I have had this reference photo for a couple of years. I finally decided to do this little cutie in pastels.

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There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face. — Bernard Williams

I have a new friend in the church, here, and she has promised to give me an african violet plant. I had some beautiful african violets in Ohio, but I got rid of them as we were packing up to move, because I thought that I could easily find more. Well, I have not been able to find ANY! I am rather shocked. The land of sunshine and plants and NO african violets!? I have been asking around and finally my new friend is going to give me one. I just asked for a leaf to start my own, but she is giving me a whole plant. So, I decided to trade violets with her and I found a nifty picture and drew it with pastels. I will frame it and trade with her. She says that she usually kills them, so I hope that she doesn’t kill this one.

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What child has ever known the country and has not twined hundreds of fragrant wreaths with the yellow shining cowslip and the more frail and delicate violet – mingling here and there green leaves culled from the odorous eglantine, or, as we more commonly call it, sweetbriar. — Dorothea Dix

This is a humorous, but very serious look at the emotional hills and valleys of being an artist. At least being this artist…

I see a face and am enamored by it.  It is not a glamorous face, but it is remarkably interesting and beautiful to my artist’s eye.  In my mind, I am in my studio working blissfully and oh so easily.  When my body is at last able to be in my actual studio, I stumble around and struggle to get started.  Now, for some reason, I am not as enamored, and the face is not really as beautiful as I thought.  This is work.  Hard work.

I start on the eyes.  If I can just get the eyes, the life, then it will all fall into place.  I push and pull.  I make marks and erase them.  I place the eyes and then realize that they are not in the right place and obliterate all the hard work that I have done thus far.  Come on.  Just get the eyes and it will be alright.

I get the eyes.  I put in the little glint and life begins.  The love returns and flows out of my fingertips.  The work smooths and there is peace and wonder.  Such beauty.

No, the nose is wrong and there is no likeness.  What made me think that I was an artist?!  Why am I doing this?  I cannot do this.  I am so stupid!

Ah, the nose falls into place right where it should be on top of the beautiful mouth.  This is a gift from God, this capturing of the faces of the humanity which was made in His image.  What a magnificent privilege is mine!  Thank you, Lord!

The work continues to flow, smoothly and wonderfully.  It is so easy, why doesn’t everyone do this?  What a beautiful day.  What a beautiful world.  What a beautiful life.

This hair!  Why do people have to have hair?  Maybe I could make the artistic decision to make her bald.  Why does hair have to be so difficult?  How can I claim to be an artist when I cannot even draw hair?  Okay, slow down.  Breathe.  Pray.  “Lord, thank you for your love and patience with me.  Please help me to become an artist.  Help me to relax in you and do my work as unto you.  Help me to glorify you in what I do and say and think.  In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

Okay, I will rest from my labors and come back to it tomorrow.

A new day and the livin’ is easy!  My work does not look as bad as it did yesterday.  I sit and joyfully draw hair.  So nice.  So lovely.  Hair is incredibly beautiful.  Who would want her to be bald?  So good.  So peaceful.  I love being an artist.

The hours pass and the face is done.  I get the likeness and I am giddy with the joy of it.  What wonder!  What awe!  Thank you, Lord.

Then I start contemplating the drapery, the clothing, that she must wear.  What if I ruin the entire thing with this last bit?  Oh, I don’t know if I can do this!  No, I can’t!  It will ruin my beautiful portrait.  I love this portrait!  Drapery is too hard!  Maybe…  No, she needs clothing.  I do not do nudes.  How about just a floating head?  No.  That would not work.  Why did I ever think that I could be an artist?  A real artist would not have these problems.  I am sick to my stomach.  I am going to have to abort this mission.  I am a failure!  I am going to bed.

What a beautiful morning!  I love to wake to the robins singing.  I wonder what is in my studio today.  Oh, that is wonderful!  She needs a body for her head to sit on.  Let’s see what we can do.  This pencil is working so well.  The work is flowing, and her clothing is coming along nicely.  So, a shadow goes there.  A highlight goes here.  Oh, that came together very well.  I love being an artist!  Thank you, Lord!

After many hours of work, I sign it and post it to the world.  Then, after it is out there for all the world to see, I notice that one eye is lighter than the other one!  The smile is lopsided in the wrong way and the composition is off just a smidge, but I will never be able to unsee it.  People are telling me how perfect it is, but I am silently wondering what is wrong with them.  Do they not see how horrible it is?  I wonder about the sanity and the visual ability of the people who think I do good work.  If they look carefully, they will discover that I am no artist.  It is arrogant to think that I am!  Oh, how stupid of me!  I cannot keep up this deception any longer.  I will have to expose myself for the fraud that I am.  But first I will go to bed.  After huddling in my bed, perhaps shedding some tears of humiliation, I sleep.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!  The sun is slanting through those trees and tempting me to paint it onto a poor helpless canvas.  Thank you, Lord, for making me an artist.  How wonderful to be a creator enabled by the Heavenly Creator, the One True Artist!  Oh, what a wonderful day to be alive!

