New painting

Remember when I went to Prime Hook a few weeks ago? Here's a new in-progress painting of a cute little oceanfront home there. It was so pretty against the blue sky. It's not done yet, but I'll post it when it is. I enjoyed working on this one. (Still have to finish the commissioned piece, ack!)


My daughter came running up to me this morning and said "you've got to see this! There's a big teradactyl looking thing on the roof next door!"


"Ah yes Haley, that is the elusive roof egret." And for the record, I have no idea how to spell teradactyl. If I'm right, it's luck.

YMCA Block Party

Every September, the Y holds a Block Party, which runs up and down Baltimore Avenue. It benefits the Campaign for Kids. There's a bunch of local restaurants giving samples of foods, bands, facepainting (me) a few artists, etc. Here are some shots.

Little did she know she'd earn a nickname at the Block Party. She is now known as "Choo Choo Judy".


And there's that handsome Michael Sprouse, a fabulous local artist.

And yet another handsome devil - Robert. He was my art assistant again. What a guy.


And finally, just in case any of us enjoy Baltimore Avenue just a wee bit too much, there's the water tower, reminding us where we are.

Moose, theatre and cutie-pies

An interesting weekend.

Robert and I went to see "The Spitfire Grill" in Milford on Friday night, performed by the Second Street Players. They did a fabulous job. Loved the show. I wasn't familiar with it, but Robert had seen the movie version of it years ago.

Saturday was a "Family Fun Fair" out at Winswept Stables. It's a fundraiser for the Cancer Center at Beebe and I had volunteered to face paint. We've been having tons of rain, so I wasn't sure it was going to happen. The rain held out and there were lots and lots of kids. I was the only facepainter, so I got my butt handed to me for 4 hours. Still, the kids love it and I do too. Here's a pic of one of the cuties. He kept grinning and grinning because he could see his face in my sunglasses.



Saturday night was the Crab Feast at the MOOSE LODGE in Middletown Delaware! Whoohoo! It was a benefit for my friend's daughter's cheerleading squad. Here's a pic of Michelle and her husband Scooter. We've been friends since childhood.

They have one of the happiest marriages I've been around. They've been together for about 20 years.

So, the Crab Feast - great crabs, big silent auction, d.j. etc. The dj played mostly country music for the first half and then switched to dance music. Most of the dance music was current stuff, but inevitably they switched to the standards...you know, "Old Time Rock and Roll", which means that "Celebrate" isn't far behind, and then "We are Family" and of COURSE "YMCA", as you can see below.

But the most interesting part of the evening, besides watching a group of four or five very nice women doing shots and hooting was THIS GUY.


He came out of nowhere. He started off wearing his Harley Davidson shirt with the sleeves cut off and his boxer briefs. THAT took a minute to take in, and I couldn't get my camera ready because of my delayed reaction. When I realized he was stripping, I snapped out of it. Here's some of his crazy dance moves - all done to "Old Time Rock n Roll".



We asked him afterward what was up with the stripping. He pointed at a guy at a table, and said, "that fool bet me $75 I wouldn't do it."
Nuff said.

the PLUNGE

Here's the first draft of the poster for the Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge. There's still some tweaking going on, and I'm waiting to see what the Executive Director from Special Olympics thinks. This was a fun one.

Exciting new discovery...

When you get to be "older", as in 44, it's not all that easy to be surprised about things, or to discover something fabulously new that you love, love, love. So I'm pretty psyched to say that I have done just that.

Bell, Book and Candle is the play I'm in that opens October 24. The set called for a "drawing of a Brazilian dancer" to hang in the apartment. George, the director, asked if I could "do something" about that. Sure. So, about 10 minutes before I left for rehearsal, I planned on just doing something loose to see if it was what he had in mind. I used black paper and wasn't sure what medium I was going to use to just sketch this thing in. I had a box of oil pastels sitting on my drawing table that I had taken to a yoga camp earlier in the summer for an art project. I grabbed them. OMG. What total fun! I did the whole drawing in about 10 minutes. It was loose, colorful and full of energy (in a dancer kind of way). I stood back and was just amazed - those of you who know me or my work know that I am a very TIGHT painter. Most of my paintings look more like technical drawings than paintings. Straight lines, angles, defined shadows, etc. This was none of that. Just a loosey-goosey thing. I was tickled, especially because a: it was new, b: it was QUICK, c: there was no mineral spirits involved, no smell, no mess on my hands except for my smudging finger.

