"99% of life is just showing up"

I had that on the frig forever when the kids were growing up and it's still so true - when you just show up for something, things happen. Or unusual things happen. I was out painting last Thursday because it was 80 degrees and just gorgeous out (sorry Northerners). I drove around and settled in on King Street, tucked in a corner away from the traffic. I laid in the values, and was concentrating on details when I looked over in the doorway of the building I was painting - and there was someone "shooting me the moon"! Yep, I was looking over and a bare butt was staring back at me - and, it turned out to be a friend, who shall remain nameless (unless you ask in person and I would be happy to shame HER!)
Ain't life grand!

Rockets & Robots

I've been down for the count for over a week with whatever has been going around - and not one for daytime TV, it was a killer. But I'm back to painting, and have had a great time with the toys again. I was just telling an artist friend that after two years of painting indiviual toys, I've had a craving to paint a large still life - and it has been great fun! I love doing a series of them, and then letting them go back to their shelves for a while, and do different things.
And then someone sends me another great toy, and I'm off and running.

"Serial Painter"

"Rain Shadows II"

24x30

It's raining today and John and I are traveling to Beaufort for a show tonight - never a good combo, but shows are always fun as long as you take them in stride. Selling something is always a plus - and getting them into the gallery to hang just as good!
A friend asked me the other day - a non-painting friend - "Why" was I painting a certain subject. It seemed like such an odd question. I paint just because it's something I seem to NEED to do, and tend to be a "serial Painter" - The "Toy Series" is still alive and well, and I have a new grouping of paintings having to do with shadows - a series started in Paris. (The painting above was great fun, and one that my Mom took back with her to Upstate New York after visiting a few weeks back.)
That's why I love my husband so much - he thinks it's very cool when I am in the studio painting and have something like, I don't know, a fish on a plate as a still life !

Gary Grier

Had to share this one...

Gary Grier is an artist friend here in Charleston that I think is just a wonderful painter. I love this picture - he had an opening at the City Art Gallery downtown, and I stopped in to see him before the show. I think that this is a hoot, with him looking at one of his larger paintings, and one of my favorites to the left. May even do a painting of this sometime...