Day 84 Muffy

Today is day 84 and i don't seem to be able to do them on time .. so maybe I am lagging. Just doing the best I can .. i keep falling asleep before I get them done.

Today was moving heavy stuff at my dads so .. I'm sore and still tired .. ha .. i am looking forward to not being tired.

Today's portrait is of a maltese dog and she is Muffy. Her official full name is Muffin Michelle. She was a sweet sweet girl that my mom originally bought from a breeder in Virginia when we first moved stateside. Her close friend wanted two of them and so she bought them and we had to take care of them for a while before they could be shipped overseas. I think something else happened too but I don't remember what it was. But what I am quite sure of is the fact that we had two maltese puppies and they were so adorable and so much fun to have that my mother was not going to do anything but keep them for us. We loved them .. Muffy lived for about 12 or 13 years. She was tiny .. about four or five pounds but she was fearless and she never was afraid of any animal no matter what the size. Most times other animals would run from the tiny fluff of white fur and barking this high pitched bark at them. I think that Muffy and Beau slept with my mom and dad most of the time but sometimes Muffy got to stay with me and my sister. I hadn't thought of it before but I have now .. i wonder if they are in heaven with my mom. I'm sure she would love to be with them and pet them and love them. Makes me think there should be a song called all the pets I've loved. Or maybe i'll just write a book .. All The Pets I've Loved. I love Muffin Michelle and Beau Brummel Bianco. Sweet dogs ..

If you would love to own this portrait please email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. This is about 8 x 10, sewn cards.  See you tomorrow.

Day 72 and Heidi

Well I guess there is a first for everything.. this is about 27 minutes after midnight .. whaaaaa .. But today I went over to help get things ready at my dads house for a sale to empty some of the contents of their home since moving to a new house. So i didn't start first thing this morning and then I was distracted with all the things that I WANTED to do before leaving my house to participate in an art walk in the town where I live. I went to that and after my friend met me there and asked if I wanted to go out after .. i should have said no but I really wanted to go .. So we went to a pizza place and I actually started this painting at the restuarant. I asked Heidi if she would mind being my pizza friend. I decided to leave the previous sentence because this is what happens when you are very tired.. I didn't ask Heidi if she would be my pizza friend I asked her if she would be my model and she said yes and so I started this on a pizza box first. and then  came home and tried to finish it.IT's not my betst work but it iwill be oke fot the  first real miss .. whaaaa .. if you want to own her, email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com I'm going to bed now .. I hope she likes how I portrayed her.
Ok have a great day!!!

I am back this morning to see what travesty of writing occurred here .. I really can't focus or write worth a beans when I am tired. I said I wouldn't do this anymore but look I did it .. sheesh.  I was talking to my friend Heidi about the daily portrait and said .. hmmm I could start this here and I could maybe ask the waitress if they would mind donating a pizza box to my daily painting effort. So this is the largest portrait of all of them. On the outside of a decorated pizza box. Hopefully my friend Heidi who is very thoughtful and supportive of me an my work will love my interpretation of her .. she is a beautiful soul and a beautiful woman. “I hope you will go out and let stories, that is life, happen to you, and that you will work with these stories... water them with your blood and tears and your laughter till they bloom, till you yourself burst into bloom.” Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype by Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Now I had put this quote on a previous post but it somehow got here when I cut and pasted this edited part of my post.. so I'll just leave it. Because last night there was laughter when life happened in the pizza shop with Heidi and another friend and me. Life is good.

Day 48 and still going

Day 48..

oh dear .. i may be getting a bit bored .. aaaacckkk!!! I'm not sure what it means .. but I do still love to paint faces. There is a thing I think with artists, that you paint something until you are done with it. I have over fifty days to go yet till I am done painting faces. I may have to mix it up a bit.

I have some ideas in the works, in fact that is often my downfall. I have too many ideas. I don't know if they are going to be successful or not but that doesn't really matter. The best part is that I just keep going on . ..I'm committed and the daily practice has proved beneficial to me in so many ways. I had a wonderfully validating experience with showing several of my completed faces to someone in person. That .. did a lot for my confidence. I think even stacking up the paintings and seeing them all there in a pile....it stands for many hours of creativity. Lots of writing even.

I have found that my contact with Josephine is really having a huge impact on me. So far away and yet we can email and have immediate communication. I find it amazing and she tells me her hopes for the children and I have asked her to send me photos of the children drawing faces. She said that she is amazed that they seem to want to do this. I LOVE THAT >>>> I love that they are now asking their friends to sit still so they can do a portrait. The thing about children that is amazingly wonderful is their way of seeing what they see. There eyes are fresh and unafraid .. there are no mistakes. There are no mistakes. Your hope and desire or passion about your attempts to draw are seen in the work. I believe that. So .. i hope to share some of the children's drawings with you in the days to come. This part of what I'm doing .. makes me feel truly inspired .. filled with gratitude. I want for the children to have what ever the children need. So I will urge you yet again to go to ChildUG.org and make a donation.
To the children .. i love your drawings .. keep drawing, keep going. You have my heart!!!

If you would like to purchase today's portrait a portion of the sale of this face will go to ChildUG.org. I am also committed to doing that here on out. Email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. This is painted on papers that my mother saved in a lifetime of collecting and i have put them together with a sewing machine and painted on them. This face is approximately 8 x 10.  See you tomorrow.!!!

Day 12 of 100 faces in 100 days

Following my heart today I decided to just try something new and different. Many times I think about doing something and then I don't always follow through and just do it. Today .. i piddled around and maybe it feels like a birthing. There are ideas that come into my head and they sit there and i consider them and they percolate in my brain. Sometimes you just have to follow what your heart says to follow. Sometimes it's just not easy to do .. that critical voice inside just can be such an annihilator of doing what you love. But like the anticipation of what might be ....it just happens.

Today this got me excited. You see not quite a year ago my mother passed away. Yes I've been grieving and processing this for nearly nine months now. Not always easy but necessary, I have been now helping my dad go through everything in their house that they have lived in for some twenty years or so. My mother saved everything. She saved every letter, every card and every magazine clipping that she cut out. She even filed them and labeled them. I often say if she could have, she would have loved, Pinterest. She had her own real live collection of everything she loved in pictures. Amazing what you can learn about a person by what they collect. Another thing that she collected was wrapping paper. She had bags of it. Being an artist and lover of paper and someone who loves to repurpose, I had to keep the wrapping paper and a lot of the paper things. This portrait today is a few pieces of wrapping paper that I have sewed on the sewing machine. I also love sewing and fabric and my mother also was the same. Perhaps it is my way of processing and connecting to those parts of her that are clearly in me. I think she'd be tickled to see what I did with her wrapping paper. The exciting thing to me is that .. now I know what I'm going to do with it .. haha. So . this birthing of an idea makes me HAPPY!!!! And yes my baby is beautiful, she's mine.. but she can be yours. Today, just email me and you can have her for just $12.  Acrylic on sewn paper 8"x 12". Thanks for stopping over. I'd love to hear your thoughts. IF you just want me to send you every day's portrait post send me an email and I'll add you to the list.