Here’s a close up of the middle one.

Finally, I’ve had some time to paint and am starting to amass a small collection of finished work. As a matter of fact, FINISHED is my word of the year. I have several painting and mixed media and sculpture pieces half done. The above painting is watercolor and a little colored pencil. It’s half done, and I’ll post the finished version soon.

Also, this year I’d like to learn to photograph watercolors better (or get a bigger scanner).  I am really loving the watercolors lately.  Problem is that each one needs to be matted and framed to show it…not nearly so easy as acrylic on board or canvas. I’ve also been just starting to think through and sketch some paperclay sculptures.

We’ve been in Plano now for over a year and we still love it here. It’s so nice to know we can stay as long as we want after moving so much in the past 5 years. We feel all settled and relaxed here. We need to get out and explore some more and are interested in taking one or two trips to Houston. I’d especially LOVE to go to the International Quilt Festival.

More soon. I have a feeling this is going to be a very good year.

In the time I’ve been gone, I’ve moved from Austin to Plano, which I actually quite like. It’s sort of publicized as an suburban wasteland of keep-up-with-the-Jones’, but I haven’t found that at all. To me, it’s quiet tree-lined streets of 80’s brick houses with swimming pools and wet bars and shops of all kinds - mall, mom-and-pop, upscale, thrift. All within blocks of me. I’m very happy to be here. My first project was changing my wet bar into an art bar - a project I’ll show you soon.

Well, what I really wanted to say is hello again world.

As you can see from the work table, there’s no shortage of art going on. There’s just a shortage of art being actually completed.

3 watercolors, 5 acrylics and, hehe, just ordered some paperclay today because I have these little sculptures in my head that want out.

I’ve been doing some thinking on trends. Why is it that we look down on some and can’t get enough of others? For instance, back when Somerset Studio was all-sepia-all-the-time, I still submitted a couple of things for publication, but stopped subscribing. I also have had enough currently of deer, wings pasted on to old photos and shrines. Now, mind you, I’m not putting these things down. Nope. Because I am still in love with hand painted girls, bunny ears and kitty ears on girls, and collage-y stuff. I also am a latecomer to the whole brown & turquoise and  brown & pink phase. A year or two ago when I first heard that chocolate and turquoise was back, I was horrified. But it’s growing on me. I am certain to grow completely fond of it the moment it is no longer in fashion and then people can look down on me for being so last year. What phases are you all in? What’s in and out in your own personal space?

In other news, I actually have taken a bit of a job sort of thing. I shouldn’t talk too much about it here. I’m still training and checking it out. It’s only half-time and working from home, so it fits in nicely with  painting and creating thing. I’m using the first paycheck (before it arrives -lol) to bring parts of our lives into the 21st century. Replacing my 10 year old cordless phone with new ones. Buying Office 2007 and retiring Office 1997. Buying a headset to use with Skype. Exciting I know.

And eventually, I must sit myself back down at the table and finish something!

The last place I felt “at home” was my hometown of San Diego. We are having a long wet gray summer here in Austin. I’ve managed to get a few flowers to grow here, but I miss all the year-round tropical flowers of San Diego more than just about anything out there. Austin has great trees and the rain has made everything lush and green, but it’s the San Diego flowers that call to me.

Growing up, we had a bird of paradise in the front yard. That plant grew out of control and as a little little kid I used to talk to the flowers because they seemed like people (in my first version of this drawing, the flower has a face).  I spent weekends at the zoo and the Botanical Gardens and took it all for granted. I assumed everywhere in the world was like my own personal tropical paradise. When I watched TV news of snowstorms and sleet, it was no more real than any of the fiction shows.

I’m going to have to take a vacation and go somewhere with bright tropical flowers or see if they have something like that here in Austin.

This is watercolor with colored pencil and pigment ink.

I have about 6 items I’m painting right now. Another in the Bubble series (like this one) - a seascape this time. Also a watercolor house, a space-y girl with a wild hat, and two botanical collage girls. I’m headed off now to go compare archival printers online and maybe actually buy one. I FINALLY listed 23 items on eBay this week (knightmates)

and started listing a few of the jewelry supplies on etsy. Made my first sale this morning!

Check out other “Missing” images here.

Feeling a little out-of-sorts today. I’ve felt so, I don’t know, homesick maybe, since moving away from California. I don’t think it was a bad decision financially as California is a very hard place to get ahead financially. Also California has picked up a lot more financial problems, crime, and housing price nightmares in the past 5 years or so. I’m a San Diego native and lived there for 35 years so it’s going to take a long while for any other place to start feeling like a real home.

One of my favorite Scottish songs growing up (A Scottish Soldier) sang out how green the hills were, but the last line of the chorus is: “But they are not the hills of home”. And that’s how I feel. Austin is very pretty. I walk out on the porch and look out over the Hill Country and it’s the prettiest view I’ve ever had anywhere. But it’s not “my view”. I feel as I am am on vacation and will soon go home and rollerskate along the Mission Beach boardwalk or go gallery hopping in La Jolla. We’ve considered that Austin is just not “our place” no matter how pretty it is, and we’ve thought about transferring up to North Dallas. We still need to take a scouting trip up there. But where this all leaves me, day to day, is feeling unsettled. I understand logically that I have to live for today and should just get on with my life. But I feel emotionally as if I’m in a sleeping car on a train - better keep everything near me and neat because you never know when you’re going to have to gather everything together and get off the train.

