Enough of that applesauce -- family

Happiness framed

Black marker on moleskine paper

4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches

Barbara Muir © 2015

I am not domestic.  Period I guess. I tidy, sweep, change my bed, cook when

I have to, but would do none of it if I didn't have to.  I'm lucky I married

a man who loves to cook, loves to chop up veggies for stir fries and salads,

makes cookies all the time.  But I am not that way.  So you will understand

that I love my husband, Steven, so much that I chopped up a bag and a half of

apples today, to make one quart jar of applesauce.  This is his passion.  His

family had a bowl of applesauce on the table at every meal.  Ironically one

of my father's polite sayings instead of the current rude slang, when he 

thought what we were saying was wrong, or nonsense, was -- "That's enough

of that applesauce."  And today it is.  Just enough.  Tonight Steven will help

me with endless paperwork, and his reward is a jar of one of his favourite

foods.  I'm including some art featuring my family, because family and

their stories matter.  Have some applesauce -- the homemade, not nonsense, or

b.s. kind.

The Maharani's Great Granddaughter with 

her Great Granddaughter

Acrylic on canvas

30 x 30 inches

Barbara Muir © 2016

After the dance reading the paper

Acrylic on canvas

16 x 20 inches

Barbara Muir © 2010

Sam on Mother's Day

Black marker on watercolour paper

8 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2009

The applesauce I made today,

and the source -- a bag and a half of

these babies.

Have a making your own stuff day.

Brisk winds and ocean dreams

Untitled (work in progress)

Acrylic and acrylic ink on canvas

12 x 12 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

This painting grew out of straight up longing for a view of the
ocean.  It is still a work in progress, but I was singing
painting it (you don't want to hear), and so ridiculously
happy.

In fact I looked outside when I took a break and there
were giant snowflakes falling against a landscape that
is increasingly green!  Really.  I couldn't stop laughing,
knowing full well it wouldn't be funny if we had
Calgary's snow.  We didn't.  Rain followed.  But all
of it was accompanied by a strong, cold wind.

Ah for the ocean, the Pugwash beach, the jolly days
away from everyday life.

Have a dreaming wonderfully day.

10 things I've learned so far in the month of Fresh Starts

Pansies win the crown

Acrylic ink, watercolour and black marker

on watercolour paper

5.5 x 8.5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

1. Thank your friends.  New ideas and methods, and
opportunities come flying in from some of the most
wonderful people in the world -- your friends.

2. Make your own rules.  Listen to other people's
thoughts, and suggestions.  But no one else can
do you.

3. Have as much fun as possible.  I get emails from
Tut.com daily -- Notes from the universe -- and I
think he said that's one of the most important things.

4.  In the face of controversy (and there is some!),
try to be loving.  Even when your first impulse is
to hate, hug yourself mentally and muscle on with
your kindness.

5.  Sleep.  Not on someone else's schedule, but
sleep.

6. Spend time with the people who love you the
most, near and far.  They deserve time with you,
and also make you feel great.

7. Roll with the waves.  Creativity, and all of
life comes in and out like the ocean waves. Let
it if you can.

8. Try going for a walk.  Birdsong, flowers (they
are starting here, and even your friend's dog can
make you feel blissfully happy after 20 minutes.
(Remember that book on raising children that
pointed that out. Write me if you do.)  Raising my
children I used that method, on both my sons and
my husband.

9.  Read a book.  Sometimes even a sentence or
a word can set off a chain of ideas. But books are
lovely for escaping too.

10.  Dance.  A singer with a lovely voice, Sara Bareilles,
was on Saturday Night Live last night, and Steven and I
were so moved, that we looked her up and then
danced to her amazing song.

Have a loving your life day.

Rescue Me in the Month of Fresh Starts

Pansies in a blue glass vase

Acrylic ink, watercolour and black marker

on watercolour paper

5.5 x 8.5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2018

One thing you might not know about artists is that we
don't like waste.  We especially dislike wasting our own
work. That's why this former watercolour (now watercolour
plus acrylic ink) painting was bothering me each time I
looked at it.   It's in the pad of watercolour paper I've
been using for my pansy paintings.

Ta Da! (Trumpet sound!), today I worked on it.
Not sure it's 100% better, but it has some of the depth
and richness pansies deserve.  I keep talking about the
weather, and I hope you don't find that irritating, but it
is quite cold here again.  I am certainly getting my wish
for a prolonged spring.  And my poor pansies outside
are struggling.

