I'm busy working on projects that I can't post about yet, artwork that I can't show yet...and while my first cherry tomato and newborn green beans, less than an inch long thrill my soul......I don't pretend that in a world of green thumbs and happy gardeners....my  modest vegetal progeny would impress anyone other than myself.....
   a happy coincidence however has offered me an opportunity to post a new bit of art.
Today's theme for Illustration Friday is Breakfast and my contribution to Nate Padavick's wonderfully entertaining blog They Draw and Cook, which showcases illustrated recipes by different artists, illustrators and designers has been posted today resulting in the altogether possible  Pasta al Limone for Breakfast.
 While likely to be eaten al fresco under a cloudless blue sky or a canopy of stars as a midday meal or later in the evening, it is perfectly lovely anytime and would make a perfectly delightful change from ordinary breakfast fare......Perchè No?

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Like many people, fellow artist, Kelly Light was devastated by recent oil spill in the Gulf but she decided to do something about it,  and the especially wonderful thing about what she did...is that it gave a lot of other artists the opportunity to do something about it, as well!
Kelly started a site called Ripple. On it, she is selling sketch cards created by her and many other artists, with 100% of the proceeds going toward helping the wildlife victims affected by the spill.
The pieces of artwork below are my contributions to Ripple. They are the size of trading cards...2.5 X 3.5. I really enjoyed painting this small, there was the sense of creating a tiny treasure, a small jewel......it was really intimate and immediately gratifying to be finished with an entire watercolor in such a short time!
Visit the site to buy some great artwork and help out a good cause!

Thank you!

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   My little garden is just outside my studio window, and several times during the day, especially when it's warm and sunny.....I am drawn, HA! seduced, compelled.... to go outside and peek at the new seedlings.
   A few minutes ago I did this and was looking at the tomato plants, still in their pots, as the evenings have been too chilly to plant them out  yet and well WOW!.....there in all its optimistic, joyful Glory was the very first sweet yellow Flower, dangling from a Sungold plant! Most of the others have little buds but this was the very first valiant and darling actual flower......the promise of a tomato, of Summer, of expectations realized!
   I love portents and signs and am more than happy to see miracles around every bend.....this one put a song in my heart and made my day. It is sort of like a baby's first tooth.
See, in the upper right quadrant:
Welcome Flower!

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I promise, really I do........I will post some art soon, really soon.
I am finally working on the paintings / finishes for a book that has been in my studio far too long.
Also, two other projects ( fun!) that are firming up in comical slow motion, I am convinced that I am perfectly justified in blaming it on that astrological bugaboo, Mercury Retrograde......but it's all okay, fine as other details have taken up my attention and there is that aforementioned book that keeps being put aside while I attend to other projects, allowing me to get a good start on it which will, hopefully, create the momentum to keep it moving forward.
  In the meantime, Spring here has turned fickle and chilly, windy with dark pewter glowering skies, only to suddenly break open in glorious blue and warmth, delighting the tomato plants and letting them stay outside another hour and coaxing slow seeds to finally sprout.
  Everything has sprouted, white and purple scallions, Easter Egg radishes, red, orange and purple carrots, spinach, 3 varieties of arugula, lettuces and mesclun, Argento Swiss Chard and Bright Lights,
Peppermint and French and Lemon Thyme, Chives, Marjoram, Italian Parsley and Rosemary,  Hot Pink and Blue Petunias, Black Eyed Susan Vine, Cream, Pink and Violet Nasturtiums, Heliotrope, Night Scented Stock, Jasmine Tobacco and 5 varieties of Cosmos and Sweet Peas and 8 Heirloom Tomato Plants...everything up and running and looking pretty darn wonderful......still to come Basil and Cucumbers......maybe tri-colored pole beans......a Mandevilla Vine, Alice DuPont which is beautiful and the glorious, intoxicatingly fragrant Datura Meteloides........then my little garden will be finished.

