GARDENING IN JANUARY

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Claude Monet

January is always a welcome month for me because it feels very free. During the summer I am busy keeping up with cards for markets, fall I am preparing Christmas cards and ornaments, and doing commissions. Not that I don't enjoy every second of all that. But in January there is a short window where I let myself putter in my studio. Without feeling like I should be doing something more constructive. Like cleaning out, looking at pretty books, trying out new ideas for paintings. One year I started all of the color collages that caused such a frenzy in me that January ended up being more productive than any other month.
One year, it snowed a LOT, and each time it snowed I ordered flower bulbs for my yard, dreaming of spring. This was when my boys were out of school for almost two weeks. Then I started a bunch of flower paintings, and six zinnias were done, along with so e dahlias and others, in a matter of about three days.

January always holds some time for reflection, a time for looking ahead, and for some "planned" spontaneity. I can't wait to see what 2013 holds.

True artists are almost the only men who do their work with pleasure.

Francois-Auguste Rene Rodin

More serendipity.

A lot of the vintage photos on my cards are family members. I inherited some of my grandmother's (not ZouZou, the other one who loved paper) photo albums and scrapbooks, and figured I would use the photos instead of letting them sit silently in a drawer somewhere.  Other photos I get elsewhere. One  more reason to shop on etsy. I ordered some old photos a few weeks ago, and used one to make this card:

It's a great quote, from 

A few days ago, I got a nice note from the seller of the photos who complimented me on the way I used her photo. By the way, she said, that woman is my mother.

Life is a great big canvas, and you should throw all the paint you can on it.

Danny Kaye

(This post was written almost exactly a year ago, and I was so busy I forgot to post it. )

In December, a few days before Christmas, some of the animal collages that I had been working on were shown on a really popular blog, YoungHouseLove, "and the crowd went wild". I literally was delivering a last order to a customer when suddenly my computer showed a lot of activity on etsy, which had never happened to me. Somehow with the whimsical animals of all kinds, I had struck a nerve with a LOT of people -- I had over 10,000 hits on my website during the following two weeks. And sold a bunch of stuff. And didn't get any sort of Christmas break at all. Still, no complaints.

Ironically, someone had gotten my name and interviewed me about selling on etsy earlier in the fall, and my answers to his questions had been based on the few interactions I had had. A few weeks after this sudden rush of business, I got an advance copy of his book. Things can really change overnight. Here is a link to the book:

http://www.amazon.com/Etsy-101-Marketplace-Handmade-Crafting/dp/1936560097/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1332241283&sr=1-1