Feb 29,2008

I am back after a brief spell of being a bit busy!!! I have been working with the sunset-sunrise colors-glazing over the blues to get that glowing affect. I think this winter-that is lasting FOREVER- is really effecting me. All I want to do is be in the sun and have the rich colors of the earth seep into my bones. I have taking to sleeping with the heating pad for warmth-I am not allowed to put my cold feet or hands on my husband-can't balme him. Even my dog leaps away from my touch...........oh, heavens, when will it be warm again...

This is done in acrylics on canvas 8 x 10 board-it will be available on ebay at:

Feb 24th, 2008

Did a little landscaping today-wish I could have been outside really doing landscaping. Hey, guess what? I broke down and bought some new brushes and low and behold I can finally get those thin straight edges I like. So much for being cheap. I would probably be oh, a huge famous artist by now if I had the right equipment and the good brushes and papers.,...oh, yea and then you have to die and then get discovered and your grandchildren will be greatful to you forever..and speak of you in awed ,hushed voices and keep your house the way you left it the day you dropped dead at the easel (Note to any future Grandkids-please have a cleaning crew come in after Nana dies so that you can maintain the illusion that I was neat and careful-also use my best 8x 10 in the obit)

This is an 8 x 10 on canvas board, It is done in acrylic and will be available on ebay at:

Feb 21 2008

OH!! The one thing I did NOT want to do with this project is feel guilt if I can't get something up every day and guess what-I am sooooooo feeling it. Wrong!!! So I have been working on this peice and it is different and I still have some work to do but it was driving me crazy if I had to go two days without something............and I am feeling that am I doing it right thing. Well the fact is I am doing it and there are no "rights"-and who knows-maybe I am the only one following me..............oh, that is a thought......so here I am talking to my self.....which actually can be quite a healthy thing as I can take a step back here and tell myself to relax. So I will go relax now..or do laundry or take the dog out or clean the house or knit..life is full!!!

Feb. 19, 2008

What did Monty Python used to say..and now for something completely different.......

Pretty much!!! I haven't done this kind of work in a while and boy!!! was it fun. I even used GLITTER-I love glitter-glitter makes me very happy. I rubbed it into the paint on the fairies wings...eeeehhhhhh....Sometimes I think I have to do SERIOUS art so people will take me SERIOUSLY.

Shall I venture on to ebay with this......why not-this blog was started so I could feel free to play around and I think I got too worried about what it looks like-hello-don't we all. So I am going to try to shake it up a bit-who knows what will happen next??

This is an 8 x 10-gouache and pen and ink on tea-stained paper. it will be available on ebay athttp://i118.photobucket.com/albums/o100/willwiard/Mindy%20Arts/fairg.jpg

Feb. 17, 2008

Sunday, day of rest? Nope painting and cleaning for me. It is gray and gloomy here, I am thinking of putting a movie on but am working on a painting. It can be so zen to paint -and then someone asks for lunch...well, it takes so many peices to make up a life and I should be grateful-sometime soon no one will ask for food and I may miss it.

This is acrylic on a 9 x 12 canvas board. It is available on ebay at:

Feb 16, 2008

It is finally a little warm here so I can see spring will actually arrive...not too soon, but you can sense it in the air. Isn't it weird how we can sense stuff but most the times we ignore it. I wonder if I truly, truly followed my gut with out censoring it or worry about "how it looks" or "what people will think", what would come of it. I probably would swing loudly while skipping down the streets more often-alone-without using my 7 year old as a shill. Or,think what I might paint- Would it be different..am I playing it safe???

This is done on 5x7 canvas board in acrylic. it will be available on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220202956260

Feb 14, 2008

Happy Valentines Day!!! I got so peaceful during the painting of this I had to take a nap. I never take naps-however after an hour I felt great and finished off the sky. Way back in the right hand corner is a little church..but you can't really see how to get there...hmmmm...funny what you paint> I am sure Freud would have something to say about it, but then he usually has something to say about everything...can we just let it be what it is. Ever get confused by a critics assigning meaning to a painting when you saw something entirely different. Does their education make them right-or does our gut feeling really give us insight? I believe the latter-only sometimes it is so hard to believe in ourselves..so today..follow your gut..believe in yourself, after all-it's our meaning we should delight in not someone elses.

This is in acrylics on 8 x 10 canvas board it is available on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220202433794&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

Feb. 11, 2008

As I was typing in the year I started writing 1958...guess I have been living there for the past few hours. I love Easter because I adore Easter Egg Hunts and candy and the paper-machie wonder of it all. I have a HUGE fondness for those old eggs that were rolled in glitter and had old graphics of ducks and happy bunnies!!! OHHH-and finding the eggs and filling your basket...it is almost as good as Valentines Day. But nothing can beat the Valentine bag that you decorated hanging off your little desk bulging with cards....oh, that was the very,very best.

I wonder what it would be like to drive a big old car like this..what would the gas mileage be. I think my civic would fit into the trunk of this car.

I wish little girls dressed like this again. They were so sweet.

This is gouache on watercolor paper. It is 8 x 10 and will be matted . It will be available on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220201640617&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

Feb.11, 2008

More Sky!!!! Is there anything more beautiful..more fluid. It is so funny how I get in streaks of passion for things. The emptiness of this landscape is what I crave. Peace, calmness,beauty all there for free. If I ever feel a little down I can just look up and get a burst of life...although todays burst was mostly gray..but still, the grays are so overwhelming. I was in a film noir (kept looking for Cary Grant or Bogert and kept feeling like Ingrid Bergman-there are worst things to be...)

