"Winter's Coming" Watercolor & Gouache 15"x22" copyright Ruth Armitage

Winter is still here, even though the daffodils are popping up and garden shows are enticing us to plan new additions to our landscapes. This morning I sat at the window and watched flakes falling. I love the look of snow, probably because it is so rare here. While rain generally drums heavily straight down from the sky or blows in sheets in front of the wind, The snow we see here falls in dancing swirls and waves and  soft, crazy zigzags. I’ve always loved the look of it, especially from the vantage point of a warm bed or sofa 🙂

But right now I’m on the lookout for new lambs in our flock. When we bought our ewes the farmer told us they might be bred, and if so would be due to lamb in February or March. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours with a neighbor who is experienced with lambing. Her lambs are so darling! Now trepidation over the unknown is mixed with hope that we do have lambs in the near future! Just not during this week’s snow storms, please!

Another great winter pleasure for me is reading. Two nights ago I started reading

The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O’Farrell at 10 pm, and didn’t put it down until I was finished. That’s right, I devoured the whole 256 page book in one night from bedtime until whatever time it was that I finished it. Suffice to say it was a great read 🙂

I have been getting more done in the studio since the holidays are over and the kids are back at school. Winter is my favorite time to nestle in to the studio and create. Last weekend a former student arranged to have a model at the Three Rivers Art Guild on Sunday afternoon, so I took advantage. What a pleasure it was to have her at our disposal for an entire afternoon. I am looking forward to the next session this weekend, and to the paintings that will come from these sessions. I read recently that anticipating painting can trigger the same dopamine response that we get from food or sex. It was an interesting article by Robert Genn on how to build anticipation in your work: http://clicks.robertgenn.com/anticipation.php

Our drawing session brought to mind one of my favorite inspirations from a life drawing class with Joseph Mann a few years ago. As we were all struggling with a particularly difficult pose under his watchful eye, he admonished us: “HURRY! – You need to approach your work with a sense of urgency! Art is IMPORTANT!”

I think the importance I place on painting  is one reason that it irritates me when I run into an acquaintance and they ask me, “so, are you still painting?” When I run into my dentist I don’t ask if he are still practicing dentistry…. One of these days I’m going to shock people and tell someone, nope: I took up golf instead. 🙂 A better question would be, how is your art-WORK going?

Reading around the blog-o-sphere this morning I found this quote by Minnesota’s Poet Laureate Robert Bly: “Poetry is a reminder. It’s a small thing. But it insists on the important things in life. . . .”

Another bit of inspiration regarding what is important was Katherine Van Schoonhoven’s post http://katherine-artandmusic.blogspot.com/2011/02/depth-of-soul.html about working from the soul.

I hope your day is inspirational.