michelle my belle

weekend in a nutshell

we had sushi (seaweed salad)

jess decided to make us lunch one day...

her masterpiece: honey & pnut butter sandwiches, pnut butter & plantain smoothie and apple/plantain sticks.
pretty cute presentation.
best part? -she cleaned up the mess!

lex got lot's of homework done, including this chemistry project.

i finished labeling & organizing some studio baskets.

you'd laugh if you saw how many different things i tried before i ended up with these very simple, chalkboard on heavy chip board, ones!

all in all, a weekend i feel good about.

 

here kitty kitty painting

not quite completed but close

part of this weekend was spent weeding through my studio, working on completing all the paintings that are half done.
the bummer is, starting again after not touching them for SO long- i end up essentially repainting the whole thing over again.

perhaps i will grow out of this rotten habit someday!?!?!?!?
PLEASE say you have experience with this and you've conquered it.
give me hope that the whispered words to myself of "never again" are not lost in the wind.

i also managed an 11 mile run on Saturday!
my longest run in over a year.
it feels good to be active again.
and my body seems to be holding up. yay!

having WAY too much FUN!

another painting complete.
a bit on the hedgehog-ish side.
super love him...





but still trying to come up with a title.
anything yelling out at you?
i have a few in my mind, but i've not settled on any one of them yet.
words are my weakness.
as you can probably tell with my mad writing skillzzzz.

xoxo-m

3 things i'm working on today...

1. i've started a new painting.
which i'm hoping to have completed today.
here's a peek...


2. i'm taking pics of our fun new pencil cups so we can put them on our website and make them available to the likes of y'all. :)

3. i'm fighting the urge to go junking and start a cool collection like this one.
i CANNOT WAIT for garage sale season!

colorful spring air

thank you for all the feedback on my last painting!
i love hearing your thoughts & opinions.

a colorful and cheerful girl emerged from this next painting.

the beginnings.

i was a little unsure what i was doing at this point so i just kept adding paint.
...that fixes everything. right?

coming together. finally.


and done.
i'm sure some of you will like this one better :)

i'm toying with the idea of trying to do a gallery show of some sort.
are any of you in galleries?
i've heard that they are really hard to get into, is this true?

protecting the sacred painting

depicted above is the painting not quite finished.
below is the completed one.

not sure i want to put this out there...
but, what do you think?

read an interesting article today on the topic of pinterest & copyright infringement.
and my heart is breaking for the the kids & family affected by the ohio h.s. shooting. so much sadness out there.

birdy and his hat painting

another painting in progress.
the studio still isn't organized or set up but, i've gotten past that.
i'm on a roll here.
fi. na. lly.

butterflies & balloons

i'm happy to report i finally have a finished painting!
in creating this, i used a mix of acrylic paint, staedtler pen, graphite pencil and a hand cut stencil.
i'm quite pleased with this piece, and especially fond of how her face turned out.

here she is getting close to the end

along with with a few soccer games (2- jess, 1- lex and 1- the hubs & i) and arting i also managed an 8 mile run!
(which btw, completely kicked my butt!)
running oh how i've missed thee!
it's been about a year and a half since i quit running due to some issues with my knee.
over the past few months i've been slowly trying to build up a base again so i can run the portland rock 'n' roll 1/2 in may.
i think running makes me a better artist.
okay, maybe it's just exercising in general... but. i prefer running. :) 

here's something else i'm adding to my "to make" list...

 

painting is like a puzzle

for me, painting is like a puzzle without a box.
lots of pieces, colors & shapes.
with no idea what the end picture is going to look like until those final pieces are in place.

some of the pieces in place...

more pieces in place but still not quite finished.

tomorrow.

in the studio thursday.

my mom & i went and checked out the new dick blick in portland last week.
beautiful store.
prices didn't seem to be quite as nice as online.
not to mention they were out of stock on a lot of items.
i think i will stick to ordering online & hitting the store only for art supply emergencies.

ahhhh. there's nothing quite like a fresh pile of goodness to get you going!

spent the day just messing around and trying to find myself again.

can i just say... i LOVE painting. i LOVE color. i LOVE doodling!


and just an fyi... this blog is sick awesome! (IMHO)