, but she is still receptive and open to whatever the day may bring. 

About Bertie Charles Forbes

Bertie Charles Forbes, known as B.C. Forbes, is remembered as the founder of the long-running Forbes magazine, aimed at investors. He was born in 1880 in Scotland. He worked as a reporter for a Dundee newspaper until 1901, when he moved to South Africa and founded a newspaper there; but he stayed just three years before moving to the United States, where he became a financial editor and columnist. His sons Bruce and Malcolm succeeded him as editors-in-chief of Forbes. He died in 1954.

Angora Rabbit

“I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, after all, to matter: to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all.”
– Leo Rosten

 

Angora Rabbit
4″ x 6″ Watercolor Postcard

I painted this little bunny last night, while I was waiting for my husband to get home from an adventure he was on.  He brought me the most unusual gift when he came in.  Uhgggg, have you ever seen a baggie full of fresh picked morel mushrooms?  The are really gross.  They looked like sponges fresh picked from the dark, colorless bottom of the sea.  They didn’t look pretty, like Ryan’s painting on his blog.  

But, when Duane looked at me with that “pretty please” look, I quickly looked up Ryan’s instructions on how to cook them.   Ryan, you saved my butt!  Although I didn’t have time to soak them overnight in salt water, I followed the rest of your instructions to a tee.  They were delicious!!

Our friend Brad, who picked these morels, thought I might want to join him to pick more today.  No thanks, Brad.  I’ll leave the ticks to you, but they were wonderful!  Thank you! 

About Leo Rosten

Leo Rosten, the Polish-American academic and author, is best known for his seminal The Joys of Yiddish, an amusing look at Yiddish words that have entered the American vernacular. Born in Lodz, Poland, in 1908, he immigrated to Chicago as a child. He wrote dozens of books, including a set of extremely popular humorous stories about Hyman Kaplan, a night-school student struggling with English. Under the pseudonym Leonard Q. Ross, he wrote mysteries and film noir screenplays. He died in 1997.

Lily

“Consistency is only a paste jewel that cheap men cherish.”
– William Allen White

 
Lily
4″ x 6″ Acrylic on Blick Canvas Panel

I wasn’t too sure I liked that quote, when I first saw it.  I like consistency, I thought.   The norms, like bills being paid on time and the car always starting when I turn the key are some pretty great consistencies.  But to have everything be always predictable and in harmony would be rather dull.  I like the stuff in life that makes my brain come alive and my butt wiggle.

con·sis·tency (kən sis′tən sē)
noun pl. consistencies -·cies

1. 1. the condition of holding together; firmness or thickness, as of a liquid
   2. amount or degree of this oil of the wrong consistency
2. agreement; harmony; logical connection arguments lacking consistency
3. agreement with what has already been done or expressed; conformity with previous practice

Hmmmm, lovely to have stuff to ponder. 

About William Allen White

William Allen White, the American newsman who ran the Emporia Gazette, is known for his essay attacking populism, “What’s the Matter With Kansas,” and for his eulogy for his 17-year-old daughter, Mary. He was born in Kansas in 1868. During college, he wrote letters to a grocer, a merchant, and a newspaper editor asking for work. The first two turned him down, so he ended up in journalism. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 1923 and is considered one of the most influential Kansans in history. He died in 1944.

Pretty Pink Sheep

“Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.”
– Jean Kerr

 

Pretty Pink Sheep
3.5″ x 5″ Watercolor

Sometimes you feel like a nut and sometimes you don’t. 


Lately, I’ve been having a hard time concentrating on the Sign business.  There are times when all I want to do is art.  Today, I am going to rein myself in and make signs all day.  I envy artists who are able to make their living at art, but I feel really lucky to have my sign shop, too.  I have been doing this for 18 years and have been able to make my living being creative.  I guess it’s only natural to have periods of boredom, doing the same thing day after day, year after year.  You full time artists must experience something similar.  It’s hard to be “on” all the time.  So, today, I am going to go ahead and jump in with both feet and have some fun being in the sign business.  I may even be seen wiggling my butt! 

About Jean Kerr

Comedic American author Jean Kerr is known for her wry take on married life in the suburbs in such books as How I Got to Be Perfect and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, which was turned into both a movie and a TV series. She was born in Pennsylvania in 1922. She often collaborated on plays with her husband, drama critic Walter Kerr. She also wrote a number of plays by herself, including the extremely successful Mary, Mary, which ran for nearly 1,600 performances. She died in 2003.