Looking for this painting on my blog before the fix I
found nothing. It never made it into publication, poor thing.
What I did find was soooooooo many pansy paintings.
Clearly a passion.  So accept it please.  The obsession
was planted ( ;-) by my mother, and a wonderful art professor.

I also found this discussion about how we artists think.
I'd met a lady walking my dog back in 2010 who said that
I was lucky I was a painter, because I had something to look
forward to.  (Rule #1 for artists, never reveal the total dread we
sometimes feel going into the studio to try and finish a
piece.)  And I wrote this in response to her remark.

"This statement confused me at first, and I walked
down the path overwhelmed with the thought --
what?  But the truth was so far from that sentiment
that I might have required a full orchestra and a movie
crew to describe it.  Yes I do have something to look
forward to.  I realized as that phrase washed in and out
of my brain that I really, really do!  For instance on
that walk, each flower, each leaf, each shade of green, and 
brilliantly coloured stem, the sky, the other dogs, people 
like the woman I met on the path, every single bit of it was
 something to look forward to.In fact each day, despite the 
odd bit of fatigue, and sadness for others, and bone weary sorrow
 over the world's ills, and some of our tendencies to not want to
see them, is so filled with things, events, joys, songs, laughter,
love and detail, detail, detail, all absorbing -- that the very phrase
 left me gobsmacked. "

Have a loving each detail day!

Dreaming of escape in The Month of Fresh Starts

Breakfast Quebec City style

Watercolour and black marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Last summer I promised myself I'd go easy this summer.

This winter I forgot my promise to myself and have
arranged a very busy summer indeed, and half of the
planning isn't complete.  But this year I think I can
handle it.  (Last year I had a broken wrist.)

Thinking about what to show tonight, on a day when
I ran around getting paperwork done, I thought of this
painting.  Our breakfasts in the beautiful hotel in Quebec
City on our way to and from our Nova Scotia school
house will stay in my mind and heart forever.

Everything was done so beautifully.  Plus I think in this
particular case we'd been upgraded to a magnificent room
with windows facing the old city and the harbour.  Amazing.
And the servers who brought the breakfast treated us
like royalty, setting the table so elegantly.  Some of that
disappears the moment you start to eat, but what a way
to start the day!  I know I've told you before that I think
breakfast, especially in a lovely hotel room, is a very
romantic meal.

Here's to your own romantic dreams this weekend!

Right now pansies rule

Gather ye pansies while ye can!

Acrylic ink, watercolour and black marker

on watercolour paper

5.5 x 8.5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2018

Spring is tilting into reality here.  The trees still

aren't in full bud, but forsythia are starting to 

show their yellow blooms, and scilla carpet 

lawns in the most beautiful blue.  Occasionally

this week it has been warm enough for people

to walk around in shorts.  This make me feel

nostalgia in advance for the pansies.

I bought some more, and stuck them on my front

steps.  But it's been too cold at night and they're

not producing many flowers, so I pick them as soon 

as they bloom, and today I'm painting them

again.  They don't like hot, and don't like cold.

Right now it fluctuates between warm and cold, but

I know I don't have long. 

What's the line from the Robert Herrick poem?

"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may."  Make that

pansies, and you've got the sentiment.

Have an enjoying what each day offers day.

Happy sketch of the neighbourhood -- and Fresh starts

The best kind of day -- Happy

Acrylic ink and black marker

on watercolour paper

5.5 x 8.5 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

In the Month of Fresh Starts I am trying to see things in new
ways.  In my art practice that's simple.  Or at least could
be.  Walk out of the room and walk back in, and everything
looks different.  A magic trick right?  And sometimes it
works.

Today thinking about what to post, I went through my
watercolours to find this sketch in bold ink with
acrylic ink used as colour.  When I first worked on it a few
weeks ago I quit. It wasn't doing what Iwanted it to do.
And I put it away.  But today I saw what to change, and
liked how it deepened, the colours got richer,
and the whole process made me happy.

I have done a few paintings on canvas of the schoolyard
in our neighbourhood.  One sold in New York City.  This
is just another view, and maybe one day I'll paint this larger.

Meanwhile have a great rest of the week, and thank
you for being there.

Have a looking at life with new eyes day.