It's OK to Dream and it's Free!

Was out walking with my "pointer sisters" (they're the two up front - Stella, the black and white English Pointer?? and Tina, the German Shorthair Pointer) and Mickey - a neighbor's lab, along the horse trails that skirt our property when I spotted that someone had painted this sign on an old tree.


Here's a closer look at it. Someone did a good job - there are a lot of colors in this little "sign". So, is it a sign? "Someone" telling me that is OK to dream?

How often do we seek "signs" to do something? If we only had a "sign"...and so here it is...Dreaming is Free! I've been given a sign...what fun!!

So what is YOUR dream?

We miss Mickey - don't worry - he's fine!

Mickey used to come by and visit the Pointer Sisters fairly often. He came so often these past few months that we couldn't help but let him in the house now and then, espcially when the weather was wet or cold outside. He'd be hanging around our house or my neighbor's house and run to greet us when we came home. He's well mannered, quiet, loving and too well fed as he visited all the houses in the neighborhood. He wears a collar with his name on it and a phone number but we really didn't know exactly where he lived. I live in an area where our houses sit on acreage bound by the lake and park lands. We hadn't seen him around these past three weeks. My neighbor even worried about him.

This is Mickey taking over the Pointer Sister's beloved sofa which I can't throw out even though it is soooo old and tattered. It's the girls' favorite sofa and usually they sleep together kicking all the pillows off it. I guess Mickey thought it was pretty comfy too...

Here's Mickey trying out Stella's doggy bed - I think he's just a little too big for it...with him in it - you can't see the sides of the bed as it is crushed under him...

Well I tried that phone number that was engraved on his collar and the Mickey's mom answered the phone. We had a wonderful conversation about Mickey. He's fine. The hole in the fence Mickey used to use to escape from is mended. But she promises to bring him around one of the these days to visit the girls.

I'm thinking of giving this little painting to Mickey's mom. I know he's fine but the girls and I still miss him.

Are We There Yet?

The Pointer Sisters went with us on our vacation through Colorado, Utah and Southern California.

Dogs Leave Their Footprints in Your Heart

This footprint belongs to Mickie, a friendly over-grown black lab who visits our house daily and plays with the Pointer Sisters. Dogs are pack animals and like to hang out with other dogs and people, I think. I really need to do a painting of this fellow because he is so cute and loveable. But last week he was sleeping in our house so peacefully all I see are these big paws! So I got on my belly to take a photo of his monster paws and painted this, just for the fun of it.

Sunlight

"Sunlight"

12 x 12 x 3/4 inche, Oil on Canvas, Painted with Palette knife

Sometimes living gets hazy and dark - that's when a little sunlight brings me back to the center. Friends are my little sunlights. Music to paint by. A fresh tube of paint. My Pointer sisters (they are my dogs). My neighbor who carries my trash can out to the curb without asking. A handwritten letter in my mailbox. A smile. Daydreaming of a farmhouse to convert to an artist's haven. My favorite TV show, my battered copy of "Pride and Prejudice", a cup of coffee - especially the sinful kind like White Chocolate Mocha....Hearing someone say, "I love you".

What's your sunlight? That touch of yellow - cad yellow pale mixed with a little white - that's the sunlight in my painting.

Palette Knives, GSP and Art for Animals

Carrie Jacobson, an artist and blogger "The Accidental Artist" (I love the name of your blog, Carrie) wrote me yesterday to ask about my palette knives - whether I use one or several when I paint.

After reading her email, I grabbed up most of my knives and took them outside to photograph!!

A couple of my knives are really old (well, 28 years old - that's fairly old isn't it? And I have a price tag on one of them still LOL). But, I actually use one knife for most of my paintings start to finish - on my smaller pieces I might grab a smaller palette knife for the itty bitty details. Lately my painting style has gotten even more loose so I am now reconsidering whether I would do all that itty bitty detail stuff.... I'll just wait till the inspiration hits before making fast rules about it.

My everyday favorite, use-all-the-time knife is the Loew Cornell J-5. I have a Langnickel P-2 that is similar in size but the tip is a little more rounded. Both are flexible and have a good feel when plastering the paint onto the canvas. Oh! I do love the looseness and thickness of painting with the palette knife.

Carrie has another blog called Art for the Animals in which artists can post animal paintings for the benefit of shelter animals. It's a wonderful project! Check it out.

So this is the segway to the recent foster German Shorthair Pointers at my house.

From Left to Right - Marco, Brooke, my Stella and my Tina (aka pointer sisters) sharing the old sleeper sofa I can't seem to get rid of because the dogs love it too much.

This one shows Marco, Stella, Hattie, Brooke and Tina. Marco, Hattie and Brooke are all available for adoption through the German Shorthair Rescue Society of North Texas. All are housebroken, gets along well with other dogs, as you can see and need a forever home.

All Dogs Go To Heaven

I painted a neighbor's dog named "Peanut". She often visited our house and on occassion would come inside for a treat. She was a shy dog who always had that "is it really OK to be here?" look whenever she'd come to visit and play with my pointer sisters.

We were invited to visit our neighbors on Monday and I was planning on taking my painting as a surprise gift. And then just before we visited, I received a phone call saying that Peanut passed that day. She was hit by a car presumeably but no one ever stopped to say they had. They found her badly hurt, rushed Peanut to the vet but it was too late to save her. Yesterday I received a note from the little boy to whom Peanut belonged thanking me for the painting. I'm sure Peanut is in heaven as I do believe, all dogs go to heaven.

Is It Love? - Basset Hound

We used to have a neighbor's Basset, Fred, escape his home and visit the Pointer Sisters. Stella has a very playful way of trying to rid herself of her suitor. We live on 3.5 acres of hills full of trees. She runs as fast as she possibly could to the opposite end of our property and when Fred is running as fast as his little legs would carry him, she zips right back again and come to the front door where I'd let her inside. Then Fred would come trotting back to the front door, figure out that Stella was no longer outside and sit out in our front yard bellowing.

"Is It Love?"

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Board

Available for Sale

Awards and Passion

I met Angela Elledge at Artscape at the Dallas Arboretum this past week. What a thrill and surprise that she gave me the Passion for Painting award - the rules are that I'm to write about 7 things I'm passionate about.

I'm passionate about so many thing so it's hard to say this or that specific things so here's a few in no particular order:

1) I'm passionate about painting
2) My pointer sisters
3) My man
4) My perfume...I tend to spritz too much...
5) My "free" time when I'm alone and have not a thing to do...
6) My friends - where would we be without friends, acquaintances, people we love and love us?
7) Art in general - look talking about art with others, looking at it, dreaming about it.

Yellow Lab

"Yellow Lab"

5 x 5 inches, Oil on Board

Available $36.00 + s/h

Click here to place bid on Ebay.

Yesterday the Pointer sisters welcomed a foster brother. A 3 year-old German Shorthair who was rescued from a shelter by the GSP Society because he was due to be put down. (OK this is a painting of a yellow lab up above - I'll have to do one of him soon - he's really cute) So we are going to keep him for a while until a forever home can be found. In the meantime he'll be learning a few commands like "come" "sit", his name, walking on a leash. It won't take him long to learn; he seems so happy to please and is very well-mannered. We plan on calling him Marco.