Author: Picking My Battles

Moonlight in Vermont

/ Picking My Battles

So my 16 and 10-year-old would be ashamed to admit it, but their pudgy middle-age mom dances when she paints landscapes. The more abstract the pic and wild the beat of the music, the more energetic and embarrassing –for the kids anyway — the dancing. My dancing is so bad that the only time I can really get away with it is in the middle of the night, which is how this painting happened.

WItching hour has become the painting hour for me. When there’s a full moon, it’s bark at the moon time for the dog. That’s how I ended up outside in the yard, keeping the dog on a leash and getting off of mine.

It’s a crystal clear night, and there are a large patches of muddy grass. There’s still a bit of snow, however. I waited for the dog to do her business without waking up the neighborhood, and was forced to take the time to really look at A moonlit winters night for the first time in a long time.

Seeing the variations in color different reflections made me realize how much depth there is to the night, and I started thinking of late night drives through the rolling countryside in Vermont and Washington county in New York State. The dog caught the scent of something, and I let her sniff at the end of the leash for a few minutes why drink in scenery.

And that’s how I ended up dancing in studio under the moonlight at 1 AM this morning. I highly recommend it.

Chasing Frogs

/ Picking My Battles

It’s just barely past witching hour, and I’ve been chasing on paper one of those Lake Michigan days when it’s too rough to swim past your knees and too wild to stay cooped up inside away from the beach.

This is my favorite so far, but I’m still not sure if it’s a frog or a prince. But there’s a few hours before the sun come up, so I still have time to kiss a few more toads. And the hunt is a satisfying as the catch.

Between Worlds

/ Picking My Battles

 

Land of Imagination, 12 x 16, Watercolor, $75

I’m getting paintings together for an exhibition at the Spiral Press Cafe in Manchester, Vermont, and, I’ll be honest, I was having trouble getting into the mood to paint landscapes.  The glow of Iceland has receded — a symptom of having read too many political posts in the intervening months, and the Vermont landscape isn’t turning me on the same way it normally does at this time of year. 

Wrapped up in finishing and publishing my first illustrated book, I was much more hungry to get to work on the illustrations for the next one. That’s when my favorite Élly — Élly’s the star of my next book, The Truth about Trolls, tapped me on the shoulder and reminded me that she needs at least one place to live in during the course of her story, and would I mind getting inspired so she can have some place magical to look at? 

So I looked at my car window and found some magic yesterday. Then I remembered some magic we’d seen in Iceland and in Michigan.  Now it seems I’m seeing magic everywhere.

Trolls are surprisingly logical.

Prints can be purchased on Etsy here.

“A is for All-Nighter” – Kindle Edition Now On Amazon.

/ Picking My Battles

Ironically, in an age when digital publishing makes everything easier and faster, getting the Kindle edition of this book out was the toughest part of being a new publisher.  Because “A is for All-Nighter” is illustrated on every page, converting it to an iPad-friendly format was not as straightforward as I would have thought. In publishing, as in life, however, there is little you can’t teach yourself with some persistent googling.

The Kindle edition of “A is for All-Nighter” is  $1.99 or $.99 if you already purchased the print edition on Amazon. 

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Resolutions are Made to not be Made

/ Picking My Battles

So I made a new resolution this year to not make any over the top resolutions. It’s an adjustment from my usual habit of promising myself that, somehow, I will eat no carbs or go oil-free vegan and run every single day because January first will cast a magic aura of average human willpower that I have somehow missed all of the last 40-odd January firsts and seconds and thirds and so on.

So this year, I’m resolving to pick the battles that matter — keeping the kids on track, keeping the house from falling down around our ears, keeping my sanity — and that I have a teeny chance of winning (well, all except for that sanity part).  The diets, the supermodel exercise routines are going by the wayside in favor of something more sustainable – moderation.

(repost of a cartoon from 2015)

Radio Silence

/ Picking My Battles

The house is clean for the second and last time 2016. Relatives have arrived and for the next few days I get to be called mom and call someone else mom. Our slightly lopsided potted tree that will go outside and spring is covered with quirky homemade ornaments and reminders of special years — our first Christmas together, Our first year with Thing1 and then Thing2. The tree and the collection of gifts in the basket in front of it are smaller these days — part of an effort to focus more on presence and less on presents.

I’m sitting here listening to grandparents  unpack and smelling tonight’s slow cooker peasant food and the world outside our door disappears. I’m making a choice to delete social media apps from my phone for the next few days to focus on moments we’ll want to remember in the months to come. The only connection I want to have with the outside world and the next two days is when my mom and kids and I (my dad will certainly be asleep by then) sit down on the couch after our holiday feast and put on the Sound of Music as we did every year growing up when much of the country watched it on TV every Christmas night.

That movie inspire so many revelations each time we watch it. I find myself thinking not just about following dreams, but about how the redeeming power of love, about courage it takes to get off the sidelines and about small acts of defiance against injustice. Mostly what I think about is that while bad times in history can indeed be very hard, and they can last for a long time, but they don’t last forever.

As 2016–a year marked by uncertainty and rancor draws to a close, I don’t harbor any illusions that things will suddenly get better. I don’t know what it will take to get our nation past the divide or when or how we will lift up the most vulnerable among us instead of fearing them and each other. When we sit down to watch our favorite holiday movie on Sunday, however I’m going to remind myself and my kids that, with courage and hope, things do get better. That would be the best gift they could take into the new year.

 

 

Winter Roads

/ Picking My Battles

 

Winter Roads, 12×16 Watercolor

I’m getting paintings together for a winter show at the Spiral Press cafe in Manchester, VT and have been struggling to find a cohesive theme. But shorter days and cocooning are helping me find it.

You’d think the snow-covered mountains would provide obvious inspiration, but I’m an odd duck and it’s the mud and bare trees that get my brush going. There’s something inspirational in the cocooning too – not explosive like geysers and volcanos but soothing.  Right now, soothing is just what is needed.