SUNDAY August 28th!

Whew!  LOLA Rocks!!! I gotta tell ya, it is SO nice to be able to sit outside all day and have friends and strangers alike come by and tell you how much they like your work, and then actually BUY some of it!!!
But dang, it sure is hard to get a painting done with all these people coming by!  Here's what I managed today...

And it really isn't done, because I haven't figured out the mess on the bottom left side yet... there is supposed to be a sidewalk and a trash can there, but every time I would be attempting to focus on that little problem, someone ELSE would come by and bug me with money and questions!
Dang!
THANK YOU so much everyone who came by!  It was a FABULOUS weekend!
And tomorrow I have my new students...  oh that was another amazing thing today... I got to see four of my students from my last school, St Mark's, who came by~  dang, makes me miss them all the more...

August 27th, Saturday~

Um, why didn't any of you kind people let me know I was a day off?  I said that yesterday was the 25th-  so where did the 26th go, then?  Hmmmm?  Are you the kind of people who let someone know when they have a bit of spinach in their teeth, or their fly is down, or there is a smudge on their forehead, or do you just ignore it and let them find out later at home when they look in the mirror as they are getting ready for bed and leave them desperately trying to remember WHEN was it that they last had SPINACH?!

Well, despite that, I still love you~  and thank you to those of you who came out for LOLA today!  What a great day!  And I LOVE sharing space with Christy and Rebecca~  who've been with me since the START of LOLA~
So come by tomorrow if you can-  I have a couple new pieces from Grand Marais I didn't have along today...
And this pup is Molly, and she is a commission, and I DID just paint her tonight, believe it or not, and don't ask me how I do this because it just seems to happen, and now I need to write out class lists for monday when I meet my new students for the first time....
Thanks for following!!!

friday august 25

yup- tired again, and feeling that feeling of working too dang hard and missing the fun stuff, but i do know i've had a heckuva lota fun in my life, and still do, even when i'm "working", so i guess i'm just maturing....
maybe...

so here's a couple commissions because i have had no time to paint today- will be doing THAT tomorrow and sunday at the LOLA Art Crawl!
Come see me!
xokat!

Thursday august 25....

wow-  tired today-  up last night with a feverish child, and more workshops and meet-the-teacher things today.... lovely but tiring~

so here is a corgi, with an earnest expression...

August 24

Here are some more crabapples, from the park by Lake Hiawatha, picked by Max but snatched by me before he plucked the stems.....

tuesday August 23rd~

Here is a not-so-great one- but it is hot and I am tired and it seems that there are small invisible insects constantly BITING me as I sit here in the dining room under the ceiling fan~

Attempting to really suggest the rainy pavement... this one will be revisited because I love so many artists' depictions of a rainy street....  gee, I suppose I could see if I could find one to put on here to show you what I mean- 
Ah!  There!  And it is by Gustav Caillebotte, NOT Sargent, and since it is Paris and not New York, that would make sense....

MONDAY! August 22~

Whew!  I DID it!  I painted a painting, despite being tired and needing to fill in my new insurance forms and all that stuff and get class lists and the underpinings of a profession in line for the new school year, and I still DID IT!!!!
And I want to go to bed now...

this is a house that I took a photo of as I was taking photos of another house for a commission, but I just couldn't resist it.  The large tree to the right had a sumptuous summer saturated green going for it, and leaned protectively over the house, dwarfing the house which is quite a bit larger than ours...

Nice for August, I think...

Sunday August 21st!

Ha!  We're having a brunch today, it looks like it may rain, Duane is trying to get more blocks into the window well so we don't have a muddy flood in the basement like last tuesday, and I painted Max's mug and another blue one I like to drink wine out of and the couple of crab apples from the playground at Lake Hiwatha that Max did NOT pull the stems out of on the stroller ride home...
Alrighty folks, I'm going to seriously try to keep this up, and I will learn how to put these onto the Daily Paintworks site so I can auction them off...  Something like this one I'd sell on the auction for like $40 starting...
Whadaya think?

August 20th, Saturday...

ummm....
I do feel the need to give an excuse, but I am NOT going to, except to say that yesterday was incredibly busy and the opening at Diamond's was WAY better than I'd expected with a lovely mob of boistrous people and kids and dogs and some treats and stuff!

Dudley, with Sad Eyes...

The Madden Cabin in Door County

And here is a painting for today~ 













And a painting for yesterday too, so you won't feel too gyped or anything.   Dudley is my friend Rachel's friend's dog, and the EYES were just WAY too much on this one.  Really, the photo is even more extreme.  Believe me, I toned them down...
And the other painting is the view from the living area out the amazing front windows through the sumac to Lake Michegan...
thanks!

