Category: butterfly in the garden

Just Butterflies

As I was writing the Morning Pages in my backyard garden, trying to figure out why inspiration has been fleeting this summer, I noticed a lot of things flying around. Hoping they weren’t some scary buzzing things, I sneaked a peek at the shadows.
What do you think? More than six butterflies were fluttering around my garden and on the butterfly bush. Yes, I guess the name of the flowering thing fits. They were all over it.
I grabbed my camera, and tried to get close not to disturb them, so I could take some shots. It was hard to show just how many of them there were between the foliage and the sunlight. 

It was early in the morning, my favorite time of day. Quiet, with the sun sending out it’s rays and warming the air, glistening the moisture on the flowers. 
No kids yelling, no lawn mowers, no construction guys, garbage men. Just butterflies. 
Perfect.

Not a Wordless Wednesday

The temperature in New York this week is in the nineties. Today the thermostat in my car read 101F. People all around are wilting.

Get with the program people! We live in New York and this is the summertime, the BEST weather we’re going to have so enjoy it now because around the corner “you know what” is lurking!

It’s a four letter word beginning with an “S” and ending with a “W”.

Just dwell on that for a moment while I go about my business.

There is no way I’m going to complain about the heat. Nope. I am loving the heat and humidity. That is a fact. The summer has to be the best season for all the obvious reasons and painting is a big one. I can move it all outside and enjoy the weather. The sun, the scent of flowers and grass, the colors of it all, everything is just beautiful.

That said, I worked on, and finished, another watercolor painting.

Pink Daisies ©2012 Dora Sislian Themelis
18×24 Watercolor, Arches cold press paper

Some Kind of Wordless on Wednesday

Dodging Mr. Resistance isn’t easy so I try to hide out, but once in a while he finds me and aims his barbs when I peek over my shoulder. 
If I’m not careful motivation is out the window and that’s that with that.
Since reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron, I am well aware of resistance and learned a few tricks to beat it quickly.
One of those tricks is to keep moving any way I possibly can. Either I can clean up the studio, doodle with my granddaughter’s crayons, dig in the garden, or whip out the camera. Something mindless usually works. 
In between paintings, thinking things, and hunting for inspiration, I headed out into the garden. 
A garden visitor

Looking for painting subjects in those old photographs allowed a chink for resistance to slip in. Bad move.

Out in the garden to follow the butterflies with my camera helped put a stop to that.

Where to Spend the Heat and Humidity

It’s Wednesday and the temperatures are expected to be in the nineties, hot, humid, sunny. Perfect!

There’s a decision to make now. Should I stay home in the garden, go to the town pool, or visit the beach? Today is the last day of school so the wild munchkins will be at the pool, and some will be at the beach. None of them will be at my house. 
I am thinking of painting, somewhere. So there’s the studio, the garden, or the beach. Definitely not going to the town pool for that. 
It’s early. There’s still plenty of time to decide. 

Fluttering in the garden..

The Rush of Something New

It feels so good to have the day all to myself today.  Yesterday is over and today is a new day.  Tuesday is usually an errand day and I hope to get those chores finished early. 

When I removed the garden painting from the block it felt great.  In the book Walking in This World, by Julia Cameron, I read in one of the chapters to ‘Finish something’!
How does it feel to finish something?  I felt relief.  The act of closing the book on a work is very satisfying.  So satisfying that I get a rush of inspiration.  Maybe I felt that way because I was happy to be done with a piece I wasn’t thrilled with?  Whatever the reason, I became excited about the possibilities.

No sooner had I freed the painting from the watercolor block, I looked over the latest photos I’ve taken and chose one to sketch onto the brand spanking new paper. 

I decided to use the butterfly photo I took a couple of weeks ago or when ever that was.  I’d like to work it kind of sloppy, sort of abstract.  I might use the watercolor paint thick and heavy, throwing it on the paper, just to experiment with the medium.  I seem to be daydreaming lately about oil painting again. 
While reading through some of my favorite artists’ blogs I noticed one was doing what I had been thinking to do, which is paint on a small square-shaped canvas.  I was writing some random thoughts in the Morning Pages yesterday, yes I’m still doing that, and in the blink of an eye I was looking up at my surroundings thinking I should paint on a 4×4 canvas!  Just like that!  I thought to myself, ‘You have some weird Artist A.D.D. girl!’  One second I’m writing, the next I’m in LaLaLand and I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing.  I had to squeeze my eye lids shut to block out the blur! 
So anyway, that might be my next thing, and I didn’t even start this work!  I think I have to go back to oils.  Something in my head keeps pointing me there.  I’m going to have to obey the muse.  First I will start and finish this painting.  Let’s see where I go with it.
I’ll get back to you on it.

Friday Photos

Enjoy the weekend and Happy Independence Day to all!

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United States of America

“When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  July 4, 1776

                                                                      

Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America

“ We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”    September 17, 1787

http://www.constitution.org/usdeclar.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights

http://www.constitution.org/constit_.htm