I came across a picture of my old garden in early Spring in Vermont, and the statue of the Goddess Flora.......I loved that garden.....this one will be a bit more modest......but still a source of great Happiness!
Speaking of Happiness, the farm across the road has a meadow full of lambs......they're about as sweet and innocent and charming as one could ask for.
Lastly......after promising myself for four years, I finally turned my old Vermont blanket chest into a Pink, Glittery, Sparkly extravaganza of religious iconography....I have a special affection for Saints, I love the imagery, along with roses, beams of celestial Light, the occasional Angel and the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus....all bedecked with brightly colored plastic gemstones and holy medals dangling from the lid and on the drawer. I did a version of this on a wall in my ho

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I am happy for so many reasons....I love that my birthday falls on Italian Liberation Day, someday I would love to be there, in Milano or Torino, on my birthday...and celebrate another year on this beautiful planet and also the liberation of Italy in 1945 by the Allied troops with the help of the Partigiani Antifascisti ( the Partisans in the Italian Resistance ).
Grazie a loro.

Today, the day before my birthday.......I barely painted at all...I am loving replenishing wherever, whatever it is that holds the key, the repository of dreams, daydreams and flights of fancy that are the fodder of the imagination. After four years without a day off basically.....a day without drawing or painting feels peculiar but I know that next week the deadlines begin anew so I am luxuriating in the planning/planting of the little garden.
This evening I made Vinegar Chicken, a rustica dish of a whole chicken hacked in 2" or 3" pieces, sauteed in olive oil and then, when brown, salt and pepper. Two large pans are necessary so the chicken pieces are in a single layer, and they can brown. Then scatter chopped garlic and red pepper flakes and about 2/3 cup of good red wine vinegar in each pan, scrape all the brown bits up, turn the heat down a bit and cover and cook, stirring occasionally for about 20 minutes to half an hour. Cook until the chicken is falling off the bones and a delicious vinegary, garlicky, spicy mess.
I had this with a bowl of arugula and peppery olive oil and lemon juice and salt.....heaven.
For my birthday I treated myself to a new pair of cowboy boots.......for some reason they are my absolute favorite footwear and while I didn't have the budget for these boots...YET:
I was able to put an end to my boot drought...a dog ( NOT Baci! ) chewed my last pair, tooled Old Gringos with red roses, to irreparable disasters and purchased these, on sale...at least these Lucky Stars by Tony Lama have rhinestones and pink stitching until I can splurge on something a bit more over the top, and well....pink!
They arrived today and along with the eight tomato plants that will begin spending their days outside tomorrow.....Striped Roma, Fourth of July, Sungold, Black Plum Roma, Dona, Sweet Millions, French Carmello and a new one to me, Odoriko.....I think my kitchen table looks quite festive!
Who knows what tomorrow may bring! I'm excited and looking forward to the coming year......magic is afoot, surprises too, I can feel it.
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     Finally.........the towering mountain of work is behind me ( for now )  and I'm allowed the luxury of dipping a toe into the pool of thoughts unrelated to the project at hand or the painting currently on the drawing board, so posting on this sadly neglected ( since December 12! ) blog or updating my even more ignored website  or....reading books, working in my little garden, spending time with real human beings, painting my toenails scarlet or doing something spontaneous all become options.
    The slightly spooky thing is that part of me actually likes the schedule I've been accustomed to for the past 6 months, year. couple of years, ummm, a lot.....what does that mean? Nothing probably...other than that I love painting, am a bit of a recluse...probably from being an only child and working mostly all the time makes life very simple...
     Since the last time I was here, I moved.....just about 4 miles from where I was living before. I've been having fun taking some pictures while taking Baci the Fluffy Corgi on his morning walk.
I noticed several small silver metal disks, maybe 2.5 " in diameter....affixed, kind of bolted, to the paved road, before it turns to dirt.....I'd never seen anything like these before and took a photo of one. It seems as though I've truly been in a world of my own....along with some inevitable nearsightedness from a lifetime of drawing and painting small details......I  thought I was seeing something curious and remarkable ( to myself )  and ironically amusing. This is what I was seeing:

