100 Happy Bears - Done and Done

Am sitting back in The Daily Grind.
Got some free plants for the garden from the co-op. Journaled Three Morning Pages - no, not immediately after waking up - as is the prompt. But a few hours later - when a few things had been accomplished, but not yet enough.

I scribble to calm the brain - and to note the times - and to see what I might be thinking.

Here are the last three Happy Bears - 

Gouache on smooth watercolor paper. Able to be matted to a 5" x 7" windowed mat. I put down three light washes, grabbed a STAEDTLER 0.05 pigment liner, and started in from the left. One never knows who is in a pen or marker. And I didn't know if the colors would bleed into each other. This combination worked very well. I will do more work in this way.

Now it is time to leave the safe bubble of a local coffee shop. I've been here about two hours. Through combination of a little internets music, a peek at Facebook, scribbling in  a cheap notebook, and typing on an expensive MacBook the brain is almost calm and ready to hit the road.

June's Personal Challenge has been met. Yippee! I am a bit happier - if only for being forced to "think Happy." Seeing the resulting bruins BEING joyful did make me smile at times. And social media comments by others helped lift the mood. 

I am sad that June is over, our days are getting shorter, and that summer is almost at an end. (Yes, I am a perverse individual.) But I have a little more hope for the future. Any is more than none - haha. And the garden needs me. Or I need the garden. Sunflowers are giving hope. Fennel and dill are waiting to help make butterflies. Pots and other containers remain unfilled. The hammock is still in the garden shed... But sunshine is warming the back. More hope and happy.

On to last-minute prepping for the Shell Lake (WI) Art Fair tomorrow. A one day show before a series of full weekend festivals. and the one day Stockholm, Wisconsin Art Festival. That planned zipping down to Breyerfest in Lexington, Kentucky FOR ONE DAY, in between art festivals is still in the hoped-for plans.
Todd said,"We haven't done anything crazy yet this year." That adventure is kind of crazy.

So, do something crazy. Do something that will make you happy. 
And may your holiday weekend go as you choose.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue Rowe

Last First - First Last

Apologies (sort of) to dear readers for inane thoughts and typings.

Today is not about High Quality. It is all about Quantity. I am shallow. I type on.

But this will be the last of seven posts. Two cups of de-caf coffee and a few bites of a Mexican Chocolate Biscotti. A typer's gotta consume what a typer's gotta consume.

And the thing about completing a Project/Challenge is that even if it isn't very good it it none the less DONE. One has finished a thing! This is good for the spirit. One can go back and refine, re-write, regret.

So - if you have down time and wish to go along for The Seven Blog Post ride - here is the start and here is the finish!

"Nice to meet you," says the multi-facetted investment banker who sat at next table most of the morning. We'd come in when all the tables with electrical outlets where in use. We sat in comfy chairs. Read the paper a little. Oddly, two spaces opened up at same time. He saw them first. We congratulated each other on gaining the spaces. Simple pleasures and all. His name is Todd. Although he is a banker he would also like to be an artist.  I will not doubt this. Parts of me might want to be in banking...

Though the hours that table fills with other company - talk of sports, sports cars. We like Ford pick-up trucks. We like muscle cars. The guys talked about piano lessons. Really. They would like to start taking them again.

On that note - there is still much to put the day to - but the blogging has been blogged. Seven of seven.

Time to free up this seat and get off my butt.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Mr. Teal

Once in a while the exact right person comes into the booth.

This lovely lady bonded with "Mr. Teal" at Duluth, Minnesota's Park Point Art Festival this past Saturday.
She is a quilter. She loved color. She loved "Mr. Teal." Fancy that?

She loved "Mr. Teal" enough to purchase him. That is true love.

I hope that they will be very happy together.

A warm-hearted moment on a cold windy day!

Saturday, July 1st will find us at the Shell Lake Art Fair in Shell Lake, Wisconsin. After one more blog - back to the paint and brushes.

"So it goes." - Kurt V.

- Sue

Backstretch - But Reversed

This is where it gets "hard." Not in hard labor. Just in O.K., Brain, put some words into your friends the Fingers. Fingers would happily go it alone, but results might be be readable. you know how independent fingers can be. poking in to places they shouldn't be. Pointing at things not to be pointed out. Grabbing stuff that isn't theirs. We have to keep our eyes on our fingers.

A guy and I were just showing our long-ago injured bent fingers to each other - haha!