Oh, wow!  Look at that face!  I would love to make a portrait of that person.  I get a photo and happily make my preparations.  Then, I begin the portrait.  No!  Why is this not working?!  What is the matter with me?!  Can I not do this?  Have I lost it?  Oh, woe is me!  I am not really an artist…

My beloved husband heads for the hills.

The countenance is the portrait of the soul, and the eyes mark its intentions. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

This is my latest commission. This godly lady died about three years ago and I was commissioned to make her portrait as a present for her son, who misses her terribly. My client says that I captured her spirit and it looks just like her. From what he and his wife have told me, I wish that I had known her.

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Shout, and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion,
    for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.

— Isaiah 12:6 (ESV)

Abstract photography? Yes! I love it. About a year or so ago, I saw a youtube video about a photographer in England who did abstract photographs of beautiful landmarks and architecture. It was so exciting. I tried it a few times and enjoyed it, but other things got in the way and I forgot about it. Then, during the photoshoot with Mr. K. I made a few accidental abstract shots and they were very nifty looking. Both of us liked them so much that we did some on purpose. What fun! Then, just today, I was watching another photography video and got excited about it, again. So, I just took some deliberately abstracted photos in my living room. What do you think?

Now, I did not use photo-editing software to make any of the abstraction. I only adjusted the contrast and the saturation. To make these photos, I used motion blur. I adjusted the settings on the camera to get the light I wanted while keeping a slow shutter speed, chose a starting focus point, pushed the button and held the camera for a little bit, then moved it while the shutter was open. Such nifty things can be done that way. So much fun!

My favorite is the basket. It looks like a painting. I sat the camera on a small table, adjusted the settings, pushed the button and jerked the camera a couple of times while the shutter was open. Wow! I love it.

The last photo is actually a shot of Ron getting ready for work. I was standing in the hallway with my camera and zoom lens. I was focusing on his reflection in the mirror. I pushed the button, stood focused on him for a couple of seconds, dropped the camera down, turned around, lifted the camera, and focused out the front window of the living room. The total exposure was eight seconds. I thought it turned out very nicely. Ron heard me and shut the bathroom door and locked it. LOL! One of the hazards of living with a crazy artist…

The first and last shot of Mr. K. were of him moving while the camera was on a tripod. The two middle shots, the camera was handheld and I swung the camera around while the shutter was open.

You ought to try it…

All the planning, intuition, technical prowess, and knowledge, as well as the trust and rapport you have (or haven’t) established, will show up in the picture, frozen forever.

— Gregory Heisler

According to the dictionary, Bonnie means “fine, attractive, pretty”.  It is from the Scottish, which may have come from the French “bonne”, meaning “good”.  A nursery rhyme says that “the child who is born on the Sabbath Day is bonny and blithe and good and gay”.  I do not know if our Bonnie was born on the Sabbath Day, but during the whole time that I knew her, it seemed appropriate that she be considered a child of the Sabbath.

She was very attractive to me, because of her great love for the Lord and for his people.  She was beautiful to me, because of her winsome enjoyment of the life that God had given her.  She was good not in herself, but because of the goodness of Christ, her beloved Savior.

Bonnie was an example to me of satisfaction and enjoyment in the Lord.  Yes, she had her hard times.  Yes, she was a weak sinner, but she was an overcomer in Christ her Lord and a great lover of her family and friends.  She never let her hardship keep her from worshiping with her church family, if possible.

She laughed and frolicked with me in the woods of her beloved farm.  She loved to play, sing, and dance.  Bonnie, my beloved friend, was the epitome of what a lover of Christ should be.  A lover of all creation.  A lover of mankind as made in the image of Christ.  A prayer warrior who stood on the Solid Rock and believed with all her being.

Oh, how I miss her and have missed her ever since I left Ohio in March.  Oh, that I could be like her.

Thank you, Lord, for Bonnie.

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Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

— Proverbs 31:30

Fathers are such valuable people, it is hard to express it. I had a good one and he has been a wonderful influence on his children. He still is. He is creative, funny, and strong. I’m so glad he is mine. I love you, Dad.

