upcoming somerset, nov, 2008, page 1.....

of course it will be in better focus.....

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local travel......

looks like we will be sightseeing all over town and southern california now that we have the new car. ....... 

democratic festivities........

we watched the democratic nomination ceremony last night.  

i like obama, but not as much as the person i want to write in on the ballot................al gore!

wow Al, that was the best political speech i have ever heard.  obama is a good speaker too, but al gore knocked it out of the park!

i wonder how long he practiced that speech, it was flawless and powerful and infused me with political excitement which i haven't felt since the vietnam times.

so why didn't al gore make such a passionate speech when he was running for office?  maybe he was tired from all his campaigning, perhaps he has become more polished, perhaps i wasn't really listening.

or is it that now really is the time, the changing of the tides, the necessary movement our government needs to act on , NOW!   or our country and our planet, has learned to face the inconvenient truths.......

i never realized until last night just how intelligent and cool al gore really is....

i believe obama too, i really think he is a people's person.  

now let's see what the republicans have to say.

life takes on a new pleasure.....

first i want to say that my daughter brooke made it through her minor surgery just fine (deviated septum)....she will be able to breathe  better now......

tomorrow is my husband's bday.  i was wondering what to give him - i have painted prize fighters for him before - but also i usually hit a homerun if i get him some kind of gadget, like an ipod or ipod assesory.  i was contemplating a "crystal" virtual theater you wear like sunglasses.....

then, suprise, he came home early and said he had been negotiating for a new car....so la -de- dah, we went and picked it up....just look at our new beauty, the new family car.  this is the prettiest car i have ever seen.   its a cls 550 mercedes, artic white, 4 door.  it hums and slides through traffic, it has a million buttons, but the dash does not look overloaded with them.  it not only has a butt warmer, it has a butt cooler in the seats.  each seat  has its own temperature control.  it has a cooler for drinks in the trunk and, of course, it parks itself.

it is so cool, we are afraid to drive it.   i need to clear out our garage in order to put it in.......

one more preview......

of my bisquick batik
technique which will be in the november 2008 issue
of somerset studio magazine......
this piece is called "school girls".


i want to dedicate "school girls" to my oldest daughter, brooke, who is going in for minor surgery tomorrow. i have never had a child of mine go in for any surgery ever (knock on wood), so i am a little nervous, although trying to keep my calm for her brave sake.
good luck my brookie, i will be there for you.........

back to unusual techniques:
for the november issues, i try to think up a technique that has something to do with cooking and christmas/winter/ holiday making.
a few years ago you may remember i wrote up a techniuqe called "milk resist"...
i developed that technique because i was thinking about milk and cookies, so i experiemnted with milk and cookie cutters (and stamps and writing pens dipped in milk). i determined over a course of experiements that low fat milk works best...i wrote in milk with a nibbed pen (or stamped) on white cardstock- i let it dry,  then sprayed ink lightly over the top and  heated it with a heating tool.  the milk carmelized and then was easily removed by brushing it off or by using  a damp cloth.   what was left behind was a nonsticky,  non-smelly wonderful creamy white color, instead of a stark white resist to the dye that you would get with a purchased resist product.
the colors were heavenly: soft pastels - pink, soft green, lavendar and creamy white - fantastic for the holidays.
i hope you enjoy!

preview somerset....

in the upcoming november issue of somerset studio magazine, i will have a cool article on a technique i made up called "bisquick batik".
here is one of the many examples you will see.
basically it involves cloth, bisquick, a microwave oven and paints. oh, and soap and water.

cox cable.........argh

i'm still fighting mad at my service provider, cox.  i never know when i can get on my computer.

i can write here, but i can't read my mail.  if you emailed me today, i wasn't able to read it.  maybe that's not cox- i don't know - maybe that's aol.  whomever, i really don't like it.

i had a very lazy, crazy day today.  my daughter and i swam for 2 1/2 hours...when we came out ofthe pool,  the afternoon was gone......we rented a movie called death and a funeral (something like that)- which was funny about half way in......the first half was boring, i thought.

and that about sums it all up.

i will be working hard this week getting ready for a show the second week of september in escondido at the escondido arts partnership.  i have my own display room.  the reception will be the second saturday night of september 13.  5:30-8:30, there will be lots to look at and lots of wine and goodies.  come, mark your calendar.

