Doing what I do

 After the wedding

Watercolour and marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

SOLD ♥

(The day after Megan and Christopher's

wedding we had lunch in a lovely

restaurant in Wellington, Ontario

called East & Main.  They do

not have checkered placemats, but

 beige, woven mats.  The artist

needs some colour.  The tomato

and cheese salad in the background

is sooooo good.)

What I do is paint.  You know that.  Everything
else I do gets squeezed in between painting and
painting.  We painters are more than a little crazy.
We not only do this strange job, but we make up
all sorts of rules about how to do it, and how to
succeed at it.  Then we elect the gods of our craft
(and that's true of all the arts) and we revere those
people.  Meanwhile we keep on keeping on painting.
It is such a part of our painting lives.  If you're
reading this and you don't paint, don't be envious.
Maybe you obsess about something else --
building fences, or writing poems, or living the
good life.  For us, it is the paint, what makes the
paint do what we want to do.  That's our day-to-day
call --how can we make that paint follow our
thoughts, or our thoughts follow the paint, and
ultimately when can we paint again.  I'm going to
bed.  I'll paint again tomorrow.

Have a doing-what-you-do day.

More TV

Kristal Hart, a New York reporter for Manhattan TV
reviewed our show in May, and is showing the highlights
on Manhattan TV on Tuesday night in New York City.
Here's a clip from the show.  I had so much fun there
and I think it shows.

Flowers are done, and life is awesome

Small is beautiful

Watercolour and marker on

Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

Hi everyone,

Here's another picture from the garden.
 I was looking through
my blog, and found this draft of a
 piece I never posted.  But I love the
sentiment in it, and the memory of both
 of these happenings made me happy.
So here's the piece.

I do this exercise with my students
sometimes that I call the Whoop exercise.
 I learned it from Mike Dooley who
writes the Notes from the Universe that
 he sends out in email five days a week.
(The universe takes the weekends off.)
Anyway the exercise involves putting
your hands in the air and whooping like
something over the top amazing has just
happened.  Every time I do it something
 wonderful happens.

I was driving home last week, and thought
 I have to have new pens to draw with,
because they make drawing such a pleasure.
Out of the side of my eye I saw a group of
Canada Geese making their way across the
parking lot.  What I didn't know was that out
 on the four lane street going into the mall
 about 100 geese had decided
 to cross the road... walking.  And may I add
 walking at a graceful, stately and sloooooow
 pace.  The mid-day drivers out on their errands
 in their giant, shiny, fast cars do not like
 interruptions.  This is a busy and frantic town.
  But you know what?  In both directions, drivers
 in four lanes stopped stock still until every last goose
 had crossed and was safely off the road and
that took about ten minutes.

On Thursday night Steven and I headed
out to Ikea for our usual little inexpensive
dinner.  Standing in front of us in the long line
was a couple with two  beautiful children in
 a shopping cart.  The older girl was standing
up and the baby -- about two sitting and fretting.
The father picked the baby boy up, and the
 baby and I played peekaboo until we reached
the point in the line where we were served.
To my surprise, later walking through the store
 finding this and that for the house, we met the
family again.  The little boy was with his Mom,
and when he saw me he ran across the store and
held his arms up in the universal baby language
for pick me up. So I did and hugged him.   His
 name was Grayson. I put him down, he
walked away, then ran back up to me for a second
 hug.  I was completely charmed.

That was it -- my draft.  When I notice the good,
something artists are lucky to be able to do, all
of life is amazing.
Finding this reminded me of that.

Have a noticing-small-miracles day

More flowers in the kitchen

 

Holding our heads high with pride

Watercolour on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

The week is nearing a close, and our kitchen table is
filled with the models from this week, white cream
and milk jugs filled with the garden's bounty --
mostly Nasturtiums, with a red geranium, some
Cosmos, and even some purple geraniums which
I haven't painted -- yet.  This focus on flowers
seems fair, and as I sip my tea, I'm thinking about
the series I'll start when the deep frost hits.

Meanwhile, here's a quote from my current
reading material -- The Elegance of the Hedgehog
by Muriel Barbery.  This is a hint about where
my painting may go, and also just exquisite prose,
something I am wildly addicted to.

"Then let us drink a cup of tea.  Silence descends,
one hears the wind outside, autumn leaves rustle and
take flight, the cat sleeps in a warm pool of light.
And, with each swallow, time is sublimed."
(From The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel
Barbery)

More Skype excitement coming up

Bright bouquet in a milk jug

Watercolour and black marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

(I come by my interest in

china honestly, especially

antique china, because my grandmother

when advised to rest after a

heart attack spent her mornings

painting beautiful designs on china

that her grandchildren covet.

She was an amazing artist.)

This month a teacher in Virginia contacted
me asking me if I'd talk to his class (via
Skype) about doing portraits on Skype.
The teacher is an amazing artist himself,
and an inspiring, wonderful teacher at the
public school level.  So I'll tell you more about
 what we're going to be doing when I know more.
We had a great talk and began tossing ideas
around of how to organize the event.

Meanwhile I am still working on capturing
the last of the summer's flowers (although
now I think you'd have to officially call
them fall flowers.)

Look at this

Acrylic on canvas

24 x 24 inches

Barbara Muir © 2011

But I'm also thinking about my son and
daughter-in-law half way around the world,
on their honeymoon.  They have been the
inspiration for many Skype paintings.
I'm including one of Megan and Christopher tonight.

Have a enjoying-all-of-the-excitement-life-brings day.

My friend Róisín in Ireland

 Róisín O'Farrell's movie for her show at

The Doorway Gallery, A room of one's own

You may have noticed that I've written about Róisín O'Farrell
before.  She is a friend in Ireland, who I met through the
blog, and who is an astounding painter, and an incredibly
hard worker.  She has 23 paintings in a show at The Doorway
 Gallery, 24 Sth Fredrick Street, in Dublin, that opened
last Thursday and runs until Oct 16th.

I feel particularly blessed to know her, and I'm continuously
dazzled by her work.  She is a single Mom, raising two
little girls, and painting every day.  And, and, and -- she
quotes me in the movie she made herself to promote
the show.  If you want to buy any of the work, you better
get there either online, or in person fast, because she
usually sells every painting she creates.  Now there's a
mantra I can get behind.  Try it -- "I sell every painting
I create."

Have a loving-your-painting-friends-day.

If I weren't human

September's bliss

Watercolour and marker

on Arches watercolour paper

6 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2012

I've just finished this little watercolour and it's rather
late at night.   If I had infinite energy I'd keep painting
now.  Steven fixed a beautiful, pewter, table clock on the weekend.
It's ticking, plus the big kitchen wall clock is thunking out
the seconds, and I feel hypnotised both by fatigue and
their insistent rhythm. 

But if I could stay awake in the solemn quiet of the
 night I'd paint the glorious Japanese Anemones
I brought in tonight -- standing out white against the darkness,
graceful beyond my imagination.   I am human, and
glad that you are too.  You'll understand I hope.
Here's a small watercolour of Nasturtiums and white
Cosmos. So little time, so much to paint.

Have a relishing-your-humanity-day.