Easter Bunny

“When thinking won’t cure fear, action will.”
– William Clement Stone

 

Easter Bunny
4″ x 6″ Watercolor Postcard

Here’s a little bunny for those of you who didn’t get enough yesterday! 

About William Clement Stone

American businessman William Clement Stone overcame an impoverished childhood to head an insurance empire. He was born in 1902 in Chicago. His father died when he was three, leaving the family in debt. Stone dropped out of school to help his mother sell insurance. He called cold calls “gold calls,” and started each day saying, “I feel happy! I feel healthy! I feel ter-r-r-ific!” He cowrote the book Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude with Napoleon Hill. He died in 2002 at age 100.

I like that!  I do that, too.  I start each day, saying “I’m happy, healthy and lucky to have this wonderful life!”  I just keep that up all day long.  It really does work! 

Easter Ducks

Unless our desire for human compassion is stronger than our desire to be right, to be secure or to belong, love will elude us.
–Marsha Sinetar

Knowing we are loved is what most of us crave. For brief moments we feel it; then it eludes us once again. Why does it slip through our fingers so quickly? One way of attracting the love we desire is to be willing to love others. What we give to others comes back to us. Unfortunately, we may give judgment, impatience, or anger far more often than we give love.

We can learn to give compassion. First we need to make the decision to be compassionate. Then we need to act as if we’re comfortable doing this. When we have practiced it a while, we’ll discover that giving love and receiving the love we crave is within our grasp.

I will feel loved when I give love away. I don’t need to be right today. I need to be loved.

Karen Casey
A Woman’s Spirit

 

Easter Ducks
4″ x 6″ Watercolor on Canson 140 lb Watercolor Postcard

I wanted to do something Eastery today, for those of you celebrating the holiday.  I painted this from a reference photo by bgmet over at morguefile.com.   I was inspired by Carol King to leave a little white around the ducks.  She did a wonderful painting of Tulips and Cranberries on her blog and talked about leaving some white.  I may not have accomplished the beauty that Carol did, but I appreciated the reminder.  Go check it out here.

For another wonderful example of  leaving a little white is Leslie White’s poppies.  When I clicked on this painting to see it closer, I loved the white Leslie left.  If I keep hanging out with all of these great artists, stuff is bound to rub off on me.  Thanks, my friends!   


I couldn’t find an actual biography for Ms. Sinetar, but discovered that she is an author of some amazing books.  You can find out more at her website.  About Marsha Sinetar.
 

About Karen Casey

Millions of people around the world spend a few moments in quiet reflection with Karen Casey every day. Karen is the best-selling author of Each Day a New Beginning, the first daily meditation book written expressly for women in recovery from addiction. Published in 1981, Each Day a New Beginning has sold more than three million copies and has been translated into ten different languages. Over the years, readers around the world have come to regard Karen as a trusted companion on the recovery journey. Among her other best-selling inspirational books are Keepers of the Wisdom, A Woman’s Spirit, Fearless Relationships, and A Life of My Own. In her newest book, Serenity (Hazelden, 2007), Karen shares favorite passages that gently convey simple lessons for living with greater peace, hope, and trust. Karen enjoys golfing and riding her Harley with her husband. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Naples, Florida.

A Straight and Proper Window

“I have learned, as a rule of thumb, never to ask whether you can do something. Say, instead, that you are doing it. Then fasten your seat belt. The most remarkable things follow.”
– Julia Cameron

 

A Straight and Proper Window
2.5″ x 3.5″ on Strathmore Textured ATC

It’s amazing how a painting on one of these little textured ATCs takes on a whole different look than it would on a smooth paper.  I don’t like painting on canvas that hasn’t had the woven texture primed away, but I like this texture with watercolor.    I have purchased the little packages of different types of Strathmore artist paper in ATC size and they are always fun to experiment with.

For the FTC:  I do not receive anything from Strathmore Artist Papers.  I just like their paper. 

About Julia Cameron

American author Julia Cameron has become an icon in the creative community for her best-selling self-help book, The Artist’s Way, which guides people through a series of simple but profound exercises to awaken their creativity. She grew up in Chicago and has been writing seriously since age 18. In addition to her 28 books, she has written plays, screenplays, and songs. She was married to film director Martin Scorsese and has one daughter. She currently lives in New York.