A Rocky Heart

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love hearts. I love to paint them, I own heart-shaped jewelry, I love to see heart shapes in other things. I also really love rocks. The heart rock collection above was gathered on our holiday this past August in Maine. I actually have more of them than I was able to fit in the photo.

I can't tell you how much pleasure looking at these gorgeous heart rocks gives me. I love that there are smooth ones, wonky ones, broken ones, light and dark. Don't all of our hearts go through all of those stages at some time or another?

Some of these rocks are particularly nice to hold. The great big, smooth rock in the centre came from Jasper Beach in Maine. It is the most extraordinary place. Mounds and mounds of ocean-sculpted, smooth jasper stones. That big heart is so beautiful and just might be the ultimate worry stone.

In April, I showed you a painting I did of a gorgeous tree that lives in the forest where I walk with Meeko during the winter. It has the most wonderful heart shape on its trunk.  I finally made my painting into a print and added it to my shop this week. I am very happy with how it turned out. I did the original painting in gouache as I wanted to make sure that all of the woodsy, earthy, mossy tones came through on the beautiful tree trunk.  The print has captured the original's tones very nicely.

"Legend has it she gave her heart to the forest."  8 1/2 x 11 inch print on Italian watercolour paper

I also found some beautiful egg-shaped rocks. I'm like a kid when I'm on the beach. I get so excited about shells, sea glass and all shapes of rocks. Look at these beauties!

I wonder if Arounna from Bookhou ever wonders about the treasures that her beautifully made bags carry. My wonderful rock collection was transported in a Bookhou bag from the coast of Maine back to our home.

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Thank you for your patience with me in past weeks. I came back from our holiday in early August fired up and with the best intentions of posting on my blog more often. Well and then I didn't. (Did you wonder if our house had been surrounded by the black-eyed susans in my last post?) I've missed you all and hope to be here more often this fall.  Both Emma and Chloé are now back to school. After a very slow summer, I've started to sell again in my shop. (Yay!) I've added new prints and some more originals, so please have a look. I'll be adding more in the weeks ahead. The next month will be busy. I have a special commissioned painting to work on (maybe two) as well as a craft show to prepare for. I'll see you here!

A Mermaid's Tale

We have just come back from a glorious week beside the ocean in Maine. Two days at home and my head is still back in Maine with the mermaids, sea birds and beach glass.

Mermaids, you ask? Well, the only one I was able to get a photo of was a beautiful sand sculpture made by Emma and her cousin, Erica. But I think there's a possibility that there were other mermaids lingering behind the rocks just beyond my camera's reach.

Emma and Erica's beautifully sculpted mermaid complete with seaweed hair.

We rented a house with my sister's family. We spent many hours walking on the rocky beach in front of where we stayed. Each tide would bring in more sea glass, enough to share with everyone who was there.

My collection of sea glass and pottery. The most amazing find was the glass stopper pictured on the right.

It turns out that Emma has an eagle eye for finding sea glass. Even after the rest of us had combed the beach thinking we had found it all, Emma would find pocketsful of sea glass treasures.

And speaking of eagles, we saw one!  A bald eagle flew by on more than one occasion. Once, it flew within feet of the front porch. I don't have a photo of it that time. We just stood there awestruck. Here's a photo of it a little higher up in the sky on one of its fly-bys.

We also saw loons, herons and seagulls. I took a series of photos of one heron looking for and catching his supper.

I've started a painting of some of my beautiful beach finds. It's a way of me staying in touch with our beautiful Maine vacation while I slowly get used to being back home.

This painting is still in progress. A few more details to go.

Uh oh. It's happening again. There go my thoughts, somewhere back in Maine with the mermaids, beach glass and sea birds.

A Nature Collection with a French Twist

I just completed a painting this afternoon and I have already added the print to my Etsy shop.  I am so happy with how it turned out. (I hope it doesn't sound like bragging to say that.  It's not every day that I finish a painting and it just feels right.)

I did the painting of a collection of small and precious objects:  beach stones (one with a heart shape), tiny shells, green and amber sea glass--all from a past holiday in Maine.  I also included a sparrow's feather, a bud from a tree in my backyard and a couple of pieces of garden twine.  Then I did something quite different for me.  I added text to my painting and I decided to write the words in French.

Most of you know this by now. I live in a bilingual household.  I am anglophone. My husband is francophone.  Sometimes the French words are prettier than the English ones and, in this case, they even rhyme!  'La terre' is the earth, 'la mer' is the ocean or sea and l'air is...well I think you have that one figured out.

The photo above is of the painting in progress before I had thought of adding the feather, twine and twig. I'm not a sketchbook person although I admire those who are. My paintings develop as I work on them.

Thanks to everyone who left the lovely comments about Chloé's photography in the last post.  She was proud and happy to read them. :)

Rocks and Hearts

Some days I think it would be very useful to have a crane, the mechanical sort or the bird.  Either would do but, come to think of it, the bird sounds like more fun. Anyway, I imagine it plucking me from wherever I am and whatever I am doing and placing me gently but decidedly at my work table in my studio.  Oh, how I get caught up in doing other things.  I don't know why it is so hard to climb those stairs some days, as I am always happier once I am up there painting.

This morning I decided to work on a painting that I started when we were in Ogunquit, Maine a couple of summers ago.

I love rocks. I love hearts.  I guess it should be no surprise then that I love heart-shaped rocks.  I originally had two rocks in my painting but found a third small one this morning in my rock collection and so added it to the composition.  They look like they belong together--a family of rocks, a family of hearts. I like the symbolism.

The painting is on paper that I don't often use.  It was in a old, small Canson Montval sketchpad that seemed the right size to pack for our trip.  I quite like the texture of it and the way it handles the paint.  I definitely will use it again.

As I was working today, I was feeling the echoes of another painting I did a long time ago.  I dug it out so that you can see it. It's actually half a painting. I did it from some photos that my brother took many years ago when he worked for a week or so in Pond Inlet, a remote Inuit community on the northern shore of Baffin Island in Nunavut. (He was there as part of his medical residency. He's a psychiatrist.) I was very unhappy with the top part of the painting, the water, so I cut the painting in two.  I don't remember ever having done that before but it worked:  I was happy with the rocks, spent a good deal of time painting them and there was enough interest in them for them to be the focal point.

To give credit where credit is due, my daughter Emma took the photo of me working in my studio.

(I have retaken some of the photos I took yesterday.  I may post them in yesterday's post--a before and after--or in a new one. I'm making some progress working with my new camera.)