August 18th, Thursday~

Here are the two pieces that got into the Niza Knoll Gallery in Denver, thank you to an old friend who LIVES there and let me know about the show, and then offered to deliver my art to the gallery for the jurying process, and THEN offered to pick the work up and mail it back to me!  What a GUY!!!

Sparky Waits

Front Seat Grinning

Sparky was up at the Grand Marais Art Festival in July, which was a wonderful event with incredible people, and LOTS of rain!  And the other painting is Bingo and Gus in the front seat of the car on the way to the airport dog park...  they OBVIOUSLY know where they are going...
And if you haven't noticed, I've changed the title of my blog here, since I am not always posting paintings of dogs.  I may rethink this and go back to "My AutobiDOGraphy" since I think that is a remarkably clever and witty title, and I like to see myself in that light.  Since I AM remarkably clever and witty~  really.  All my friends say so...

Okay, tired and going to bed~  more mugs tomorrow!

Agust 17th, Wednesday!

With a White Gesso Ground

Today was my last day of official SUMMER.  And I was bummed that I haven't painted since some crappy attempts at Plein Air saturday afternoon at the cottage in Door County, so I painted a couple versions of Max's yellow cup/mug...
  I mean, it just seems that if the VIEW is great, shouldn't it be easy to PAINT it?!  Man....
And I was excited to try to use some of Carol Marine's tips in my acrylic this morning.  I DO want to do oil, like I did all last week, but it is just trickier for me to get that all set up, and our basement flooded last night, and blah blah blah, excuse excuse excuse.

With a Black Gesso Ground

SO what I want to try to do is to get on a daily painting dealio, where I auction off a painting every day.  I want to try to start in September.  This may be ridiculous, as I am committed to a few shows here and there where I also need to have some STOCK to sell, but since I do love to paint, I thought I'd give this a shot.  What will happen is I will post a painting a day, like I have with the dogs and the cats, but THIS time you will be able to bid on the piece in an on-line auction (like e-bay) and by the end of 7 days, it can be yours!  I want to start the pieces at the low end of the price scale, again probably ridiculous, but what the heck?  I can always quit, can't I?  So, I think I'll start the first few bids at between $25 and $50 bucks~  and the pieces will all be small, like 6x6...
Any comments or ideas for me, I would REALLY appreciate hearing them!
lovkat!

still Thursday...

Dang-  sorry-  I got excited~  i definitely will be learning how to take better pictures of oil paintings... but this is my NEW boot I got from an etsy shop (i have the other one too!) and I love it so much~  I wanted to paint it!

August 11th! DOOR COUNTY!

I am at the Peninsula School of Art in Door County studying with Carol Marine, an incredible artist and teacher who has a daily paint blog that I follow, and have totally forgotten about putting a link to in my own blog!
Anyway, this has been an AWESOME week and I thought I'd maybe better start posting things every day too, since I do want to try to paint daily and it will never be the perfect time for it so I may as well do it NOW.

Left boot from Porto Portugal

so here are a couple things i've painted here....

August 5th, Thursday

 And here are a few dogs I have had a chance to get back into~  I was gonna try to do a "before" and "after" scenario, but I am too dang tired and Doc Martin is on.....

Sunday, July 31~ Zodi!

I hate to admit that I couldn't finish this one today, but man~  it is HOT out.  Whew.   I was pretty wiped out yesterday after sitting in the heat until after 7pm, oh yeah no it was later because we stopped at a friends' house on the way home, seeing as the neighbor was kind enough to listen in on our sleeping Max...  So it has been an incredibly long weekend, tho the Red Hot Art Festival was really fun with lots of great people and a number of new commissions!  But it was really hard to paint there, first because people kept wanting to chat, and because it was just so HOT.   It felt like my body would let me paint and concentrate for a little while, and then YANK my attention back to the fact that I was drenched with sweat and flies were biting every bit of exposed flesh, and it was almost too hot to breathe.   I wonder when it is too hot to be allowed to be outside?
So ANYWAY-
THIS is ZODI, whom I will be finishing later this week~  i just wanted to get the post in so you could understand that I AM NOT superhuman. 
thanks~

July 30th- Buster & Bassa!

Buster

Wow- this was a bit tougher to do~  and I will be going back into Bassa's face yet, as his expression is just not quite fully available here... 
And believe me, I did attempt to get the plaid blanket behind Buster's face, but it just wouldn't go so I stuck with the emphatic shadows and the rather strong gaze, which reminds me of Vincent Price...  I hope that isn't an insult!

