Drafting.

Working up the rough image. Very cartoonie now but once I add in the textures, proper colors I think that will settle.

Proper Musings

I walk early in the mornings when most of the world is still quiet. The sun is coming up, but not so hot that I'm cursing the midwest heat. Orion, my lab, has his tail flop side to side, in rhythm with his wiggling hips as he struts down the sidewalk in front of me. I love the mornings. I often wonder why I don't just set the alarm to get up at six each morning so not to miss this. Then I think of how snuggly my bed was this morning with the cold air in the room, blanket tucked up to my chin. That too, was enjoyable.

As I walk I think about how I've set things in motion to move again. It has been awhile. For me. I will have lived in this place for two years now, a record from my 14 library-card-acquisition years. But I don't feel restless to keep shifting and changing, I feel grounded. I feel as I move along the sidewalk, I know what land I want my feet to plod along. I visualize the farm, the front porch, the rocking chair, the studio desk lit by sunlight. The dew on the just-too-tall grass, and big tall pine trees. The age of the earth in New England. And then I think how I am suppose to be visualizing my career. Oh the pesky career. I never quite understand how if I would like to wake up in the morning, walk my dog, then paint all day--throwing in a day or two of teaching others to paint, this seems illogical. Or maybe I could go read, research and interview people all about children's books three days out of the week. I could sit at coffee tables and educate the world on the unique ways in which artists live among us. Let's spend an afternoon talking about Trina Schart Hyman and how amazing her perspective on life was, yet how very human she was with life's challenges.

 Illogical. Sigh.

Wouldn't magical be a better word?

But then I realize, as I walk, even if it doesn't exactly look like I imagine it to be yet, I still find the time to do all those things. Paints litter my room. Books, half worked projects, completed projects, binders of research, my neighbors work-in-progress from our art lesson. It has it's place. It finds it's time. Once I read a quote by Betsy Lewin, something to the affect of "I didn't go at my dreams in a straight line." So for now, my own wiggle towards that will have to do.

Perhaps I should ask my mom again if she's sure she doesn't want to tell me I'm a trust fund baby.

So I've been working on a couple spot illustrations for the piece on Orion. This is the first colored in final one.