So what I’ve been doing a lot of is sorting and simplifying. We’ve taken literally tons of stuff from place to place with us - San Diego to Temecula to Pleasanton to Dublin to Austin. And in the last 5 years, the happiest I’ve been is living for 6 months in an Extended Stay America hotel with only 1 box of clothes, 1 box of art supplies and 1 box of books. That says to me that it’s time to give things away. Live more simply. Be ready for whatever comes next. Only I hope that what comes next has more permanence than these 18 month moves we’ve been making.

In other news, I have to spend some time today thinking through how to sell some beads/jewelry. I have sooooo much stuff to sell. Should I start a separate web page like I used to have 5 years ago? Should I go back to eBay (was a powerseller for years). Etsy? I suppose a combination would work best.  I’ve been undecided whether to sell most of it as beads or whether to make some jewelry. But I think my heart is in paintings and mixed media right now so I better start letting some of it go to homes where it can be used.

The pieces above were just a quick thing I played with. Vintage brass pieces filled with epoxy that I had mixed paint into. Then before the epoxy set, I pushed beads and cabochons into it. I probably have 10,000 pieces of brass. Yep, time to clean house.

I thought I’d not only make this a post about an illustration with a moon in it, but also give you an idea for a collaborative project to do with any of those people in your family who think they aren’t artists. I’ve had many people in my life that would have loved to have something of their own on the wall, but believe they couldn’t possibly produce something worthy of showing. So this is for the whole family to do together, or for a project with a bunch of friends you want to remember visually every day, or as a gift to someone who’d like to remember you and your friends or loved ones.

I did this with my husband. He’s made a few colored pencil sketches of fruit that I try to hang on the wall and he looks at sheepishly. I told him that we could do something together which could hang on the wall and not embarrass him.

This is really simple. All you need is a nice frame and mat, 2 pieces of watercolor paper (one 300 weight from an art store if possible because you don’t have to tape it down; you can just start painting on it. If you don’t have watercolor paper, use the heaviest archival paper you can find and you should be able to press the small pieces flat later). The other piece of paper can be 140 weight and is used as the background. You can use any paper for this one- it doesn’t even have to be white - just has to match the frame/mat combo. You also need some archival tape to attach the art to the mat, and whatever acrylics, colored pencils, or other art supplies you have lying around. I used watercolor ink and watercolor pencils and Neocolor pencils and crayons. If you use an medium like acrylics, make sure you put them in dixie cups already mixed with water to the right consistency if your partners don’t know art supplies. This is a no-intimidation project!

I gave him half the paper and me the other half. I took at lid from a seasoned salt shaker (you can use any size circle template that works for you) and drew about 20 circles on each piece of paper. Then I said, “No pressure, just draw and paint for fun. If one circle goes bad, move to the next. We aren’t using them all anyway.” So we spent an hour or so enjoying ourselves, and painting lots of different sorts of things. I purposely didn’t get too fancy or detailed with mine - you don’t want one person to have technically perfect illustrations and the other(s) to have abstract squiggles. Just be free and wild. You know, when I look at it now there are several I know are mine or his and a few that I am delightfully unsure of.

When we were done, I had him pick his favorites from what he painted. I cut out 9 of his and 9 of mine. I started arranging them in grid form on a second piece of paper. I discarded from the project the 6 that didn’t work as well together as the others, mostly because of color. That left 6 of his and 6 of mine, which I simply glued down to the paper with an archival glue. I took archival framing tape (but you can use any archival tape you find in a scrapbook or art store) and taped the art to the mat.

Then I framed it and hung it on the wall. Voila. Now it’s a colorful expression of our love that hangs in the entry/library area for all to see. We’ve never heard anything but nice comments about it. Each individual piece may not be spectacular, but together it makes a joyous statement. Plus it’s fun to do. Go forth into your weekend and create!!

If there were one hundred of me - maybe even one hundred and one just so one could be the Director of Lives for the others, I could easily fill all those lives with what I love and want to be.

Here’s a few of the possible me’s at 43:

Tashina #1 buckled down in college and got that medical degree. I became a neurologist and now I live in a lovely house with my husband and no kids - way too busy for kids. I live in a college town like Columbia, Missouri where I own a pretty 50’s house with cheerful yellow siding. I made enough money by 40 to cut back on work a little and now I travel several months a year to help provide medical care in poor countries. Once every year or so I give my decorator a whole new idea for the look of my house and when I come home from my travels my house is all done and ready for my finishing touches. On part of my property, I sponsor an animal rescue for birds and small dogs. I have a little house where someone can live for free and care for the animals.

