…but I’ve been collecting retro melamine ashtrays that make great brush/water holders for painting. And they come in great colors (I have bigger yellow and green ones at my studio.)

This is a small one, which is good for travel, especially on a boat where your brushes might roll overboard. The watercolor pencils roll also, but at least they float when they hit the water, so you have time to dive in and retrieve them.

Also for travel, I like using old watercolor tins to carry small brushes. They work better than anything new I can find, and add a nice flavor to the process.

Doing some sketches for new ideas. I love using these acrylic inks by Daler-Rowney, especially the pearlescent ones. And who could resist with great names for colors like Waterfall Green, Galactic Blue, or Hot Mama Red?

When I redid my office, I wanted a blank slate — with big project tables and open space to think up new projects. Then I saw a documentary about the architecture of a traditional Japanese house, and I understood what I had been striving for. There is no assigned function for rooms. The objects that are brought into the space define the function of the space.

Here’s one of my project tables, a little cluttered, but flexible space to work. Glass shelves held up by glass bricks, a piece of rusty metal for a magnet board. I’m thinking about painting the wall with magnetic paint (actually it’s not magnetic, it just makes the wall metallic so that magnets stick to it. Anyone tried that stuff?) But I don’t want to hang art on it. I like the white wall, like cloud, like a dream that hasn’t yet developed.

On the other project table, I’ve brought in a small pin board to study my research. The internet is great for research, I especially am loving Flickr for inspirational photos. Photos like this or these. I don’t copy the photos into my art, only use them as inspiration for things to draw.

Working with new ideas is fun, exciting, but also scary. I wonder if I can really make my crazy ideas work… they seem pretty good in my head, but when I try to write about them or make them real, not sure how well that’s going to work.

These are some old postcards from my collection that have always intrigued me. I’ve always been fascinated by old monuments and far-away places, so I’m excited to get started on a new series…Today!!

It’s fun to get snail mail these days when most everything comes by email. The best part is looking at all the beautiful stamps and interesting postmarks.

The entries are starting pile up for the ThreadLines 2008 exhibition. Tomorrow should be another heavy day for the mailman, since it’s the final deadline. I told him not to worry, next week should be much lighter. He said he still likes our building best, because it has a friendly dog.

Do you recognize your stamps?

As promised, here’s my prize snag at the 51st Brownsville flea market and craft festival. It’s a Modern sewing machine made in Japan, and actually my eagle-eyed husband spotted it sitting inside an ugly white plastic case in the mud just outside of a woman’s tent who said it belonged to her mother. Rather than carry it back to her car at the end of the festival, she sold it cheap. And luckily for me, my husband agreed to carry it to our truck.

We finally got back up to Omaha to pick up this sculpture purchased at the Bemis Art Auction last fall. It will be a fun Memorial weekend project to move it back home for our new sculpture garden collection.

It’s very heavy and awkward to move — took six guys to drag it to the edge of the loading dock at the Bemis, before it could be lifted with a fork truck. Opps, lost a wheel.

Actually it the end, it worked better to take off all the wheels and load them separately.

Oh well, if the wheels really worked, it would just spin in a circle anyway. The sculpture is very heavy and now the truck and trailer is difficult to drive on the highway. Although it was a beautiful evening in old downtown Omaha last night, today the forecast is for heavy storms, wind and hail. Should be a exciting trip home!

Also stopped yesterday at the 51st Brownsville, NE historic flea market and craft festival. Wait till you see what I got there…

Since recently I’ve had little time to make art, I got the idea to make creative to-do lists in my moleskine. The idea was to do an experimental page each morning, and since it was only a to-do list, I felt no inhibitions about creating a great work of art. It was merely a chance to experiment with different media.

Each day that I did a new page, I immediately felt a weight lifted off my shoulders and was able to go about my day with new energy. Now I’m trying to decide if I should continue the habit. Am I the only one who is constantly tinkering with my schedule, hoping to find the perfect creative routine?

Now that the really hard physical work is over, we’re having fun arranging areas of the newly renovated offices and gallery.

Here’s a drawing desk I built using an old black door and some dusty sawhorses I found in the warehouse. I like that the hinges are still attached (except when I busted my ankle on one as I was moving the door into the room). The door knob is still attached to the other side, which makes is easy to carry around.

Last week while I was recuperating from the painting marathon, I decided to do a to-do-list drawing or collage (more on that tomorrow) each day along with the silly rule that I couldn’t open my laptop until it was done.

We know how well that worked — I’m way behind on emails and blog posts. That silly rule is hereby tossed out the window, and this week I’ll try to remedy my email backlog.

At our old house, we had a fish pond with lots of beautiful koi fish with names like Casper, Skeletor, Wabi, Goldilocks, and the Sharkey Brothers. One day a fish appeared, it wasn’t a koi so we suspected that someone who had tired of their aquarium had graced our pond during the night with this contribution.

We named the fish Nessie, because it only appeared close to the surface infrequently, maybe once a month, like the mysterious Loch Ness Monster. When Nessie did appear, she would swim sideways. Someone told me this might be due to a problem with her air-bladder — something I guess fish have to help them move through water?

Anyway, sometimes I think artists are a little like Nessie. They disappear sometimes for a long time, and then when they do appear, they swim sideways.

I guess I’ve been on the bottom of the pond, probably for longer than ever since I started this blog about three years ago. Now I’ll try to get you caught up, and to start off, we’re doing something completely different….

white paint. Those of you who have been to the studio know it was packed full to gills with color. Now it’s going all white. As in White.