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more doodles........

background doodles.............
just for the fun of it.

doodles

been enjoying my book on doodling.

(see previous post a few days ago).

now i have been on the look out for things to doodle on, like white tshirts, white canvas shoes, hats, aprons, backpacks, etc.

i have not mentioned my new commercial website lately because there has been a slight hitch - that would be me---- i have to hand enter every single thing we will carry onto the web page.  it is a huge  process, but worth it.

other things i haven't mentioned lately due to another but different, glitch is the san diego regional art magazine called Nmagazine.  there has been an uprising and a new distribution of power and some regrouping....i doubt the mag will come out before the end of the year now.  this slow-up has nothing at all to do with me----instead it is  due to people with more powerthan me.

i can't be responsible for every delay.....really,  come on now.

meanwhile, the workshop in Umbria (near Tuscany) Italy is still on calendar.  october 6-12, 2008 - its cheaper now.  i will be in italy the entire month of october to visit family in Gubbio, Umbria, in case you are planing on coming too.  Let's get together.  i have a nice retreat lined up for cheap in Gubbio (a beautiful, beautiful place), and i know many locals who would love to conduct classes in ceramics and plein air painting, as well as paper arts and wool.   of course i will teach you everything i know about the paintover technique and collage.   there will be a great opportunity to do watercolor and ink journals.   i can also lead you to wonderful, choice shopping in  out of the way little city nooks for art and  artists supplies.  places  you would not read out of a tour guided book.

flights are going down in price and ---- you will have more spending power with the dollar as the euro is getting very weak.   also workshops are a tax write-off if you are a professional artist.  the retreat is  "couples" friendly as i feel  no one likes to travel to italy alone.  do they? if you are interested in details, email me: lisabebiart@aol.com  time is running out. 

another piece in the works....

this sailor girl needs help. i'm not sure how i will approach this piece to morrow. but i will.

i kind of like the dark green square i left behind her head, i'm thinking of extending it more down the right side of the canvas.

she reminds of my daughter's friend named ashley. she has this certain look sometimes. she is home from school recovering from spinal meningitis right now. get well ashley.

i had a great day shadowing my daughter in high school yesterday. i was called on to answer a question in the middle of her english class. i was sitting with all the other parents in the back of the class. the subject was "communication registers". meaning, we all talk differently in different situations, i.e. i talk differently to rosie than i would talk to my doctor.

so, the teacher picks to me and says; mrs. bebi, i see you have a special relationship with your daughter, what is a name you use for her that you would not use on anyone else.

first i said i call her rosie (while everone else calls her rosa), but i also call her (here is where i choked as i could not think of even ever having a child; the room went white).....er, (god, why me - rosie is shaking her head vehemently nooooooo), "i call her......'babydoll'."

the class rose in such a storm of laughter and gaiety while her face turned beat red, almost as red as mine...others were saying "ooooh, rosa you look like a babydoll.." she was sending me darts from her eyes, saying "no she doesn't, that's a lie".

she was right, it was a lie, kinda....i mean, i am hopeless about thinking on my feet. i wondered where i came up with that one --- babydoll made me sound like a pervert.

thinking about it now, i call her "sweetie pie". if i'm in the mood.

oh yeah, when i got home later that evening after swim practice, my husband asked me, "so how was your day, babydoll?"

oh, yeah, that's where that comes from.

the rest of shadowing her was OK, at EXCEL class that is like study hall, i begged her to ditch with me. so boring.

she wouldn't ditch. jeesha, what is the matter with kids these days.

i learned a lot about her and her school and teachers and i would recommend it to all parents no matter how much your child protests. or no matter how bored you think you would be.

placid boy....

this is the painting i started yesterday and was not able to finish because of the 3 p.m. interruption called my life. (see previous post).

i have interesting stuff going on naturally at the bottom of the painting, so i don't really know what to do next. i really hate to disturb that watercolor effect.
the boy is both painted and drawn - i don't normally draw this much on a painting. i'm going to work more on him tonight. just don't know what to do next. ever have that feeling? i know, we all do.

