New Paintings

I just finished an oil painting yesterday--it's the first one completed in 2010 (though it was started months and months ago) and that feels pretty good. I'm getting an hour or two a week to work in my studio and, while it doesn't sound like much, it can be fairly productive. Mostly because even when I'm not upstairs painting, I'm always thinking about it. It's just so much faster and easier to work on my little watercolor paintings because they're done downstairs at the kitchen table: no muss, no fuss. But it's not as much fun.

So once a week I wrangle Ricky into watching the kids and I disappear up into the garret. It's quiet and warm up there and there are paintings that need my attention. Ricky and I had a discussion the other night about our weird multiple occupational facets--he's a specialized mechanic for the railroad by day and builds motorcycles and plays in a band at night and on weekends, I manage an auction house by day and paint at night and on weekends. Plus we're parents, obviously. We fit into some odd niches.

So things are okay. Now that I'm back to "work" work, we're finally starting to get caught up on bills and stuff and that's a good feeling. Now if the damn hospital would quit sending us bills...

The kids are doing well. I think Ian's got eczema and I'm going to be taking him to the doctor this week. Poor little guy is rubbing his eyes and scratching his face and he's just rashy all over. I started bathing him with Cetaphil and using CeraVe lotion and that's helped a lot. His laundry is still done with Dreft and no softeners or dryer sheets, but I think I might get some special detergent for the rest of us in the house.

Esther has really started to get the hang of reading and it's awesome to watch her tackle new words.

Ricky is gearing up for the World of Wheels show that's in two weeks. He and the other guys in his new motorcycle shop are working on a couple of new bikes for that.
I'm so tired of winter and cold and snow--I just want some sunshine and warm weather and green growing things! This winter has been a bear.

But yes! Paintings!

"In the Wayward Garden"
oil on ghetto canvas board
9x12 inches
2010

"Gray Secrets"
oil on illustration board
5x7 inches
2009

This one was finished before Ian was born--I just hadn't gotten around to photographing it. These will both be going to the Blue Gallery later this week after "Wayward" dries and is ready to hang.

And I still haven't gotten my aceo prints made up yet. The printing company I use is having a sale in the next month or so and I'm stalling until then, because I'm broke.

Happy trails!

The Votes Are In!

Yay for Pamela! You win a free ACEO print of your choice, either the available ones in the shop or one of these new ladies.

And the winners are:

1. "Turquoise and Gold"
2. "There Was Magic Then"
3. "Star Power"
5. "The Mod Witch"
8. "Ms. Grimm"
10. "I Wasn't Born to Follow"
11. "Building Some Dreams"
13. "Vamping It Up"

I'll be getting these printed in the next few weeks. Thanks so much to all of you for your input, it was such a big help to me!!

New Prints for the New Year

So I'm thinking I need to get around to having some more prints made. I painted some things this summer and fall that I really dig, and i think they'd make swell prints for the ol' Etsy shop. Do you wanna help pick 'em out? Do you? I know you want to!

All you have to do is pick out 8 of your favorites. Everyone who participates gets placed in a drawing for a free aceo print--anything you like from my shop or the newbies. I'll draw the winner after I get a reasonable number of entries, so maybe after a week or so? Make sure I know how to contact you or check back to see if you're the winner!!

Here we go:

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Thanks so much for your help! Hope everyone has a fabulous, healthy, and happy New Year!!!

Good Lord, Is It Christmas Already?!

The tail end of 2009 is flying by, and nary a blog post to show for it. My apologies. I've been consumed with baby and holiday and family things; a common occurrence for this time of year, I'd imagine.

I haven't been doing any painting, sadly, but I have been wanting to draw and sketch out some things. I've had breaks from painting before, and they can be strangely freeing. I seem to overflow with ideas when I'm not busy making art. I'd love to sit down with my sketchbook and just draw for a while--I get a few minutes here and there to do that. But it's also nice to kind of mull the ideas over in my head first before I try to capture them on paper.

