Beating the January Blues

A couple of posts ago I said that I was planning to do a new painting that, hopefully would not complete with the black and white print that my son, Joel, created. Well here it is. For the most part it seems to work in my living room and last evening I had company and the "verdict" seemed to be fairly positive.

While I am working on a realistic painting of people walking with umbrellas, I find that I enjoy creating abstracts more. Once you have a plan for a realistic painting that's it, you just work on making it happen. With an abstract, however, even though I start with a plan, the freedom is there to take things in new directions as I get lost in the environment that is appearing on the canvas.

January is proving to be a long month! The weather is inconsistent and, at times, downright brutal. The days are short and the evenings long and dark. I guess the trick is to find as many "bright spots" as you can in order to get through it. I found a bright spot the other day at the Superstore (our local grocery store) ..... the beautiful orange tulips that you see below. Just looking at them gives me hope and it comforts me to know that there must be warm weather somewhere!
The book beside the tulips is a new acquisition that I am looking forward to reading. It is called The Post Mistress by Sarah Blake and it comes highly recommended by several friends.These friends recently got together at my place for a "book exchange" evening. I thought it would be a good idea to invite some friends over and ask them to bring a book or magazine that they were finished with. The idea was that the books and magazines might spark some different conversation and at the end of the evening everyone would go home with something new to read! ......... Anything to beat the January Blues!