Movie night and Happy Father's Day tomorrow

 

Portrait of my father 
black marker on bond paper
7 x 9 inches
Barbara Muir © 

Tonight is movie night, Saturday night, and we've had a super
day with family.  As always when it's close to Father's Day, I'm
thinking even more about  my own father, who's been gone for
too long.

My thoughts from a former post express my thoughts perfectly, so
I'll share them with you:

"I like the portrait of my father. It makes me happy
because it captures the wonderful, loving nature of my Dad. 
In the reference photo my father is smiling at Christopher, my
older son, who was a little boy at the time.  Our son Sam had not 

been born yet.  I miss my father every day.  

And my  father is still a huge influence in my life.  He was a
wonderful writer, a business man, a fabulous photographer, and
 a great painter -- good at all of his roles. He was a strict father to
young children, which is probably why I don't like rules to this day.
I'm sure his time in the navy contributed to that. But as I grew up we
developed a happy bond over art, and over family, and were

close at the time of his death from lung cancer way too early.

My dad would have been delighted to know our children and to
see how they have grown up into amazing people."

Have a loving your life day!

4501 blog posts and more Happy Father's Day week!

 

Happiness framed

Black marker on moleskine paper

4 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches

Barbara Muir © 

I didn't check the numbers yesterday, and I meant to celebrate
reaching 4500 posts with you.  Thank you so much for your
support and inspiration through the years.  I love seeing
your work, and have had an awesome time as an artist because

of the blog, Instagram and Facebook community.

This drawing is of framed portraits of me with my baby Sam,

and my son Christopher.  I have such happy memories of 
life with my sons, and now our family has grown with two
wonderful daughters-in-law and three grandchildren.  It is
a super group -- so loving, and funny, and amazing.

Wishing you a wonderful Father's Day weekend, whether you
celebrate a father, or a kind person who acted like a father to
you when you were growing up.  

Have a loving your life day!

Speaking of drawings -- this is one of my best

You can't keep a good man down

Acrylic ink and acrylic on canvas

36 x 48 inches

Barbara Muir © 2020
(This is my husband Steven,

-- father of my two wonderful sons)

Frequently Father's Day is earlier in the month, but this year it's on 
June 21.  So this could be Father's Day week, or it could be next
week depending on what suits you.  I love this drawing on 36 x 48 inch
canvas in acrylic ink.  It's of Steven relaxing at an art show I was
in in Niagara Falls.  

It's late and we went to IKEA for dinner tonight where I enjoyed
the delicious salmon, and talking to a sweet couple from
Columbia in line.   

I painted today,and had a delightful conversation with an artist
online, plus I sorted what felt like endless files.  A good feeling.

Have a loving your life day!

 

The delight of journals

 

Journal Sketch
Marker on journal paper
6 x 8 inches
Barbara Muir © 

I was looking through old journals and found this sketch. I've
started drawing again most days in my journal, as well as writing
2 or 3 pages.  It is true that writing the journal somehow makes it
easier to be creative.  And a simple drawing once a day keeps my
mind happy.  I didn't get to paint very much today, but I did plan
what I'll do tomorrow.  

What I like about the drawing is that I think one of my best 
practices for the past few years (maybe a lot more, check out the
journals in my book shelves)  has been to write in a journal
for three pages, or two pages, with a drawing. If I work on that
with my first coffee I feel like I've done something like art,
and then I can enjoy the rest of the day, crossing that off my to do
list.

Have a loving your life day.

Remembering the Happy Art Award -- and you've got it!

The Barbara Muir Happy Art Award

Barbara Muir ©

(and  this painting was

in the Food For Thought
show put on by the San Fernando Valley
Arts and Cultural Center in California,
in 2022 at this time. Virtually.)

I'm working on refining work for the next show at the
Heliconian -- Primary opening June 27. And I found this
post that reminded me of a time when I got brave enough
to create my own art award. I loved that I could
offer a personally created award to all of the artists I knew.
The good news is that the painting sold -- which is super.