"Why" I wondered to myself "why would there be a silver disk in the road reading "Perfect Control"?
 Needless to say, I seriously doubt the very existence of "perfect control" in our happy, messily ordered Universe and so passing it made me giggle ( obviously, so much work made me exceedingly easily amused! ) but then also wondered about who would place, bolt these disks into the road and why would they read that? It was entertaining pondering this every morning and the whole idea of control, perfect or imperfect. Well....when I download the photos from my camera, I could easily see that actually this is what I was seeing, while believing I saw the disk above:
So, much less interesting and much less romantic and a lot more mundane....this little disk reads "Perteet Control" It seems Perteet is some sort of engineering concern that has to do with water  and roads and that sort of infrastructure and nothing that would normally cause one to ponder Universal Truths.....or X File types of imaginings. In the spirit of complete transparency, I admit to altering the Perfect

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How fun! There one sits hunched over ones' drawing board, often a year in advance, painting Christmas while the rest of the world goes swimming in High Summer.....and suddenly, there it is, the project one worked on, in the stores, as a " real thing"....makes me feel quite Velveteen Rabbit-ish! I never stop getting a thrill when I open the box and finally see the final, end result.
It really is gratifying to see the bits & pieces all come together as a really-o true-lio thing.....most fun is to see the Nutcracker figurine made, dressed, come to life like the one I painted for the book cover.
This was a project that was great fun to work on.....it seems the original stories in this book by E.T.A. Hoffmann and Alexandre Dumas haven't been published in years and years and years.....I read them all 20 times before painting and there is SO much more to the Nutcracker story than the one we are all familiar with!
This set includes the book and the 8" Nutcracker figurine and is available at all Barnes & Noble bookstores.

Nutcracker Book & Figurine Set, front
Nutcracker Book & Figurine Set, back

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It's cold outside, pretty much everywhere it seems, unless, of course, you're reading this on the beach in St Croix or Mustique.
Lately, late at night, taking Baci the Corgi out for the last time before bed...an owl hoots from deep inside a frosty wood. I get shivers, not from the cold, but from listening to the haunting call. Suddenly I am transported to a much older time, to the days of Grimm's fairy-tales, the version of my childhood illustrated by Howard Pyle...where deep dark Wintry Woods stretched for miles, dotted by little  lamplit cottages, and full of wolves and badgers and owls.
I feel like we should leave a trail of breadcrumbs,
Inside, on my drawing board, I've been working on this painting. Maybe, just maybe, this is what has been going on in the Owl's Wood down the road.
I love it when life is like a picture book!

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Here is the newest Animal ABC piece, this time..... W, X, Y & Z !
wallpaper, wolf, white, woolly, warm, yellow, wood, xylophone, zebra, zither, zipper, yo-yo, window, Winter, wainscoting, zig-zag
I love jumping about, in no particular order.......I do this lots of times with picture book illustrations, too.
........ I find sometimes the end looks different ( but it wasn't meant to, designed to ) from the beginning if the project spans a long time & I just plod along in a straight line,  Sometimes one just evolves as the project progresses and ones simply sees a bit differently and sometimes deadlines nip at ones heels like wild animals so one makes choices that one wouldn't make otherwise. Also, I need to keep myself entertained so I mix the sketches up and just do what's on top of the stack.......
   working on K, L, M now.

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  In old  movies, I love the way the passage of time is shown by calender or diary pages flipping in atmospheric, gritty shades of greys.......picture that device here.
 I've been working, working, working......in anything but a moody palette, here is a little of what's been keeping me busy, busy, busy lately ( see sketches a couple of posts ago ):

Animal ABC...P & Q
Animal ABC...... A
new spread from Pobble's Way/ Simon Van Booy/ Flashlight
& another one
& a little bit of Something Else.......surprise, here before we know it!
    Back to work, chattier next time.
       love, W

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