I've been reading a lot, too. I just finished The Magicians by Lev Grossman and enjoyed it. It's written from an interesting perspective, and ties together those fantasy themes I love. It's all about escape, really. I've resumed our weekly trip to the library, except now I actually can get some things for myself as well as the kiddos. I didn't have much time to read before Ian was born, but when you're nursing a baby for thirty minutes at a time you can get some reading in.

I go back to work in two weeks. I'm kind of sad about that, even though Ian will be coming with me. We'll be playing this all by ear--I have no idea how much actual work I'll be able to do. Glancing around my house is evidence enough that not much work gets done when there's a baby. I imagine he'll be in the sling quite a bit. I can't believe he's six weeks old already. He's such a good baby. Here he is on December 9th, smiling and being a cutie.



Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, everyone!

Ian is here!

Ian Lawrence Reyes was born November 1, 2009 at 9:28 am. He weighed 7 lbs, 11 oz, and was 19 3/4 inches long.
Labor and delivery went much faster than it did with Esther, and our doula and midwife were awesome (and Ricky, too!). Our hospital was awesome as well and respected all of our birth plan wishes with no problems. Even the mom/baby rooms were comfy and the nurses were all super nice. In short, it was a really good experience. (I'm glad all that's over with, though--and I am VERY happy to no longer be pregnant. I have ankles again!).

So our little man was born on a gorgeous, sunny, and WARM November morning--what a great welcome to the world! He's been a peach of a baby: he's been a regular eating machine from the get-go, is only fussy when he's wet or just about to fall asleep, and spends these wonderful, long moments just staring at you like you're the coolest, most amazing thing he's ever seen. It does wonders for the ego, let me tell you!


Esther has been really fantastic--she's excited about picking out his clothes for the day and getting to hold him and giving him little kisses and stuff. She's been a great help.

Pillows and Other Stuff

I finished the pillows for the rocker last week and Ricky did some clever Ricky-esque modifications to the rocker's back to make it more upright. It's great for reclining as it was, but I needed a straighter back for nursing and such. Plus it can be returned to its original state with no trouble at all! He's got this knack for finding brilliantly simple solutions to things; solutions that would never have occurred to me. Mine tend to be much more elaborate and unnecessarily complicated.



Ricky built some new work tables for his shop and Esther helped paint them. Ricky was honestly surprised, I think, that her help was actually helpful and really sped up the painting process. She's an awesome kid. And she's a total daddy's girl.


We had our 8th anniversary on the 20th (I can't believe we've been married that long--it's wild). We kept it low-key, as is usual for us--a good dinner out makes us as happy as clams!

And today is my last day at work! (Well, til January, anyway) Baby stuff is going fine--I'm on autopilot at 38 weeks. Hopefully this little guy will hold out til his due date and I can cram some painting in before he's born. I think it's funny that my nesting instinct includes feverishly and frantically making art, like I'm never going to paint again (like THAT'S gonna happen!).

Oooh! Almost forgot--I'm having my last Etsy shop update (for a while) this Friday (um, tomorrow) the 23rd at 2pm central time. I'll have some original watercolor aceo's and one original oil aceo. Here's a pic of the oil painting (on illustration board):

Not the best photo ever, but at least you get the idea...

Yup, Still Pregnant

I'm at that point in this pregnancy where people I haven't seen in the last few months say things like: "Wow! You're STILL pregnant?"

I know, I know--when you've been looking like a beached whale for the last four months, it's hard not to snap a little. And those folks mean well, I understand that. I'm just over it. Not exactly ready to have this kiddo, but definitely tired of being pregnant. Three weeks to go!

The weather's turned cold over the last week, and this morning we actually turned the heat on. I held out as long as I could, but when the thermostat shows the inside temperature to be in the 50s, I think that's hard-core enough.

My mom got me a killer rocking chair from Ikea--it's the Lillberg. It's a great chair for curling up in--very deep. It's hard to see that in this picture.

I'm making up some pillows this week for it with these Amy Butler fabrics. I'll have to post pics when it's all done. The chair's sitting opposite our large pink painting, so I wanted fabric that would pick up the pink as well as the green walls and curtains.