From journeys to journals

Alright, enough of this mooning around looking at photos of big mountains! I'm back in Ithaca, and deep in preparations for the Christmas season. Every day I'm spending a few hours creating or packaging cards, prints, journals, boxes, gift cards...getting orders out to stores, reconfiguring my market displays, planning ahead for big seasonal art-and-craft fairs, updating Etsy, cleaning and painting the space where the Holiday Store will open. These journals were made fresh this morning...and if you like one, email me or come to the market this weekend!

Autumn is really here, with a taste of winter. Saw the S-word in the forecast, and right now my woodstove is glowing in the corner of the living room. I find this season before the snow comes to be very challenging, all the dark mornings and damp, chilly days and early evenings.

Shuksan

I'm processing some of the photos from my west coast adventures, and you really should see this one! Mt Shuksan, in the North Cascades, reflected in Picture Lake, apparently one of the most photographed spots in the world, and I see why. What a perfect, clear day...I was field-tripping up to Mt Baker with the legendary Doc Sheldon, looking for ptarmigan and mountain goats.

Islands

I'm home from my reconnaissance trip to Oregon and Washington, and just getting back to my computer and scanner and other tools of modern communication. It was a sleepless red-eye flight home after a fine drive down the Columbia River Gorge to Portland with all the mountain out, and it took a few days of weird nap times and general discombobulation and crankiness to get myself back in line. Not to mention returning to a house which two poorly-behaved but adorable cats had been living in unsupervised for almost three weeks. Not to mention a full market weekend, and preparing to hang another show in a few days. BUT it's great to see my Ithaca friends and the lovely fall weather, and I really love my own comfortable bed.

I particularly loved my time on Whidbey Island, in the sound north of Seattle. Here's a page from my travel sketchbook, looking out to the islands from the beach at Deception Pass. I just finished a larger acrylic painting based on this, which will go up on Wednesday at Rasa Spa as part of my show there.

(Side note: since I've been painting islands and thinking about whether I could manage to live there or something, I have been plagued with having snippets of that classic early '80's duet featuring Dolly P. and Kenny R. in my head for DAYS (which I will not mention here by name lest it return).

I have a great little story to tell too, a sweet moment that really made my week. I was out on Friday evening at Just A Taste, taking in a fantastic meal with a friend who wanted to see my paintings there before they came down. Halfway through our meal, the head waitress came over and told me that the woman over there at the table wanted to buy the painting, that one over there in the corner, right off the wall and was that ok with me? Heck yeah!

Cairns

Cairns my eldest niece and I built on the Oregon coast.