Tashina #2 - well, you’ve probably seen me on TV. I’m the voice of the National Hurricane center. Luckily, this pays enough so that my husband can stay home with our 2 kids. He’s a custom woodworker. On the side, he lets me design a few pieces that I can paint after he builds them. Then we sell them in galleries around the country. When we “retire”, we’ll do this full-time. I have to live near work so I’m in Miami in one of those high-rise condos on the beach. The whole family takes walks at sunset each night next to the ocean and we spend most weekends on the sailboat.

Tashina #3 - I’m the artsy-est one. I live in a loft in Emeryville, CA across from the Borders with the dozens of ethnic food booths. (Love that place). My husband and I are both painters and sell our work in a gallery downstairs from the loft. Living in the Bay Area and within reasonable distance to Portland and art conferences like Art and Soul, I get to be friends with Kelly Rae and Judy Wise and Alexandra and Laini and Paulette Insall .

I think I’ll tag the above bloggers and see if they have any additional selves to reveal. If you like this idea, consider yourself tagged and leave a link in comments.

In 1989 or so, my friend and roommate Jeff Lucas wrote this poem:

“Where all form is thrown aside

incensed and temperamental

the parting of blue waters

then the reaching of hands

tenuous meaning, perception,

marionette,

the deceptions”

Jeff is primarily a musician and you can find his work at his web site: Jeffrey Luck Lucas

I was just starting to draw then. I illustrated the poem in colored pencil (see the bottom of this entry). You know how when you first start anything the first ones aren’t much good, but sometimes you love them anyway? That’s the way it was with this piece. I continue to love it today.

In 1991, I reworked it again with Prismacolor markers. That version didn’t survive very well. It was mostly blues and yellows and I’ve found that almost all blue and yellow Prismacolor markers (at least from that era and probably still today) turn yellow (bright yellow!) around the edges of the original marker color. I know alcohol markers aren’t meant to be archival, but that was my first real world wake-up call.

Anyway, I found the old color pencil drawing and decided it was time for another update. This one is in watercolors and unfortunately doesn’t photograph as well as I would like. It’s about 12″ x 12″ and a bit big for my scanner. I tried every setting and I still can’t capture the delicacy of watercolors. Guess it’s time to do some photographic research.

In other concerns - what happened to summer? We’re getting the Portland winter (but warmer) here in Austin this summer. It rains several days each week and it’s staying cooler (mid 80’s) but really humid. It’s too humid to open the windows until evening so I sit inside painting and staring out at the gloomy sky.  I haven’t had to water the lawn once yet this year!

I’m not really complaining. Austin’s summer is the miserable part of the year. Hot hot and more hot for the most part. 96 during the day cooling to 90 at midnight and 80 at 5am. The rest of the year is gorgeous here. So if this is to be the summer of thunderstorms and rain, bring it on.

Hope you enjoy and have an excellent weekend. I’m planning a lazy library, Borders Books and Chipotle burrito weekend. 

So, as I mentioned, after 6 weeks of hoping, I finally received my birthday present - 8 issues of DPI magazine!!

What a treasure. I’m especially loving issues 86 and 96 (Nicoletta Ceccoli covers) . Today, I’ll show you around the newest issue - #98.

with Mari Kubota on the cover. (top row, 2nd from left).

Above is a piece called Bento from Susan Burghart. She’s from Washington state, but did part of her schooling in London, so she has some posters in the magazine for bands and plays going on in London. Many of the articles in DPI are in Chinese and English, thankfully. Bento was a commissioned work and she says, “I draw a lot of influence in particular from Japanese art - from wood block illustration to kimono fabris and origami paper.”

Here is our cover artist, Mari Kubota. She’s from Hyogo, Japan. “She is creating dolls, picture books, and postcards for her original brand, “marie”.” This article has very interesting use of the English language as it’s an interview from a Chinese magazine to a Japanese artist and then sort of translated into English. What I got out of it is that she uses Gouache in her art because of the colors. Her inspiration for her newest work is a “sad girl’s wedding”.

They asked her “For you, what is beauty?What things can’t you bear with?”

Her answer: “Something that is shut tightly”. When something is out, they get dirt and not beautiful any more. I try to bear for anything.”

Sort of poetic, really.

This is Mizna Wada. Don’t miss seeing her dolls on her website. She’s a freelance illustrator from Tokyo and has loved horror comics since childhood. She’s been using the current style for about 10 years and she works in Print Gocco, acrylic, watercolor, cut paper, and dolls. A lotof her work has a circus theme and the one pictured here, from what I can understand, is about a contest of beautiful and talented people. Here is her concept of beauty.

“Beauty is stuff not perfect. I think that each peculiar distortion that has it creates beauty. Or beauty is balanced stuff of Yin and Yang. I dislike the thing which lean to one side of either.”

I’m not sure if this is an ad or an article, but it’s about noodoll and I liked the drawings.

and lastly, here is another fashion spread:

This is the designer Doris Kalchmann from Austria. She has a pdf file of her dpi article so you can get an idea of how the magazine reads.

Here’s the page on this issue of DPI magazine on the DPI website. Looks like they have a new issue out (#99)l on new art and design from Japan.  I wonder what #100 will bring?

As soon as I can tear myself away from this issue, I think I’ll give it away to a commenter on the blog. Stay tuned if you’re interested.