Day 58 and Gremlins

Day fifty eight and if you follow me you may have wondered if I may have missed today's portrait .. I am actually so tired it's the first day that I was worried that I might not make it. I even made a pot of coffee to help me stay awake. Something I would never do.

I'll have to be more careful in the future. This little guy is my version of a jungle gremlin. I'll have to write this quickly cause I have already fallen asleep once while typing this . Lol .. i't seriously difficult.


I picked this little guy just because when I was a little girl and we would go to the base theater to watch a movie and my dad would walk up to the girl behind the window and say two adults and three gremlins. I always thought of myself as daddies little girl. I am not a little girl anymore. I am sure my dad loves me because I am his daughter, but I think that's all i know for sure. I always thought it was funny that he thought we were gremlins. What's a gremlin? Then a movie about them made them be something that people loved to watch. That's about all I can utter . .. just about falling asleep.

If you would like to own this beautiful eyed creature, email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. It's a file divider with a pattern and a small card glued to this surface. it's about 8 x 12 $58. thank you and good night .. see you tomorrow..

Day 57 and Hyena

Today day fifty seven and it was the first day where I really had no idea what to paint or what to say.. so I got a late start. Oddly enough this came to me after I sat still for a minute. There is for me great value in being still for the creative process. Busy-ness just seems to kill it for me. And on this one .. I just decided to give the shape of the animal and focus my attention around the eyes .. these eyes just say so much to me. Hyena's are not the most loved animal of Africa .. they have been given many characteristics most of which are negative. Either way there is something about those eyes ..

The hyenas came up in my thoughts when I recalled that while were spending weekends at the beach we were reminded about .. the bathroom situation. There was a series of holes dug in the ground surrounded by some wooden walls .. I really don't remember what it looked like inside but for sanitation reasons that's where you had to go. At night I often needed to go .. we were always told never to go alone, ever. So usually my dad got the potty duty and off we would go with a flashlight. I wish that I had some kind of an amazing story about them but all I remember is that he would stand there with the flashlight and point it out where they were .. I could sometimes barely make them out, usually their eyes would glow but they never, thankfully, came close. I never heard any stories about any close calls of anyone that we went with to the beach. I am thinking there is one really good thing about a hyena and I think it's like a vulture, they are like the clean up crew of dead animals. I think they will eat just about anything.

If you would love to have this beautiful eyed hyena in your house .. email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. This is painted on sewn folder with wrapping paper. About 8 x 12
I like this one. See you tomorrow .. and it's a great day!!

Day 56 and it's a donkey

Today's painting is day fifty six. I guess I am sad some today but love today's painting. One year ago today my mother died. She took her last breath sometime in the morning around 10:30. I didn't get to be with her, I was with my son and I was sick with a cold. It was a bad day all around. I think the only thing I was grateful for was the end of her suffering. She had Alzheimer's and it was really bad at the end. I was also grateful that I had spent those few months with her comforting her and giving her backrubs and retelling stories of Africa and other silly funny things that we did as children and as mother and daughter. I wanted to give her joy as much as I was able. No doubt in a my life I had already given her enough grief.

I thought a while about what I wanted to paint and decided to do a donkey or burro she loved them. She has always had a fondness for them and so I painted this just because she loved them. I couldn't really think of a story about a donkey that went with it any more then just knowing that she loved them. That's all for today and I think I'll go outside and enjoy the sunshine ..

If you would like to own this sweet donkey email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. It's painted on an old file divider, nothing extra today with this one.. i just didn't have it in me. See you tomorrow.

Day 55 and Camels

Day 55 and so this means there are 35 more days to go.. today I have a lot to do .. so I am feeling the pressure. I still love doing the faces and I don't think that I will ever stop loving painting. I don't care for the stress.. so I may have to change things .. but it won't impact this aspect of my life .. I am committed to doing this!!!

I have recently been looking through old family photos. That was one thing that my mother was very good at doing as well as organizing all the things that she saved. She kept lots of family photos and back then you had to take them with a film camera and get them developed. I found a photo of me wearing a christmas outfit that my mom made and I am riding on the top of a camel by my self. I look to be about 6 years old. If you know anything about camels they have that hump on their backs and the saddle is usually on top of that if you are doing the odd thing of riding on one. They are kind of like horses for us in the US. They are the mode of transportation used in the desert. They are very tall and when you hold onto a saddle while it's laying down when it gets up its something like an amusement park ride or a roller coaster. It's the same when they get down. I think that the scarier thing however, is not the ride, but the noises that the camel makes. And the long neck that allows it to have easy access to you on it's back. The noise sounds like Chewbacca from the star wars movies. That is a bit scary to a six year old child. So this photo I found was me riding a camel while attending a children's Christmas party in Africa. Guess that's how they do it there.. or at least that's how American's do it in Africa. I have also ridden on one while we were at the beach on the coast. An animal roller coaster ride. This one looks cute and they all did have those big black eyes and all have their own unique look and with much character. This ones a cutey.

If you would like to own this Camel send me an email at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. He's painted on a folder with a map and red paper as well as an envelope sewn together. About 8-9"x10". Hope you have a great day. See you tomorrow.

