Starting Smoking and Sofonisba

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Sofonisba
um...7" square
I can never remember her last name. I think it's amazing I can remember her first name. Anguisola or some such. Anyway- a very neat lady artist, who lived an interesting and all encompassing life as artist, court painter, wife and mother. A good roll model for me. Someone I'd really really like to sit down to a cup of tea with. After I learn Italian. And she really did look like a lemur. It wasn't exactly a stretch of the imagination.

I thought I'd lost three of my watercolors today. It took me an hour to find them. I felt so ill. Afterward I started smoking again...but not really. I did consume a cup of coffee late in the day as well as a large hunk of frozen cookie dough. Now everything is, suffice to say, VERY orderly and organized.

Watercolors on a Rainy Day

The Lovers
10" High

based on a very old German tarot card. I finished this one early this morning and then proceeded to paint another tarot card- the high priestess, which most likely will be finished tomorrow morning. It is a lovely and peaceful thing to sit inside with the heater blasting and paint light filled watercolors while outside the slate grey sky throws down heavy blankets of rain. I am so reminded of when I lived in Northern California- more Northern California, and the rain was constant and I only painted in watercolor. The nostalgia and melancholy of that time in my life hit me so hard I was impelled to buy clove cigarettes at the gas station after getting Ben from school, though I'm not certain if I will actually smoke them.

Business Card Dilemma

I just can't decide!! Dear Reader, what do you think? I can make a two sided business card-both sides color or just have info on the back and a color front. You know the drill.... I have to get my files to the printer by Monday. My last card had Geisha's hand on one side and the turquoise bird on the other. Should I stay with that or try to integrate an Animeople? My topics so often come back to all the diversity in my life. I paint many subjects- trees, birds, animeoples, figurative. Do I somehow try to represent them all? Should the front of the card match the colors of the back of the card. yee-gads. I have graphic designer block. (and yes yes- all these have the requisite bleed etc...these are the 'cut' images- and no border- thats my blogsite design))
here's the options:

A Watercolor, and Oil and a Website

A Watercolor, and Oil and a Website walk into a bar....
no but seriously kind reader- I finally updated my website! Do you know what this means! Can you imagine the consequences of actually having a website to show my work- both new and old??!
WELL let me tell you!! It means this blog can be what it was intended to be- a place to document the challenge of balancing being parent, artist, and home maker. Along with new art I can post silly pictures of my boys and their bento boxes, odd house projects and crafty doo-dads. I can rant about the art world and its trials and tribulations while a child stands upon my foot.
yay.
so go check it out!! www.sharoneisley.com I still have to tweak the site some- put in some roll overs on words and what have you but the images are there. And now its all organized so nicely with my series page, thanks to Alissa Feldman, who traded me ages ago. And Adrian-who put together the initial website- something like twelve years ago. Thanks!!


Flamingo's Masquerade
ummm-9" high? something like that. Oil on wood.
Don't you just love my professionalism? and don't you just love brown and pink together?

Peace Dove
8"x8" watercolor

based on a Sofonisba painting (Sofonisba as a lemur soon to follow-hee hee). The window is from Nelson Mandela's prison cell. Isn't it strange then that she is christian? But when one borrows from art history- there it is- all that christian and catholic imagery. Its the dove that is the point anyway. Take it as you will. I like that people will read it in different ways. Hopefully positive.