This painting is in acrylic on 8 x 10 canvas board. it is available on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220201329512&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

Febuary 10, 2008

How may colors can the sky create??? Think about it-gold, yellows, orange,reds, blues-all sorts of blues, white, grays, black, green-I bet every color we can come up with. And yet when I think sky-I think blue. I wonder what other things I limit to some box when in fact it could expand beyond imagination. What about self-what limitations do we hold ourselves to-when in fact we are much greater and more powerful than we could ever hope to know. It IS an interesting thought. How do I define the things in my life, my life, myself ,that limits me to a rut that I claim not to like. HMMMMM..maybe taking responsibility actually means taking and using the greatness of ourselves, that defeating and negating ourselves is not somehow noble(who came up with that)-but sinful.......all this from painting a sky in a different way......

This is 8 X 10 on canvas and can be bid for on ebay at:

Feb. 9th, 2008

Little landscape!!! In acrylics..and I did laundry and cleaned and picked up kids-all in a days work!!

I just finished another painting and I was watching Blazing Saddles right after to relax-I think I laugh more every time I see it. Madeline Kahn kills me. Maybe I should make it a priority to laugh more-makes me feel great and it is infectious. That makes me think..what can I paint that would make people laugh?? There is a painting at the Russian Museum called the MilkMaids and they are fallen over in laughter and everytime I see it I want to fall right into it among them and laugh my butt off....thats a gift-a peice that can make you feel that way eveytime you see it.

Rent an old funny movie today!

This is 5x 7 in acrylic on canvas board-you can bid for this on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220200657541&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

Feb. 8th, 2008

When I was little I would lay in the iron bed in the middle room of my grandmas house in northern Minnesota and smell the sharpest, greenest odor I have ever smelled. It was dark out and the crickets would sing and the smell was so fresh it made my stomache hurt, and yet I couldn't get enough of it. It would never be as intense during the day as the sun would add a different, less sharp element to it. I have never smelled that again but I remember it so clearly. It was the smell of green. That is the only time I remember smelling a color, I bet heaven smells like that. And flowers and grandmas cooking.......YUM!!!

So this is what I was thinking of as I painted this stone shed in the garden. Overgrown and hidden..maybe thats what the pearly gates look like!!

This is done in acrylics on 8 x 10 canvas board. You can bid for this on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220200412847&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

February 7th, 2008


Back to Gouache (watercolor). The inspiration for this came from an old photo I found in an antique store. Do you ever wonder if your family photos will end up at the bottom of a pile in an old musty store. Some of them ripped out of old photo books with that black paper still on the back testifing to the care with which they once were treated. I feel like I am rescuing their stories. I like this one because they seemed like they were having a good time and a bit full of themselves....rarely do you find one with people laughing during this period...most are so posed and stiff.
and it took me a day and a half......I am trying for a painting a day but life keeps insisting on getting in my way. Wait till I have a maid and a cook and a cabana boy........

This is done on watercolor board sn it measures 9 1/2 x 12
It is available for bidding on ebay athttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220200104380&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123

Feb 5th, 2008

What IS art?? I try to touch people, enfold them into a story....my friend and I visited a couple of galleries today (HI J-You're the best) and there was some work in the prestigious gallery that I just thought- HUH-...............What made someone decide this was ART-rather important art--who makes those decisions and why do we bow before them? I guess the older that I become the more I find myself questioning why I have let others tell me what is important. Don't we all have the right to decide what is important to us-what connects with our souls? When I saw a peice of fat in a fish tank years ago in New Yorks Guggenheim and then moved upwards to the AMAZING inner city school kids art show I was ..what was I..saddened..shocked...confused... that this kids 'art-which everyone was touched and moved and awed by -was somehow not as important as the rancid fat sitting in the main gallery. Just makes me ponder a bit...

This lady is in acrylic on canvas board 8 x 10. I would like to stroll in her garden for awhile, to be alone and safe within the gates, to be soul soothed by the flowers and trees and to find the sky.

You can bid for this on ebay athttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220199468627

Feb 3rd, 2008

I felt like that creature in The Lord of The Rings that kept crooning 'my precious' over the ring. I went back to my first love-gouache-for this-its a watercolor and I have worked with it for so long it is like an extension of my self . So I just flowed and did a floral it was fun..and different and a nice break for me.

I enjoy the acrylics and the oils but gouache sings for me. So picture me at the drawing table mumbling over my paints "My Precious"

and I sometimes wonder why my kids are embarrassed of me...........................

this is 5x 7 on watercolor paper and I will be matting it in a white heavy beveled mat-you can bid for this on ebay at:http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220198778926&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI

Feb. 1, 2008

What if one has an off day??? I see these painting a day sites and they are all so beautiful.....and i have had a couple ho-hummers during this process. I think I will move on to flowers tomorrow, I need color- bright oranges and yellows and reds.....I have been trying to clean and paint and do laundry when all I really want to do is sit on the couch and watch an old movie. Weel. when the laundry is done, when the kids are picked up, when the dog is walked and everyone is fed, maybe then I will just sit...or fall over ..

This is 8 x 10 on canvas board. You can bid for this on ebay athttp://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ssPageName=STRK:MESEX:IT&item=220198365437&_trksid=p3984.cSELL.m315.lVI