Fussed with this one, too.

Small crisis set right. I varnished this last week with a brush which must've had remnants of blue paint in it. Omigolly. Gave him a little bruise over his left eye. So I fussed and fiddled with this one, too, this morning and like it better than ever. Whew!

Happy Halloween!

Revisions

Spent part of my morning fussing with this pretty face. Moving on now.... Happy Halloween, Ya'll!

Two new little canvasses

Tonight was fun. Faces have more appeal for me than vases of flowers and a line of trees. They're fun, too, but faces..... they're the best. Both of these are 8"x10" oil on stretched canvas.

Women Friends as Goddesses

I've just finished cleaning up after my time to host our monthly potluck. I've been meeting with this group of women for over 10 years now and we've seen each other through many changes. We studied the various goddesses over the first years and tried to see the metaphors and the value they held for the people who worshiped them. And over that time I've begun seeing these women as goddesses of a sort themselves. There's the fiery fast physical one who makes decisions in a flash (too much alliteration?), the quiet thoughtful wise one who with a word can soothe and set back on track a sister who's careening around a bend, the relaxed wounded one who's made her peace with the war she survived, the bright bubbly outgoing one who retreats to a secluded kitty-filled, deer-surrounded home between forays into the world of movie making, the young political dynamo, the careful easily-bruised wickedly brilliant one with a lightning wit and a loyal heart, and me. There are others in our group, too. Each with the characteristics of a beautiful goddess with lessons for those who attend her. On top of all that we eat extraordinarily well.
Tomorrow I paint!

Kick Off Party for National Novel Writing Month

Tonight it was surprisingly helpful to meet some of the other folks attempting to write 50,000 words in the course of a month. Most are much younger than I. But I saw some other mature faces there. I came home with a small yellow lapel button which declares, "I Write Books". How about that? Plural, for heaven's sake! Let me get through one first.

Here it is again.... www.nanowrimo.org

Austin Pastel Society meeting

Back from the drive up to Austin and back. This time I got to be the passenger. Very nice. Getting to talk things over with other artists helps so much. Becky and Sherrie made for great company on the drive.
Came back to find a nice comment on my last blog from Sharon whose blog helped me decide to try this site out. She's an antique seller on eBay, an artist herself, and in Nebraska when she'd rather be in Texas. Check her place out....
http://atthispointintime.blogspot.com/

All three paintings got in to the SAT Airport show!

Just had a message on my machine saying all three of the paintings I submitted got into the airport show with Regional Artist Consortium. Way Cool!

Had a very inspiring day today being with two other artists- Kim Roberti from Marble Falls, TX and Donna Bland, who just moved to San Antonio from Round Rock, TX. Kim had invited me to come join them at Mission Espada, a beautiful mission on the south of San Antonio which I'd never seen. I decided not to take my paints, but just my camera so I could focus on our conversation and maybe gather some reference photos for future paintings. I'm so glad! We three just took off. We've got a group show in the works and a trip to San Miguel for next year. All three of us aspire to having a painting accepted into the Salon International Show which the Greenhouse Gallery hosts each year.

Tonight is the Austin Pastel Society meeting and I get to share the evening with more artist friends. Life is so good.

New painting..Likely for competition

Yesterday I had a photo session with the same fellow who was the subject for my last painting. We must've taken 50-60 photos with three different backdrops and lighting changes. There are perhaps 10 which could be decent reference photos for paintings. What a pleasure to work with him! Has a great eye and made some terrific suggestions.
Will post the start when I have something begun.

Names for the novel's characters

My daughter and I went to a sneak preview for "Prime" tonight, and as any of you who've been to sneak previews know... you go early and wait long. So we were camping out on the gaudy commercial carpeting which you only really see in theaters and Las Vegas casinos, eating our popcorn and Reese's Pieces, and I asked if she'd help name my characters for this novel I'm about to write. I had my notes with me and still had folks labeled with numbers and "types" (sporty couple, caretaker, artist, tattooed-and-pierced one, etc.) In a few moments she'd found all the right names for my characters. Just like that! Suddenly they were actual people to me. Suddenly I could see connections between them that their "types" wouldn't allow. Bless that girl!

Go on, now. Sign up! www.nanowrimo.org National Novel Writing Month starts in six days.

Let's encourage each other and wig out on caffeine and let our housechores slide. It's just for a month. Got anything better planned? 1667 words a day. 3-4 pages of type. We can do this.

Good day at the Gallery

I'm a lucky gal. The artists I share my day-a-month with at the River Art Gallery are just the best. Today we were missing one of us who was hosting her mother's visit from out of state. It's so good to be with positive artistic people who know how to encourage and expect good things from each other. That's pure oxygen to me.

Listed that portrait on eBay tonight

I finished fussing with that portrait and decided to list in in auction on eBay as my other paintings were ending tonight. Tomorrow is my day at River Art Gallery downtown and I'm taking three small paintings to hang there. All still life. Feels great to be back to doing faces, though.

Hey, it's easy to leave comments on this blog site. Leave evidence of your visit!

Getting close on this one

Got to play with this about 4 hours today. Still some fiddling I could do, but I'm liking it quite a lot.

New Portrait start

This is a start I made on a 16" x 20" oil on canvas panel..Pannelli Telati.. on Saturday afternoon. My friend Sherrie came to paint with me in the studio. Wonderful breeze coming through the finally-cool-enough-to-open window. New CDs on the stereo- Bonnie Raitt's new one, Michael McDonald's Greatest and k.d.lang singing with Tony Bennett. I've got two patients in a few minutes, then I'll get back at this painting. This is a young man I begged to take a photo of in the library branch down the road. He's agreed to model for another painting I have in mind for competition. This one is just to play with. I'm watching DVDs of Scott Burdick and Dan Gerhartz paint portraits and getting all juiced up to go at it myself. Why did I let fear stop me for so long!?

This is one of three I've submitted to RAC

This painting, "Sisters Of The Shore" plus "Porch Colors Flying" of the front porch with swing and flag, plus "Maverick Plaza Fountain" of the fountain in LaVillita are the three I submitted to Regional Artist Consortium last Tuesday for hanging at the San Antonio airport. Haven't heard back yet, so maybe they got in. I'll let you know.

Posting pictures to this blog.. trying it out.

Ah... I think I've found a way to upload pictures to this new blog. It's different than MSN does it and I think I downloaded an unnecessary program in the process. Let's check this out.

Trying out a new blog site.

Hi all,
I've had my blog on MSN's Spaces for several months, but haven't liked the fact that folks had to sign in with their hotmail address to leave a comment. So I'm going to try this out and for a while blog simultaneously with that one to evaluate which one to continue with. Please let me know your preference if you have one! http://spaces.msn.com/members/SusanCarlin/ is the other site.

This is the text from the other site's entry today:
One more week, folks! Ok, well, ten days to be exact. On November first it's time to start tapping your fingertips against a keyboard and getting that raw material down for your first novel. It'll be your third? Wow! Write me and tell me how to go about it, will ya? In the meantime, I'm reading, "No Plot? No Problem!" by the fellow who started NaNoWriMo. He's about got me convinced I can actually do this thing.

This is all about quantity, not necessarily quality. That's for the editing/fussing/fixing experience which will surely follow NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. November is all about getting 50,000 words down. That's about 3-4 pages a day of a large size 14 font. You can do this!

www.nanowrimo.org is where to sign up. Let me know if you're in.