remember the painting i was developing (see previous posts a couple of weeks ago), well, i go to a hard part and put it away for awhile. right now it is bugging me from a corner of my studio, the last thing i did was paint over a lot of it in red. maybe tomorrow i will give that mess a new try.

maybe i will listen to joy logan and put the unmbrella back in it.

sleeplessness.....

gawd, why can't i sleep?  is it cipro?

i bet i can't sleep because i didn't finish this painting i'm in the middle of (not the collage show here)......that kind of thing plagues me.

i had to stop working because of  daily life stuff. 

i try to time my work better, create before 3 p.m. when my daughter storm-troops her way into the house demanding instant feeding, get out of the way, she has to go to the toilet, whats on TV, no, i don't have homework cuz i did my homework at school, gawd its hot, can we go early to swim practice.....

 and did i get her phone fixed yet?????  (she left it immersed in a 1" deep water puddle by the pool - she had said that i got overly excited about it "gawd, mellow out,  see, it still works..."  i told her to wait a  week.  and so a week later, bingo. "OMG, momma, my phone is acting weird...."!  i wanted to tell her to mellow out, but she would not get it.)

and then i watch her flushed, youthful, energized face as i listen to her stories of tragedy and drama in her first weeks of high school;

  her daily after school log of the many, many personal affronts she had to endure over the course of the day.  

for instance, there was a boy who said he didn't like how her eyes got big while she talked and therefore will not look at her again.  she had said she couldn't possibly know what her eyes were doing as she talked.  (i thought that was a mean thing of the boy to say, but then she leveled the playing field by telling him he was ugly!)  hmmm.

then there was someone in her PE class who challenged her in swimming, then complained that rosie's feet were too huge and ugly because they had kicked splashiness into her face.  (so, i'm beginning to think everyone is very mean spirited at her school or perhaps, rosie interprets things a bit personally.)

then at dinner, rosie got a bit pissy with me because i am going to go to her school wednesday on shadow day.....she said that i was not allowed to hold her hand, lean on her, or hobble (just had knee surgery) and that if i did,  she was going to rent a wheelchair and push my atop a hill and lock me in place so that i couldn't move.

i thought that was a bit extreme.

she got told off for that.  and so did her dad for laughing.  argh.

well, i'm feeling sleepy at last here at 3:30 a.m. night er, good day.

 

a new book i just bought.....

i have gone NUTS for doodling.  it all started with the olympics - sitting in front of the tv, watching the olympics with my family until late hours every night, also feeling low energy due to my temporary health issues.  (i'm feeling fine now, BTW) and just wanting to draw.

then i saw this little workbook "the doodle formula" at michaels....(little expensive $15 for a small booklet) but anyway, i bought it and believe it or not, i have found this book to be very useful.

so i have been doodling for a few days now - well, not all day everyday, not while i was at the swim meet or clearing up around the house or busy entering my art into the san diego regional show ;) or sleeping off this UTI, but the rest of the time. or i should say, my rest time.  

i think i will create some doodle stamps, so that i don't have to doodle the same things over and over.

so if i am talking on the phone (a rarity as i hate the phone) i can either   a.) doodle or  b.) stamp a doodle or  c.) doodle on a stamped doodle or

 d.) all of the above (which is kinda like c.) .

tomorrow i am going to buy a white ink pen to doodle on my darker paper.  my favorite opaque pens right now are sharpie "poster paint" pens.  i think the ink really is poster paint -   which is not everlasting - i think it will wash out of your clothes.  i love how juicy and opaque and thick the ink (paint) is.  it flows very freely (they don't clog cuz its a felt tip).  and you can buy them in huge nibs, so that you can practically "paint" with these pens, as in, painting a big background on a poster! 

but i only want a small nib with white ink. or maybe a few bright colors, neons.  there is a big selection at dick blicks.

so toodle-y-doodle-y.  (OK, i think my medicine is making me silly.)  

sillier than usual.

i heard....

that the woman's fastest marathon runner (Roumania's, constantina tomescu) had to be blow-darted in the ass to stop running her victory laps.....?  anyone else hear that?

