DRUM ROLL, PLEASE!

Recognize this style? Hmmmmm?
If you don't, you are seriously out of the loop!
It's by Sandy Mastroni!
She is celebrating over 200 sales on Etsy this week!
She's having a giveaway for a chance to win this charming art pillow as a thank you to all her loyal friends in blog land.
HERE! HERE! GO HERE! Help Sandy celebrate. I hope you get lucky!

Spring Dreams

Well, the desperate need I had for a radical change last week has passed. It was a combination of many things, not the least of which was a strong primal fight or flight response to a personal crisis. Combine that with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), which comes from living in an area with long cold winters and little sunlight for months on end, and you have an ugly situation. Wisconsin isn't even as cold, snowy and cloudy as many places, but I can see that most other people around here are eager for Spring, too. There's an impatient energy in the air. You can almost reach out and touch it.

I did rename my other blog, though. It's now called Bleeding Heart Studio. I'm still planning to use it to focus on environmental folk art, but I'll be doing lots of other things there, too. Right now I've got so many ideas, I don't know where to start. And every time I sit down, our 15 pound cat jumps on my lap, my legs go numb and the dog decides he absolutely must go out. (This is happening as I write this, too.) We're all ready for Spring!

I was hoping to welcome Spring on March 1, rather than March 21, with a bouquet of flowers, but it's been too cold to buy any. And the bouquets I saw looked either too limp or too artificial, so I decided to share a photo from last June of a bouquet and a fresh fruit tart which I made for a weekend treat. The bouquet was a mix of florist's flowers and peonies and early wildflowers from the garden. It looked, and smelled, beautiful!

When the ice melts in our garden, I'll start looking for the crocuses that pop their little heads through the snow in early Spring. I plan to take a picture of them before the rabbits find them and eat them to the ground. Those first tender young plants must taste so good to the rabbits after a long, cold winter. I often wonder where all the animals find food and shelter to get them through until Spring.

Next Sunday is the beginning of daylight savings time already (can you believe it?), so Spring isn't too far away, even for us. :)

Dance Around! It's James Brown!!!?

The Arts Clayton Gallery is holding a big fund raising dinner this month at the National Archives. They needed, "visual art as it relates to music".
This 30 inch round beveled canvas that I found on my trip to Atlanta several weeks back was screaming, "Me! Me! Use me!
So, I did.
I started out by excruciatingly pencil drawing three concentric circles and then got out the black paint. I usually plan my paintings on paper first, but this time, I didn't have a clue where I was going except that James Brown was screaming at me too! "Please, please, please, please!"
I loved James Brown as a kid. I went to what was probably one of his first concerts, held in a grubby old city auditorium in Atlanta in 1966. A friend's brother had to drive us, because we were too young to drive ourselves.
The place was packed and when James came out on the stage followed by The Amazing Flames, everyone jumped onto the wood folding seats, teetering there in their loafers for the entire show.
The Flames wore shiny, lime green suits with pegged pants and short suit coats. Carefully coordinated James wore the tightest, hot-pink, shiny, silk suit that I had ever laid my young eyes on. On his feet where those famous, magical, black, pointed toe, ankle high boots...boots that aided him in sliding in any direction upon the stage floor, never having to lift his feet even an inch. It was as if he had ball bearings on his feet. I was star struck. Owwwww!

Which leads me to this...James Brown memorialized or demoralized on my big round canvas.
The act of painting that blue neon stripe and trying to keep it straight (round) was a religious experience.
I was pleased with how James' likeness turned out and my son and his friend agreed, "THAT'S James Brown!" This was comforting.
Next, I hand drew the letters and "energy lines" on paper...transferred them to the canvas...then painted them and...
Here he is. It looks much BIGGER in person! Click the pic to see the bling in his eye.
When I delivered it to the gallery on Saturday the ladies all screamed with excitement when they saw him! Just like when James was alive and dancing.
To Feel Good click below to see James dance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgDrJ5Z2rKw
Have a super week, folks. : )
Ronnie