Here are some more of my alla prima palette knife paintings that I have done in the last few days.  Sold the boxing gloves!!!

whew, boy!  I worked today.....tired!!!   I mean me, not my dog Zeus.   I have produced about 4-5 paintings which I will post later.  wanna get back to painting.  I got paint all over my face!!

This is another palette knife painting that I just did this morning, it's a 10" x 12", took about 1 1/2 hours.

I am completely blown away by the response on FaceBook to this little painting.  I had such a fun time painting it that I am going to do some more of these today here at home.  I will be posting them at the end of the day, here and on FB.  Somebody, a friend that I don't know, yet, took it out of the album that I had posted it in, and put it on the main wall where everyone would see it!
Jessica, welcome to my blog!  Thanks for joining us!
Oh, by the way, I sold the blue bottle painting right off FB!!! 
Gotta go rescue Leda, our dog, I left her in the kitchen to eat her food, and now she is whining to get out.  She has to eat in there with the gate closed, or else her food is fair game to Zeus, our other dog.

Just finished a pallete knife painting...

Here is an excerpt from a letter that I wrote to a friend explaining my painting "The Soul Stirrers":

"The Soul Stirrers" started as a portrait of just the woman in the middle. Her boyfriend came to see the portrait, and stayed to keep her entertained...I spotted her at Jany's...impulsively asked her to pose for me. Then her daughter came to see the painting, she was so adorable that I had to stick her in. When I lived in NYC I used to imagine that I heard someone whispering "Wake up", whenever I was in the bouts of depression, so while I painted her daughter I had her saying this softly into her mother's ear. I had Stephanie, the woman in the middle, and her boyfriend holding hands...when Dan Thompson saw the painting, he suggested that their hands almost be touching. Loved that idea so I changed the painting....again. I just let myself tell my story, or part of it, anyway, which is what I enjoy doing most of all.....always hoping that I will reach someone, help someone, perhaps.

Down in Harrisonburg Virginia....my mother got married in January, and they are having the celebration this week-end.
Harrisonburg....where I went to high school and college. Eastern Mennonite High School and College(now it's Eastern Mennonite University). It is always nice to visit here, lots of wonderful people,
However, I usually experience feelings of loss and sadness....people don't remember me, and if they do, I often wish that they did not, I wonder what they remember. I began my struggle with depression here, and feeling like I did not belong did not help alleviate those feelings. It was very hard to make meaningful connections at the college, I certainly did not help matters....I did not want to be there. I had always wanted to go to artschool, but my parents did not offer that as an option, and I was too afraid to venture out into the big bad non-Mennonite world alone. I remember a friend in college asking me why I didn't move to New York, and I could not imagine why anybody would want to do that.
Today I approached a woman at EMU about running a painting workshop, someone in the art department of course, and I did not get the feeling that she cared too much about who I was, or any workshop that I might have to offer. It just brought back all that stuff, and I didn't leave feeling any warm fuzzies...

She did show (or feign, perhaps?) some mild interest when I gave her my business card with this image of a painting that I had done, the one shown above.

Well, that's it for now....sorry if this sounds a little dreary.....my husband(Karl Staven) thinks that I should make films, that I have stories to tell....but I can't see my way around that without starting here.

Just (finally) wrote a new entry for the Studio Incamminate blog (http://www.studioincamminati.blogspot.com/).....sort of aired my dirty laundry....whew!! Admitted that sometimes painting isn't fun....

"Sometimes I'm working on a film and someone will ask me if I'm having fun. And I'm tempted to tell them the truth: No, absolutely not. Having no fun here at all. You know what's going to be fun? When it's done, and I've done a fuckin' good job, and I know people are getting something out of that. I'll have a lot of fun then. A ton of it." Philip Seymour Hoffman
Love the above quote and the guy who said it......, and Phil, if you are reading this, thank-you for all your honesty.....and by the way, I think that you are very handsome!!!!