OK, i admit it, i made that up.

but i bet she is still running.

(it's late and my husband is alseep, so i couldn't use the scanner tonight..er, its in our bedroom) so you get an old image.  sorry.  i'm calling it "dara torres and her pet fish" in honor of her.  she lost a first place medal by using the "cavic"' finish.  in my mind, dara, you got the gold!  what's 1/100th a second anyway, when you have lived to 41. 

awesomely fast leg on the relay too.  yeeay for old ladies!

portrait blue....

i can't help but love gymnastics - (still watching the olympics). our two amercian girls really had to work hard to get 1st and 2nd. what beauty, poise, drama, grace. so so beautiful to watch. nastia liukin and shawn johnson, you girls rock!

i know what happened in the 100 fly tonight (swimming), but my eyes tell me that phelps got second. i'm so glad that he did get first though, that boy makes his mom and all of us so proud.

meanwhile back here at home. i spent the day sleeping. again. the knee surgery/UTI combo has me flat. also the cydpro (antibiotics) is tough to take. cydpro is strong, it's what is given to people who have been exposed to ANTHAX -that's what my news reporter daughter brooke told me. so i don't feel so awful about being so sick and lying around. actually not just lying around, but sleeping. i haven't slept so much since college.

i try really hard not to get frustrated with myself when i'm down. it's hard as i have too much ambition- to a fault for sure. for instance, i really believe it is unfair that i am only one person.

my husband always tells me to calm down - alas.

i missed wishing meredith happy birthday with a promised bday lunch today too. she was happy to take a rain check. i can't wait to give her the gift i found for her. i know she doesn't already have it, as i have never seen it before. i will tell you next week what it is so i won't spoil her surprise.

i have a new fun assignment from stampington (as an Artist on Call, it's the best job in the world).

i just received these really (too) cute stamps; a brand new line called the "un-usual suspects" by marylinn kelley. soooo cute. anyway, they are perfect for the doodling pieces i have been doing while watching the olympics. i was automatically ready to go and create with these beauties. i will give you a peek tomorrow.

today's art: this lovely lady is called "portrait blue". i did her some time ago, a paintover from a magazine ad, i wasn't really happy with how roughly i painted the pink and blue in her face, but over time, i liked it again, so i put her up. she is very famine; i wanted to honor the beautiful girls' gymnastics and post her as a tribute.

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i'm edgy...

ok, so i have just had surgery and am a bit hard to please right now.  i've been finding that things that generally annoy me are annoying me beyond sanity- to the point where i want to gorge my eyes out with dempsey's paws. 

 

today, for instance:

i was trying to have a restful day as i didn't sleep well last night.  turns out i have an infection, not in my knee, but in my bladder (TMI, i know), so i was trying to rest this afternoon, and finish reading "lolita" (a disturbing book on many levels, but well written)....

about 3:45p.m. the super charged up leaf blowing gardeners showed up (they usually come on fridays or even more irritatingly, they usually show up wednesday just hours after the pool cleaner does his final sweep, netting the very last of the week's fallen leaves).   

so, what the frick? what are they doing here today?  sure its good that they finally, after 15 years, listened to me and came the day before the pool cleaner guy comes.  but whats up with that?  my husband is never on my side about them....why?  because his mantra is "i told you years ago to fire those over priced illegals."  

ok, first of all, they aren't illegal. well, their boss isn't anyway.

second, why do i have to fire them, i can't fire anyone.  and third:  they aren't really overpriced.   they just charge for extra stuff that they say they do, but, well, i'm never sure.  like, 1.  fertilizer.  i have never once seen them with a bag of anything around our house.  2. repairing the sprinkler system.  i have never seen them do maintenance on the sprinkler system.  all they do is cap off what doesn't work. 3. pesticide.  ha, i thought i caught them on this one as i have never seen bugs, i said, "what bugs? they said, "ah, that's what i mean, baby, you don't see no bugs, cuz we spray."  (they always try to call me by my last name, which comes out baby.) 

see, i think they should be fired for using leaf blowers and playing loud (south of the border) music and coming whenever they feel like coming and never when i ask them to come unless like today, i don't want them to come because i am trying to rest.  gawd.

