Spent so much time in the studio lately, Mr. Spouse almost put my picture on a milk carton. It was only the sound of loud music rattling the windows of Studio Grande that convinced him I hadn’t gone far.

Oh…if only he KNEW!!!

I went to Arty Life BLISS. I listened to music. Danced. Meditated in the comfy corner. And recycled all sorts of stuff.

Like old books and journals. Really, who needs to buy new when you can just gesso over the old stuff. Life is all about layers and textures anyway. The book up above was a journal from 20 years ago. A few pages of blah blah stuff about life back then before I got bored and stopped writing in it. So I gessoed and glued pages together and transformed it into what will be an art journal.

Ohhhh…but I used too much gesso. You can only paint one spread at a time. Rather than pour the gesso back into the bottle I started on  another book.

This one is The Artist’s Way. I think turning it into an art journal is positively delicious.

Then it was time to give new life to old canvases. I found a bunch of ’em  during the recent move/purge, Bunch as in they must’ve been breeding like bunnies because I swear, I NEVER made that many half-assed, half-finished crappy WHAT was I thinking??? paintings in my life. So I slapped on some gesso, tore up some paper for texture and scribbled with charcoal to get rid of the arctic blindness.

By the way, notice the tools. There’s a brush. There’s also a skewer and a credit card, two of my favorite mark making devices. Ummm…lemme see…and in the photo down below there’s that black circle thing I salvaged from a slide projector tray and the beige cone from a microwave angel cake pan. Nothing is safe when it comes to making marks.

Don’t be confused by the can of furniture polish. That doesn’t belong there.

I ended up with a dozen repurposed canvases of different sizes. Here’s some of them ready and waiting for da muse.

Somewhere around the middle of the R&B playlist (I Heard It Through the Grapevine) I looked out the window and saw Mr. Spouse working on his next project…Studio Grande’s soon-to-be patio. Can’t keep a good man away from concrete… Or maybe it was Marvin Gaye. Yes, I’m sure the musician in him was diggin’ Marvin.

Meanwhile, back in the studio I didn’t really have any idea or direction what I was going to do with all those canvases. Just started painting. Two of them told me what they wanted to be.

They’re still works in progress. I believe this will become a series of striped (pronounced strip-ed) animals. For an Etsy store. I don’t have an Etsy store yet but stay tuned.

Confession: Truth in Blogging Disclaimer

Oh my best beloved sweetums, a couple of months ago when I redesigned Arty Life, I made the grand proclamation that I would post something EVERY day.  Mwhahahaha! What. Was. I. Thinking???

I wasn’t thinking about my sanity, that’s for sure.

So I’m pulling back. I’ll be here a couple of days a week. Monday. Definitely Monday.  That’s when I’ll show you what went on in the studio over the past week and weekend. Later in the week there’ll be other stuff…photography or apps or musings about life. But right now I don’t have a schedule, only the sense of freedom that comes from knowing I’ll have that many more hours to paint. Or play.

I think it’s called SUMMER!

YAY!!!