Male and Female Figure Studies

I'm going through the paintings I've done over the last two years. This life study was finished in one of Andriulli's painting classes. It's funny, but the gallery where I exhibited last year did not want any nudes. (Please excuse the bad cropping job).

I love my nude paintings but nobody seems to want to hang them in their homes. My children do not want me to leave them around. The human body is a beautiful thing. These models were middle aged.

It is the end of the year and I am going through my "unsuccessful" paintings and obliterating many of them. I am not obliterating this one even though no one wants it. I am obliterating the many crappy and overworked paintings that are cluttering up my old Amish shed. Its the end of the year I can destroy! Destroy! Obliterate! Time to start the new year fresh!

The Christmas Boot! (With Balls)

It is time to participate in our annual Christmas Eve festivities including everybody's favorite: The decoration and passing of "The Boot".

Doug and I were the holders of the boot over the last year and added "balls" . Disco ball ornaments to be exact. Each guest also will receive their own full sized disco ball compliments of our favorite store: Five Below! Each family has had one turn to hold the boot and return it with the decoration of choice. We contemplated "blowing up" the entire thing this year. We couldn't bring ourselves to do it without adding our balls.

However, we did not make our annual trip to the wilds of West Virginia to purchase our illegal cache of explosives. Unfortunately we fired all of our fireworks on the 4th of July. One of the advantages of living in a rural area is that we can get away with setting off impressive displays of mortars and finale combination sets before any neighbors could report us the the authorities. (Besides we always invite our closest neighbors to see the show!)

So, here is a final look at our ballsy boot before we passed it off to the next victim. Please note that our abode looks fairly tidy. (This was taken just before the evening's festivities).

We can only imagine what next year will bring.

Disclaimer: This post was written after the festivities, but the photos were taken in anticipation of the great event. So if there are some inconsistencies in tense (I am talking to you English Language Nazis) please forgive me. It is Christmas morning and I am too tired to bother with serious editing problems.

Merry Christmas Everyone! Have a ballsy New Year!

Tacky Holiday Thoughts

I've been slacking here. It seems that the days are flying by.
I haven't stopped long enough to hold a coherent thought, let alone a thought coherent enough to blog about.

So here are some semi-coherent thoughts. Sorry. It's the best I can do tonight.

The best holiday party we have is on Christmas Eve. We invite our closest friends and neighbors. (Glenn and Sue, Sam and Leslie, Lark, Keith and Bob)
Sue and Glenn moved here from Long Island. Leslie (originally from Long Island) was my roommate in Philly. Lark and Keith are our next door neighbors. Bob was our neighbor in the old apartment complex. (We helped him survive his divorce from Pam the psycho woman.)

All of these folks live close enough that we don't have to worry about them driving home intoxicated.

We've established silly traditions. One year we bought a totally tacky ceramic cowboy boot. We held a drawing. Bob won the first year. The winner takes the boot home, decorates it and returns in the next year. Bob added a bandana to the boot.

The Tilleys "won" the second year. Sue and Glenn added branches and Corona beer cap ornaments.

The Myers added a garland. Sam and Leslie added lights.

This year the boot came home. Our turn to decorate! We have a theme in mind and IT IS TACKY!

Stay tuned for some fun photos!

P.S. Please get on my case if I don't post them![

Tangled Trees

I promised myself that I would post a painting this week. I did it!

I painted this about a year and a half ago. It is very large (approx. 52x47). I tried posting this before but had difficulty due to the size of the file.

I was waiting for sunshine to re-photograph, but it has been quite elusive lately.

I took a chance and photographed it using the natural light in my great room. It didn't come out too bad.

Anyway. This painting was developed using a photo that I took during a winter walk through our woods. I love "nekkid" trees and find them to be very expressive and beautiful. I particularly like the negative space between the branches, vines, tangles, etc. thus the inspiration for the name of my blog.

Ichiban Kan!

Unlike most women I know, I hate shopping. I absolutely abhor going to the malls around the holidays. I despise Walmart, Black Friday and Manufacturer's Outlets. (I do like interesting stores in cute little neighborhoods) I am not one of those women who will take a shopping trip to cure a lousy mood.

My daughters seem to have inherited my distaste for"normal" mall shopping. While they enjoy trips to the mall to buy Bubble Tea, and hang out with their friends, they refuse to venture into the normal teenage uniform retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Hollister, American Eagle and Aeropostale.

Last year we flew out to the San Francisco area to attend my brother's wedding. We encountered the worst weather the area had experienced in recent history. Four full days of rain and wind. The redwoods were off-limits. Our trip to Alcatraz Island was cancelled due to 50 mph wind gusts. We were basically forced to find indoor activities!

To our delight we found Japantown in San Franciso. Japantown is home to three connected indoor mall type shopping centers. In these "centers" the visitor finds a wealth of everything Japanese. There had to be at least 10 competing Sushi restaurants. We found a wonderful bookstore and lots of cute stores. My daughters stocked up on manga, and toys, and all sorts of neat stuff. The best of these stores was Ichiban Kan. Ichiban Kan is similar to a dollar store. Everything was adorable and inexpensive.

My daughter "D" requested a Bento box for Christmas. We saw them at Ichiban Kan. I wasn't about to travel back to the west coast for one so I began a google search. Sure enough, Ichiban Kan has website and I was able to purchase the bento box online! (I think it cost about $2.00) I had so much fun I contined to shop. The largest ticket item was about $3.50. I did my holiday shopping on my laptop and did not spend a huge amount of money! I can handle shopping like this! Check it out at www.ichibankanusa.com/ or click on my title.