so,

they started up their very loud leaf blowers, more than one, i would say 3.  they obnoxiously and relentlessly  blow for 45 minutes.  but, they don't just blow, they kind of start-stop, like pedaling an undulating loud roar (reminds me of the way my mom used to apply her brake)is clearly the most irritating sound on the planet. 

the noise had me sooo pent up,  i think today if i felt better i would have ripped their faces off and thrown them in a pile with walmartcarters.....(see previous bitchy post)

  so, i'm trying to read the last few pages of my book when i feel my veins pop out in my temples. (not literally) i am trying so hard NOT to let this affect MY GOOD HUMOR!!.

then my daughter rosie came home from school (remember i'm reading lolita) .......so i call her upstairs to talk to her about her day and make sure she isn't lingering around downstairs unsupervised .....  when she runs in exuberantly, full of 13 year old -just released from school-energy, and flings her whole body heavily atop the bed, which unfortunately for both of us, was where (bent under the cover) was my newly operated on knee. christ*7&(^%^&*$@@?*&%2gawd!

she felt so bad.  it wasn't her fault, i tried to tell her.  i was sobbing, i couldn't help it and she was sobbing and the leaf blowers were drowning it all out.

here's the thing, we don't have that big of a yard that requires a 45 minute  a week blow job. (you know what i mean). and guess what else?  we don't even have leaves, we have palm trees. (except one trees that drops leaves year round in our pool). so what the hell is going on with the noise and the blowers?  they just have it on, strapped over their shoulders, for what?    they do other little chores with the noise going,  like shoveling up dog poo or trimming the roses ( i will get billed for rose fertilizer no doubt).  why do they do it?  i suspect they control me from coming outside to inspect their work.   it works, because oftentimes i just drive off.

anyway, after they left and my knee stopped throbbing and i had my meltdown and rosie had hers.  well, the day started to improve. 

end of daily bitch.

arrrgh......

there has been too much drama lately...... between the olympics, michael phelps (11 golds now) and all his historic record breaking and the incredible comeback of italy's fredrica pelligrini....i can't stop pulling my hair out.

but there is more.

tomorrow is my good art friend meredith's bday, so i needed to go shopping on my wobbly leg.  (for the sake of my good friend of course.)

 i have a real love/hate relationship with walmart. 

 i hate shopping there, for many reasons, but one big one is... WHO LET ALL THOSE PEOPLE DRIVE ALLTHOSE DAMN CARTS AROUND IN THE STORE????

 i swear one day i will pull the face off one of those giddy old ladies who show no aisle driving  manners or manners of any kind...who possess those damn motorized horrors like its their last hurrah and only way to proclaim their ancient bone rattling "woman's lib" movements (....more like "bowel movement").  they generally have boobs down to the pedals, yet ironically end up sideways in the aisle hogging the seasonal  swimsuit section.  ah, common granny, get off it!

what the freak?  whooooo?!  damn it, i wanna know...... who??? is responsible for letting walmart become a highway of lowlife old gumming thrill seekers. or worse.....the younger fat people who are just too f**ing lazy to walk the store. GAWD 

gawd, that pisses me off.  makes he hopping mad.  i wanted to get a couple of cheap tshirts to paint (in my new olympic colors)- but lo and behold, TWO carts with a family of fats clogged that aisle.  argh.  ugh. grrrrrr.

deep breath, *sigh.* ok.

anyway, the only thing is.....walmart now carries martha stewart's adorable collection of scrapbook and stamping paraphernalia. that's where the love comes in.... teehee. 

don't worry, meredith, i didn't get your gift from walmart....or did i? -  barnes and noble is next door too. 

olympic doodles.....

yay, swimmers!
max is enjoying an underwear swim.

olympic doodles continue....

i thought i would doodle an alphabet, then i looked over and my rosie was doodling one too. dang her's is much better!

doodling through the olympics...

i'm in the mood to doodle...i think its my pain pills ---causing this.

and trying to watch the olympics without getting too excited.

developing painting

still working in cool colors...... i think the mustard color will show up again as the accent. we will see.

oh, its mother goose -

and its jiggety jog........i like jimity jig better, tho.