I didn't take a pic of it. Duh.

However, I'm working on a poster for the Special Olympics Polar Bear Plunge and I'm doing it in oil pastels. It's going pretty well and I'm having fun with it - especially with the speed and ease. (see a, b, c above). I'll take a pic of this one when it's done and post it. Could be on to something.

State of affairs

You know, I heard that this song was essentially dedicated to W. I've been listening it a lot lately and love the intensity of this video. Lots of rage and sarcasm, which is certainly the flavor of the day. Let's send this one out to Merrill Lynch, Exxon, Sarah Palin, and oh, the songs inspiration also. Makes me want to BANG MY HEAD in more ways than one.

Commissioned piece

Okay Stacy, here's the updated pic of the commissioned piece. I've worked in the lower left corner, and still have quite a bit of work left. But it'll get there. I've told myself that I'll get as close to finishing by Sunday so I can move on. I have some other things I'm dying to paint!

Prime Hook

Here are some of the shots from Prime Hook. I see some paintings, especially the white house against the blue sky.

And following are the yearly "first day of school" shots taken by mom. They're growing up toooooo fast.

Gavin

I stayed awake! He actually came on at 10:30, so not so bad. And he was awesome. I love that guy! The Cork wasn't very crowded. Plenty of room to move around, no one stepped on my feet, and the weather was nice (the bar is partially outside). The only bad part is the SMELL of the Bottle and Cork. Ugh. It's indescribable. It's a very good thing that it is partly open to the elements. If that smell was closed in, it'd gag you.

Purge-a-rama

Oh my GOD, the house is a mess. Now Robert has taken the cabinet doors off, so everything IN the cabinet shows. I don't know about you, but not all my cabinet "guts" are immaculately organized, ya know? Yeesh. They will be now. I'm also up in my daughters room (while she's away) throwing gobs and gobs of stuff out. Boxing some things for the attic, Goodwill'ing others, giving some to friends with daughters, etc. I have found clothing that still has tags, wadded up beach towels complete with buckets of sand which went everywhere when I "unwadded" them, school notebooks from years ago, etc. I'm trying to convince her to actually keep some semblance of organization in her closet and drawers so she knows what she has. I even told her that I would not be going school clothes shopping until she did this. And here I am, doing it. (I couldn't stand it any longer, and I'm more ruthless with getting rid of her stuff than she is.)

Got a lot done on the commissioned piece yesterday, at least in the left side/corner area. It's taking forever, but I now have faith that it's going to turn out just fine. I'd take a picture, but my camera is in the car. It'll have to wait, because I'm feeling to lazy to go out and get it.

Tonight is Gavin Degraw at the Bottle and Cork in Dewey Beach. The tickets were a birthday present from Robert. Sounds great, right? The only potential problem is that performers usually don't come on till 11 at the Cork, and I'm concerned about being AWAKE at that time. (Getting old......eh.) If I can make it, I'm sure it'll be a good one.

Buh bye for now....

Hanna Schmanna

So, I'm thoroughly unimpressed with this hurricane. As of right now, it's not as bad as some of the Nor'Easter's we've had. Just a lot of rain, which we needed anyway, and some wind. I'm sure other places got it much worse. No damage is good.

The good thing about a rainy Saturday in the summertime is that it leaves time to do other things that need to be done, such as:

FINISH the commissioned piece I've been working on and sweating over.
Clean the house.
Do laundry.
Run lines for Bell Book and Candle.

I'm hoping to get to all those things today. So far, I've only worked on the painting. It needs to get done soon so I can go on to something else. Ugh.

The house is in total disarray. I'm doing a mini kitchen remodel. I've ordered new appliances, a quartz countertop, and am having my cabinets redone. It's making me nuts, everything is a mess. I'm just hoping there are no house showings soon. Yikes. Not to mention that there's kitchen stuff all over the studio, which definitely doesn't help with the creative block that's going on with this particular painting. OOOOh, that was a big wind gust! Maybe I spoke too soon. I take it back!!