happy 38th birthday, son

To celebrate his 38 years of admirable personal growth and impressive and challenging accomplishments, I turned my son's birthday card into a mini journal. He's still changing the high-rise cityscape of Boston in his day job and soon to open his own Boston bar with a French cafe atmosphere, called The Beehive. So I thought, if he has a little spare time, perhaps he'd like to record his thoughts on his special day. Along with the choice wines we sent him, we hope to persuade him to sit and relish the moment. Mementos include the embossed page corners from a shared Godiva chocolate wrapper and the beer bottle cap from our last shared beer. Wish I'd had time to paint on his card, since that is another pursuit we share, but sometimes quick and easy are necessary to get the job done in time. Happy Birthday, son!!

color my monday

"Green Apple on Red Cloth" 

is a sketch for a previous show 

of my large (5'x8') abstracts 

using pastels on thick hot-press watercolor paper, with a ground of conté crayon. This remains one of my favorite mediums. The pastels adapt easily to the smooth paper and allow me to layer dense color and build up my abstracts. The large exhibited works were a series that incorporated apples and female nudes, taking a playful poke at art's historical predilection for the female nude as temptress. This small sketch, however, poses just the draped red studio cloth and the apple, balanced, waiting for the first fatal-attraction bite . . .

quiet snow

A quiet Sunday, with several inches of pristine snow already muffling sounds of human busyness. The arching trees around my house are showing off their fanciful black-and-white chiaroscuro artwork. Such large flakes falling that I can almost see the intricate designs in each as they drift and swirl and settle. On the slope, the cardinals are perched on their favorite roosting bushes, adding bright spots of red to the landscape, but there's no sun to bask in today. The weather forecasters predict this beautiful blanket will all turn to treacherous icy sleet, but meanwhile there's time to gaze and just 'let it be', occasionally sticking out my tongue for a snowflake taste, soft and shimmery and melting. Soon I'll warm up some tomato basil soup and almond scones to enjoy as we sit by the window, wrapped in our red plaid afghans, gazing comfortably out at the quietly falling snow . . .

production line

Up early, inspired by the birds chirping conversationally in the dormant forsythia and quince bushes as the grey dawn light wakes us, impressed as usual by the bright red cardinals as they flit busily about their morning rounds. Knowing how much I appreciate them, the cardinals have increased to almost two dozen who feast and sunbathe regularly in the big sloping patch of bushes I keep forgetting to prune back. Now recovered from teaching all day yesterday, I'm back in my studio with my own bits of red, starting on the production line for my class this week.