Day 54 and Elephants

Today is day fifty four and I am painting an elephant and oddly enough the only time I was close to an elephant or yes even rode on an elephant was at the zoo. Now this is an African elephant but where we lived was north of Kenya and Nairobi where you would likely see elephants in the wild. But I do recall going with my mom and I think my grandparents to the zoo in Topeka, Kansas and of all places. I think that's where I rode the elephant. It was big and slow and I remember thinking how awful it was to see this animal tied up and not roaming in the African jungle. I guess it is hard when man and animal intersect and one population grows and the other seems to stay the same or dies off. I don't really enjoy the zoo just because I feel the animals are not in their natural habitat. It's about the same as opening a prison so we can go and gawk at the inmates.

As for the artistic process this one is a hard animal to paint. Elephants are full of folds and creases, crevices and they have mud on them and they have these tiny eyes in the recesses of their big blackness. Time prevents me from being able to render every line but that's definitely an animal with no lack of character and content to draw. They seem like gentle giants. I think that the best part for me is that the articles of paper that I am using have sometimes a lot packed into them. This is painted on a card that was hand written by someone that is no longer in my knowing. Someone that has some heartache attached to it .. but with paint those words disappear and all that is left is one legible word on the tusk .. you'll have to look closely. It's Love.. and that is what this whole project is about for me. Reclaiming the past and choosing to focus on the love parts. The goodness. So .. that makes me glad and filled with gratitude.

If you would like to own this gentle giant .. email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. Slightly larger than the others to be able to see the long snout. Done in acrylic. I hope you have a fantastic day. See you tomorrow. :)

Day 53 and Sea Horses

Today all I could think about was how much I love nature and creatures. I find that after writing so much about the time that I lived in Africa as a child, I realize that I have had a love of nature from childhood. We often went to the beach in the early years of living there and later we would go to a place we called the TTU. I'm sure it stands for something but I don't know what that is. The TTU was like a hotel in my child mind. This was a change from staying on the beach camping, where there was always sand in your shoes, to being in a place where you could swim, ski or just sit outside and enjoy the view. Here we could go back to a room after playing hard and shower, get dressed and go somewhere else to have breakfast, lunch or dinner. We went here often too. My mom and dad loved to water ski. I never found it something I wanted to try. My sister was afraid of the water unless we were swimming at the beach. Sometimes my mom would take us on the boat to watch her ski. As we got older this wasn't something we enjoyed very much. One day we bored out of our minds so we asked if we could swim to the beach at the TTU.. it was in the bay we were skiing in. So the boat goes as close as it could and off we jump into the water and swim over the beach. We would play there but there wasn't the long distance of shallow water so it wasn't as much fun. The deep dropped off ... one day my sister and I were playing here in this water and we didn't always look at what was around us but somehow we found ourselves looking at little tiny sea horses! We were so excited we ran up to the tables where were sitting and found some paper cups so we could catch this wonderfully magic creature. Their little tails were wound up into a spiral and they would swim around and move their tails. They were amazing to watch. I don't think I have ever seen them since then. It was a magical memory that I'm so grateful to remember. The beginning of my love of nature.

If you would love to own this beautifully magical creature, email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. This is painted on a cover to a catalog and piece of wrapping paper and an envelope all sewn together. It is about 8x10 in size and is painted in acrylic.. have you noticed the added use of color? I love it!! See you tomorrow .. i'll be back.

Day 52 Emu

I had to laugh when I titled this Day 52 Emu... just cause it rhymes a bit. I mu Emu we all mu.

I have no story about an Emu. I really just loved this face. They do look a bit like an Ostrich. The Emu is from another country that I have unfortunately never been too.

I know they were in Africa but I don't recall ever having any chance to see any up close. We did however have an Ostrich egg lamp. I am suspecting that my mother bought it at the market where she really wasn't supposed to go shopping. My mother had a very adventurous spirit. She was either very fearless or naive to the dangers she could encounter. I don't think that she ever felt that any person was unapproachable if she just had the right words or a big enough smile. Her favorite thing to do was take us down a road we'd never been. Often we were traveling by car to some destination. I think I inherited my mothers sense of time which means we both didn't have a very good one. If we were on a vacation driving and she was the driver it didn't really matter to her how we got there or how long it would take. She always wanted to veer off the highways and onto back roads. The scary sentence we dreaded was, "lets just see where this goes." Off we would go and sometimes we could end up on a road that wasn't really even a road, but someones driveway. All her passengers/children were usually URGING her to stop or turn around because we were sure we were going to be shot by the property owners. Well that never happened but we did often come upon some interesting places. It was this spirit that we objected too that also took us to many wonderful and incredible places. I am approaching the first anniversary of my mother's passing, so I'm grateful really to be doing this processing, this remembering. This REmemoring of my life with her.

If you would love to own this cute face of an EMU .. email me at iwilldream4ever@aol.com. Have a wonderful day and I'll see you tomorrow. :) Oh and this face is sewn wrapping paper and a map and a calendar. The size is about 8 1/2 x 9 and painted with acrylic paint. The map was from South Dakota. That place is another story on another day. haha.