I read an interesting article about discipline the other day… practice really helps! According to a recent study, willpower breeds willpower. People who were following a money management program eventually began to use the same self-discipline in other aspects of their lives: food choices, exercise, etc. This makes total sense to me. The problem is, it also works in reverse! Once you slip on one thing, other things are easier to let go 🙂

I’ve been really focusing on my studio habit this month in preparation for my show at Riversea Gallery next month. This means I have to say no to more social things, be really focused on routines and habits, and be really efficient in my household tasks. A lot of support from my husband helps too!

I’ve noticed that the search for new inspirations has really opened me up to trying to pick up other habits too. Spring is a great time to do this! We seem to have increased energy, the light lasts longer, and I can feel new things shooting up everywhere.

One of the new things happening for me is the advent of more landscape influence in my work. I wrote that I had felt this coming on in this post…way back in August. I had such a positive response to the landscape painting I did for The Whistling Season show for Lake Oswego Reads, and it was so much fun to do too…. The painting even sold at the show! Maybe the recent press in The Oregonian was an influence there… In the actual newspaper my image was featured. I always wonder who the purchaser is. If you are an artist, does this make you curious too?

Meeting Ivan Doig was a huge inspiration. He was a brilliant speaker, easy to talk to at our exhibit and had wonderful things to say about the creative process. When someone asked me how I got such color into my landscape, he quipped: “Just tell them the same thing I do: you used your imagination!” Another thing Doig said that has stuck with me was a quote from Vladimir Nabokov about writing: “The writer must use the PASSION of a scientist and the PRECISION of an artist.”  By this he meant that to be creative, you must be a passionate explorer… one who is always asking ‘what if’? But you must also be able to find the perfect balance of imagination and reality… be the artist who can fool us into believing that the illusion before us is real.

I had a nice compliment this week from someone who bought a print on ETSY… she said my painting made her think she WAS the girl in the yellow dress at the flower market. That is always my clue to when a painting is finished… I can forget about the details and feel myself in the painting. Here is a new one… I am walking the dog 🙂 It has undergone a few minor changes since I photographed it, but it is near completion at this stage. Look for the differences when/if you see it in person. After I get the show together, I will be rephotographing things and updating my website (finally!) I also plan to list a new class here in my home studio. It will be Thursday mornings, starting in mid-May. More details to follow 🙂

Winter Evening Walk, Watercolor on Yupo

I will leave you with part of an inspiring, motivating poem by Mary Anne Radmacher (used with permission) that I have hanging in my studio to remind me to work hard:

Be avid,

Create apart from perfection. Risk failure. Cover your words with sweat. Run a little.

My favorite part is “cover your words with sweat.” That’s what I’ve been trying to do lately….