"To market, to market, to buy a fat pig..."

by Mother Goose

To market, to market, to buy a fat pig, Home again, home again, dancing a jig; To market, to market, to buy a fat hog; Home again, home again, jiggety-jog; To market, to market, to buy a plum bun, Home again, home again, market is done.

 

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i lost my jimity jig....

it now hurts.....i can't sleep - guess the pain killers wore off.

and i overdid it.

 why doesn't the vicodin that they gave me work?  

 

whats that?  did you say... "probably because i have been on vicodin for nearly a year and now i am immune to it?"

ah crap.

home again, home again.... jimity jig.....

that's from the nursery rhythm that goes...."....he went to the market to buy a fat pig; then,  home again, home again, jimity jig" 

or something like that.    the point being that i am doing a jimity jig after my knee surgery this morning!  ah, at last, no more knee pain, at least until the meds wear off. 

 i'm feeling liberated.  no crutches, just a bigass bandaged wrapped knee.  i can still do the jig, though.

about the piece here:

i did a stupid thing yesterday.  i wanted to get one last cove swim; my last hurrah before going under the knife...

so...i went with my friends mary and mike, (rosie's coach) to swim a mile for exercise.... 

buuut, there was a minuscule warning sign up saying the water was a bit hazardous to swim in...people were ignoring it.  so did we.

 this is why i place the art with two green figures up today....after we swam, we found out the cove was 4 times over the threshold warning for icky, sticky toxic stuff in the water.   we found out later that there was a drainage problem with (barf) sewer.  we hadn't guessed that would be the case, since it hasn't been raining or anything.  and the cove has never has a hazard sign - a lifeguard there told us. (he didn't know how toxic it was, he was only told to put up a sign.)    (i personally suspect it was a restaurant above the cove dumping, illegally).  

god, i'm beginning to believe there is no safe place to swim nowadays.  remember a few posts back, i wrote about "the ringworm guy" at the club pool.   uggggggh.

and lots of times i have seem poop logs on the bottom of municipal pools after "kiddie swim".

and do you think birds avoid pooping in outdoor pools?

i think not.

ah, we are ok, so far,  just  stomachaches and head aches all 'round.  

i can hear my dear friend Kathy Olsen saying now, "i told you to never swim in polluted water - it can give you brain damage."

i know Kathy, i know, you're right it was very stupid, but as far as brain damage is concerned..... how could we tell if i contracted it?

just asking.

just a quick note.....

to let family and friends know, that yes, tomorrow early in the morning is my knee surgery!

i will be fine - out of the hospital by noon they said.

i don't need to have a.) a kidney donated, but thanks anyway, or b.) a new spleen, or c.) any of the other organs i that at one time i thought or imagined i would need.

i hope to do more work on the developing piece tonight....

the awkward phase....

i pooled in some color.

at this point ,the piece is down right ugly.

this is a hard spot in the development; to go from a photo-quality image ( more or less) to a painted image because the edges become blurred and the shadowed areas are too dark; the subtleties of skin tone are lost.

i have placed in cool colors, but i want the piece to be warm overall. so that is my next phase; to bring it up a notch in warmth.

it is hard for most people to carry on from this point,---they usually believe they have ruined the piece because the photo is kinda lost.

i tell my students to remember, this is going to look like a painting when done, not a tinted photo, try not to freak out. it is the essential part of the process.

(and besides, if worse comes to worse, one can always glue another copy of the same photo on top and begin again.) but we won't do that here.

red oak

as i was saying a few blog entries ago...here are the red oak wood panels that work so well with skin tones. here i have stained these two and ran my brush loaded with dark red paint over the top - these are ready and waiting for me to develop further.

photo of us

this is the snapshot of my brother and i under the umbrella (circa: 1954)that i enlarged and then glued down to the developing piece (see below).

although i love the old striped umbrella, i didn't choose to include it. why? because sometimes things, altho cute or cool, like an old umbrella, should wait their turn for a piece that calls for them to come forward. here, inclusion of the unmbrella would have been too much for this simplisitic piece.