It is quarter to eleven in the morning. You  know - that quaint concept. Quarter past, half past, quarter to. Round clocks with numbers in a circle. Grandmas taught Time differently.

Oops - now it is 10:52 A.M. Digital time. Central Daylight Time.
I no longer wear a watch. I used to wear a watch ALL the Time. Except when dealing with deep water. I hearted knowing the time.
Now time both excites and haunts me. I live for the few hours and days when "flow" is achieved, and Time means nothing. A whole day when time is measured by occasional glance at sun and shadows is a marvelous, rare, and wonderful day.

Most of my days are tethered to twenty minutes blocks of time. My iPhone timer is my pal. It makes me enjoy focusing. And twenty minutes is a nice bunch of minutes - not too many. Just enough. And often I just click the timer to another twenty. Today "time" is not being a factor. The doing of the blog posts is the focus. Getting there. Getting there. Feeling a tad guilty about taking up coffee shop space, but also not guilty. The sitting here is getting deeds done.

What do you do to get the deeds done?

Two to go! I am almost shallowly excited.
(Insert Inspirational Quote of your choice here.)
(Can you tell that I have had a half-inch of Real Coffee?)

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Four - Four

Post - The Fourth.

I am sitting in The Daily Grind coffee shop near the St. Croix River in downtown Stillwater, Minnesota. Yes, I have moved my (mostly) loyalty to Tin Bins at sough end of town to this smaller closer tighter place - aglow today with the most people I've ever seen packed in here.

Might be The Rain. It is raining. Forecast to rain all day. We need it for the soil. But the spirit was just getting used to The Sun.
On of the owners just said that her "brain is like moosh." I think lots of our brains are mooshy today.

The de-caf coffee here is O.K. But I lived most of the weekend sipping and gulping "high-test" real coffee. It was divine. I did all the deeds. I was perky. I felt "good." I was even tired enough by ends of Friday and Saturday that caffeine did not keep me awake. That lovely balance. Monday I paid the price for indulging.

Miles Davis' "Kind of Blue" is pouring into head from little earbuds sucking tune from Pandora Radio. How DID we live before these waves of technology? And how will we live with future waves?
"What would Miles Davis do?"

I doubt that he'd be a blogger.

Fare-thee-well,
(No, I amnot editting these posts - haha.)
Sue

Seven Blogs Today

Personal Challenge Update: I Am running "Behind."

My challenge to myself is to publish at least two hundred posts this year.
It is June 28th.  The year is past half over. (Cannot think about that.)
Number of published pieces is sixty-six. There are a bunch of typings to go.

But some focus is better than none?
The "100 Happy Bear" Challenge is chugging along.
The gardens - well, chugging, trying, and stopped.
Studio organizing? Hahahaha! But it DID get started.
Meeting new interesting people? Yup!
Selling original paintings? Yup!
New designs in the card racks? Yup?
Getting cards and magnet orders out in a timely manner? It depends.

Tonight I plan to drive south an hour to Eau Clair, Wisconsin. the Artisan  Forge Studio complex is hosting an Open House from 5 - 8 PM. I have been wanting to visit a friend's studio there for a couple years. I am (cross fingers) doing this tonight! Gotta keep being a little brave.

But the Wednesday Evening Art doings at our house are cancelled because of this.
None of us can do it all. Some of us are O.K. with knowing this. Others of us are not.

Enough typing for this post. Moving on. Subject? I have no clue.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue

Challenge - Five Happy Bears

The "100 Happy Bears" Personal Challenge is chuggin' along.

Yesterday's production numbered seventeen! Playing catch up from a pretty much zombie Monday after two day art fair in Duluth, Minnesota. Doing it alone, on a cold, wet, windy weekend finally took a tole. I'd not expected to "crash" - goodbye, beautiful Monday. I missed most of you.

This is not one of yesterday's seventeen. I do not even remember the date it was maybe considered finished. (It might not be finished.) Although a gardener, I am not usually  a person to put flower petals of things. But fake flowers on faux bruins seems to be working on the Happy Front. So - 

(copyright Sue Rowe 2017)

This acrylic-on-canvas piece has had many dances with the paintbrush. I don't know if there are metaphorical layers, but there ARE layers of unseen colors and shapes. The white-ish bear was NOT white many brush strokes ago. Artists have to make odd decisions, but they do have to decide to decide.

I do not know these bears. But they appear to be Happy.
And that's all that counts this month.

Fare-thee-well,
Sue