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This afternoon, after church, we were getting ready to go over and see Mamoo and take her over to see Papoo. I was eating lunch and got the urge to write a poem. I got a sheet of paper and a pencil and the following poem happened:

Papoo

Quiet, strong, hard-working man,

Thinking, laughing, loving his own.

Up from poverty and discouraging toil,

Never was he heard to moan.

He spied the love of his life

Across the noisy, crowded room.

He pledged his life to her;

A life woven on a simple loom.

This man was a career sailor

Who often traveled far and wide,

Returning weary from his journeys,

Safely to his beloved’s side.

The children for whom he thoughfully cared

Are certainly blessed to call him Dad.

And, as for a father-in-law and friend,

He is the finest I have ever had.

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As a father has compassion on his children,
so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him.

— Psalm 103:13

This is a charcoal that I quickly did sort of like eating sorbet between courses to cleanse the palate. I needed to do something to cleanse my mind of the portrait of Mr. K. I think I need to cleanse my mind between all of my portraits. After Mr. K., I immediately plunged into another portrait, but it wasn’t working, so I decided to do this horse. Even though it is only “sorbet”, I like it. LOL!

Yesterday, it was very rainy and stormy. It didn’t really get going until we were in the grocery store shopping for Mamoo (Mr. Beloved’s mother). We got soaked. It was not raining when we dropped off the groceries. It rained again as we were taking Mamoo out for supper. We need the rain and am very glad for it, but it is so funny that it only rained really hard when we were trying to get in or out of buildings. This weekend is a community yard sale in our neighborhood. We have one every quarter. We will be ready for the next one, in September.

By the way, for all you Mount Vernon people who read this: The Leesburg high school mascot is the yellow jackets! LOL! There is a Yellow Jacket Way road that goes into the high school campus and the logo looks exactly the same as Mount Vernon’s. I had to laugh out loud when I saw that! That is just too funny! I want to get some photos, but I don’t think about it unless we are passing it on the road. Now, how nifty is that? Leesburg High School link.

A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle. — Ian Fleming

I have finally gotten my studio up and running. It is much smaller, but I think I can do it. If you have the desire, you can do art anywhere, right? When we were packing up the studio in Ohio, we picked up my drawing table and proceeded to fold it up and it fell apart. LOL! It came apart at almost all of the seams/welds. I immediately began trying to fix it, but then I realized that it was not fixable and that I would have to get rid of it and eventually get a new one. I got one just last week:

My studio is a small Florida room. The light is wonderful, but it is a little much at times, so I taped up the window with an old sheet. We will have to have an air conditioner put in the wall, also. It gets oven-like in no time, plus the humidity is a little much. This morning I sat down at my drawing table and the paper was warped and floppy from the moisture. But, so what!? I am back in business! Yay!

I did my first portrait in about six months (I don’t know exactly how long it has been…) and I promised Mr. K. that it would be him. Here is the initial sketch:

And here is the finished portrait:

This is a photo from a shoot that we had as we were packing up. I didn’t want to leave without getting some shots of this wonderful face. I wish I had spent more time taking photos of all the people I wanted. So many faces, so little time… LOL! (If you recognize him, please let me know. I am so insecure! LOL!)

I have started another sketchbook. I am going to start teaching art classes at my local art supply store and I want to do some sketches for teaching purposes. This first page is “blind” contour drawing. That is when you put your pencil on the paper, look at the object that you are drawing, do not take your eyes from the object, and draw without looking at the paper. Do not lift the pencil from the page until you are done. These drawings are not supposed to be recognizable. They are exercises for your mind and your eye. Artists need to train their eyes to see what is there, not what they think is there. It’s hard! LOL!

This next one is the same objects, but I allowed myself to look at the object, look at the paper, lift my pencil, and erase, but no shading. This is contour drawing.

This next one could be considered a finished drawing, because it is shaded to give the illusion of form/three dimensions.

Anyway, I am glad to be able to say that I am back to making art. As I am typing this, I am looking out at the palm trees swaying in the breeze. The lizards are darting around. The Ibis are pecking around the yard. And the clouds are tempting me to go outside and stretch out on the ground to watch them. I will resist that temptation here in the land of fire ants. LOL!

 “Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen.”

– Leonardo da Vinci

My website and shop are closed until further notice. We are moving from Ohio to Florida and will take some time to get settled. It will be nice to get out of this frozen tundra and into a warmer climate. We have enjoyed our time in Ohio, but it is time to go back from whence we came. So, until we meet again, I bid you adieu.

It’s time to say goodbye, but I think goodbyes are sad and I’d much rather say hello. Hello to a new adventure. — Ernie Harwell