Bassa

And we are at the moment loading up the truck to head over to Steven's Square, and Duane is cursing at the mess in the garage as he drags out tables, and there will be a birthday party down the block for a young friend that I will miss as I sit in the sun selling our ART!




I hope to see some of you out and about today!
And there is SO much going on!

And TOMORROW is the LAST DOG!!!!!!!
Wow~

I'll sure miss them...

July 29- Ditto!

It is funny that I would do a repeat of a dog named Ditto...  I actually did THREE versions before I was happy, and now have two that look like completely different dogs...

Ditto is a very lucky dog, in that he is on his second set of owners who are close to his original owner who will be turning 92 next month!  What a great way to live~
And what a mischievous face!  Personality up the ying-yang on this one!

Sorry, I'm a bit pooped, and trying to get my stuff together for the Red Hot Art Sale tomorrow at Steven's Square!
I hope you are coming by!
It's been a VERY long day-  I dropped my piece off at the State Fair (wish me luck!) and was very happy with how quickly it had all gone and the conversations I'd had in line, and as I was shooting out onto Snelling, I had a call from the head art guys saying I had to come back and get the piece and frame it....  Now, I KNEW this, because I have entered work in the State Fair for a few years now, so I couldn't be mad at THEM, but this piece is painted on a gallery-wrapped canvas and therefore NEEDS no frame.  And one of the women who was helping there looked at it and said," I really like it like this!"  So, I took it home and Duane and Max and I went on a run to Home Depot, and Duane took it back to the studio while Max and I played in the sandbox with the mosquitoes and ants and Duane had to miter the corners twice or something but then he very kindly ran it back over to the Fair for me so I haven't seen it yet.  I hope it gets in.
thanks for letting me blurt...
See you tomorrow!
the two scotties I have on the list for tomorrow will be done in the morning... wish me luck with that too...

July 28th- Goldy & Sota!

Goldy!

Sota!

Yup, another two-fer~  and both sweet white Golden Doodles!

Here is what their loving sports-minded owner says about them~

"Goldy is six and I got her shortly after I moved into my house.  I got her for company, security and a running buddy. She is named after my beloved Golden Gophers.

Ultra social going to baseball games and all dog friendly event she also loves to swim, run and fetch. She exceeds the phrase “Woman’s best Friend."

"Sota is only a year old; I got her last summer for Goldy from the same breeder. Although not related they look very much alike!  She too is named after my favorite college team Minnesota. She is a little on the crazy side, likes to “fetch” which really means steal the ball from Goldy. A newbie to the lake she is still getting used to the idea of swimming.   A great addition to the family, she makes me laugh every day!"

I gotta admit, these two were awfully fun to paint, with the challenges of white fluffy fur~

Thanks Jill! 

July 27th~ Cody!

Darn John, you sent that e-mail just a bit late~  I got to work early today because of some plans later.  Cody's owner John was hoping I could take a photo of me painting the painting, as it is for his mom.  And actually, the space is a mess, and you really wouldn't want to see it anyway.  It's kinda like seeing the wizard behind the curtain-  takes some of the magic out of it... or maybe not.  Maybe you like to see the underpinnings of the business of painting... well, I'll include some shots of my varnishing rack with a buncha dogs spread out on it in the backyard yesterday afternoon while Max was napping...

And here is what John has to say about the sweetly concerned little pup~
"This is Cody.  He is my mom's dog.  My mom and I picked him out last July at a Petsmart adoption day event from the Last Hope organization.  He is a sweet little boy who loves to give stinky kisses.  My mom lost my dad about a year and a half ago and Cody has helped my mom to not feel too alone at home.  This picture was taken the day we brought him home.  He is a Chihuahua and Mini Dachshund mix."


Cody looks to me to be fully capable of providing as much loving as a person could need.

Thanks John!

And here is a crop of paintings, settling into their varnish...  gotta happen on sunny, coolish days with not so much humidity.  Been a great summer here for those...
I gotta admit, it is really fun for me to see them all together!  And this isn't all of them either!  Man, this has been SO fun and it is almost over!  I'll bring a couple dogs along this weekend to the Red Hot Art Festival at Steven's Square in Uptown! Come see me!

July 26th- MOXIE! For Rob~

Rob doesn't know that I've painted this of Moxie.  Rob lives in Winona.  Rob is a very great man, and he and his wife and son and this dog Moxie were all incredibly supportive at a time when I really needed it, and when a dear friend of all of ours desperately needed it-  this is one of those paintings I've been meaning to do for a while, so thank goodness I finally made myself get to it!  Moxie is a Burmese Mountain Dog, one of the best, and I was fortunate to get to go winter camping with her once upon a time~
So thank you Rob!