developing piece

i found a photo of my brother and i under a beach umbrella.....i enlarged it at 300% - it is a black and white. when i went to glue it down with matte medium, there was a little bit of green on my brush....and it now looks like this.
i'm still working on it.

newest passion

structrual acrylic: i know this looks like i squirted mustard on my canvas (8" x 10") - but it is acrylic paint.
i have put this up here today to let you see how i develop a piece.
the first thing i did was use the canvas as a place to test my shimmering daubers on, see the cooper and turquoise blue (if you don't know what shimmering daubers are i will explain in my next post)?
then i took an empty squirt bottle and filled it with this cadmium medium yellow acrylic with a bit of a light/heavy gel medium mixed in and tested it for fluidity on the said canvas.......
i will now take this back into my studio and develop it more...just thought you might wanna see as i progress. its kinda like having you visit me in my studio.
one day i hope to be sophisticated enough to do some examples with the film running; like on youtube.

as for my e commerce website. looks like 2 more weeks as there was a lot more to put up than we anticipated. i will send out noticed when it goes "live" so that you will all know at once.
if you are interested in being on the first to see list, email me lisabebiart@aol.com.
just in for the site for sell: the site will be the only place in the whole (that i know of) that sells ATCs boards out of red oak....delicious to work on as it casts a warm color that is perferct for placing humans on. in other words, warmth and skin tone work well together on it.
other news:
i went to the gym to swim last night and weighed myself in...to my total shock i have lost 20lbs. WOW!!! HOLY SMOKES, that seemed easy all i have been doing is swimming.
i really lost my family's interest in me yesterday as i kept repeating: "i can't believe it, i lost 20 lbs." after the first ten times of them saying, yeah, you look great, keep it up, now don't stop..." it went to grunts of approval, then nothing....except my daughter, said "yeah you told us about 20 times already, we know."
so now i am bugging you with it. i mean i have been eating the same.

two days left before school starts, i'm going to take rosie to the cove again today. i hope the sharks are out today.

counter

hmmm, the counter doesn't seem to work unless it is on the current page....

same thing only different

this small canvas, i created by not really looking....same thing, mostly just cleaning off my brushes.



then i decided to turn it sideways,

and add this woman ATC that i had created about a week ago.

do you recognize her? i'm not sure about the atc that is a solid rectangle onto and morphy-looking background, that's why i can them studies. this piece would go for $20 even though it is a 7" x 9". i don't feel it is complete, but yet i am done with it.









hey!!! maybe i ought to sell the backgrounds and let you play with them. i will think about that, hmmmm, would you like that?

canvas palette

first i was mostly just cleaning off my brush on this canvas, then i realized it looked like a landscape.

so i added my dad and his bigass car!

like?

these crazy little play pieces will be for sale on my e commerce site for $30! this one is a 9" x 7". smaller ones will be only $20!!!

sideways abstract

i turned the palette canvas sheet sideways, ripped it in half and threw on a couple of ATCs that i made 2 weeks ago with meredith.

can you tell?

canvas used as a palette

one thing i have been doing lately is using a canvas as my palette. this one is actually a sheet of canvas from a pad.
i made several of these today while meredith was visiting and look how they got transformed once i threw on some of the atcs i made last time she was here.

my son, jamie

here is a picture of my son, jamie at age 15....taken during his years while under my care; looking healthy and neat..

what i mean by that comment is.... well, he grew up. he has graduated from UCSB and lives on his own in santa barbara and has grown a beard and his hair is different and he is , well, just older. he is now 23.

he is a brainiac...a brilliant writer, a poet and a saint. he is gentle and kind .

rosie and i went to visit him the other day(see previous post)and dropped off the van we gave him. we missed him very much. when rosie and i took off on the train to come home, rosie weeped deeply - as she misses him so much. it was a very tender moment.

and it was kinda heart breaking...but our kids do need to move on. santa barbara is not so far away afterall.

my daughter, brooke, little miss energetic, lives in pasadena - what a beautiful place that is. she is 31 now.

i know many of you know all this already - but i still like to talk about the kids.

i really need more current pics of the family. maybe as a christmas present this year, my kids will all cone over and we will have a family photo. i would really like that for a gift.