Here's some of my thinking about the award.

"Suddenly I remembered this -- The Happy Art Award.  Actually
The Barbara Muir Happy Art Award -- a kind of Oscar
for artists designed by me.  But why me you ask?  And why
not?  I reply.  I thought it up one day in response to the many
blog awards going around at the time, and sent it out to all
the artists on my blog list.

Forgive me now, but if you're reading this, you have won the
award, and one day when I am very rich (let that be soon!)
there will be a monetary prize attached.  But for now to all
my artist friends, collector friends, art appreciator friends,
art inspiring friends, galleries, and art show curators, writers
-- to everyone in short who helps me get this job of art done
-- you win my lovely award.  Your art, friendship, support
makes me happy and that's why you win!"

I think in a world that is making so many of us feel tense and worried
there has never been a more important time to help one another feel
happy if at all possible."

Thank you one million times over.  

Have a loving your life day! 

Monday thoughts -- letting June be the month of love

 

For David Lobenberg

Self portrait
Acrylic on canvas
12 x 12 inches
Barbara Muir © 

Happy Birthday to my friend Suzanne -- sending you lots
of love. I just bought Austin Kleon's latest book shown above,
and can't wait to read it.  A teacher friend of mine says that self
doubt and criticism about art starts at about eight years
old.  I've noticed that in my young relatives, and I'm
eager to read Austin's book.  I just opened it a few minutes

ago, and he begins by explaining that he learned so
much from watching his children make art. Agreed.

One thing I've started to do to get back to being happy after digesting
the news is a technique called the Love list which came to
me in my dreams one night. How does that work? Create a

simple list in your mind of 20 things you love about your current life.

I list things like my morning coffee made by my husband, the beautiful
flowers from my neighbours in the kitchen, a phone call with a friend
in The Netherlands, a note from a friend in France, the view out
the window.

In the spirit of trying to be happy with one's life, I found this great
blog about loving yourself, and I want to share it tonight:

"When I taught Positive Psych one of the first things we said

to students was that if you don't know yourself, you won't love 

yourself, and if you don't love yourself, you can't love anyone else,

and you won't be happy.

This was totally not acceptable when I was growing up -- loving 

yourself smacked of narcissism.  But in fact nothing could be 

further from the truth. If we love and accept ourselves, the world 

is less about us, and more about the people we love.  It's when we 

don't love ourselves that we go around hurting other people, don't end up

doing what we love, and generally don't enjoy our lives.

I credit Louise Hay, excellent therapy and Frank Daley, who

was my boss, and wrote the book Who are you and what are you
doing here? for helping me get that concept.  It is an excellent 
idea.  When you love yourself, you love others."

And I'm pretty sure what Austin Kleon will suggest is that when
you think of art as play, it's fantastic.  Thank you Austin, I can't
wait to learn more.

Have a loving your life day!

The induction of the kitten-- the slow process of cats becoming friends

Steven holds the cat and kitten for a pose
Monet (left), Monique (right)

Photo
Barbara Muir © 2026

Having a kitten is a bit like having a toddler.  The same energy, maybe even
more so, the same delight, and so much anxiety about what the kitten could 
get into or knock down next. I've probably talked about this before, but with
an animal at less than a pound with the speed of lightning, keeping Monique
our kitten safe is quite the job.

On the upside (if you're not a cat person skip this post) a few minutes ago 
Monet (our four year old girl cat, and Monique our 14 week old girl kitten)
were lying together on one of the kitchen chairs together. This only lasted
 a few minutes, but it was progress.

Monique wants to be friends with Monet.  And we got the kitten so Monet
would have a friend So. That may happen. This photo was staged of course.
The interesting thing (to us), was that Monet wanted back on Steven's knee
with the kitten after I tooK the shot. It didn't happen. But hey!

Have a loving your life day!