Happy Valentines Day!!!

Life is Good. 

And I am Grateful for my life. 

When I think about what Valentine's Day means to me of course I think of LOVE but even more I think of Love and being Grateful as being one.  I am Grateful for my husband and the fact that he is a man that cares for me and his children with Great detail, he is AWESOME and I am in LOVE with him. We are a Great Parenting team he and I work to teach our children what life is about and how they can provide a great lives for themselves... being a GREAT parent is hard but the Joy we recieve along the way is priceless.  I am Grateful for the trying times that we sometimes experience with the girls (yes I said Grateful) because we look at these as "teachable moments,"  these tend to be the times when our lessons that we want them to learn really sink in.  I am making a concious effort to be more verbal about being Grateful even in the tough times that come my way.  I am committed to looking for the Joyful, Happy and Fun that life has to offer (even in the mist of a "storm"). 

This is a painting I have been working on and the flowers are what I recieved today from my Lovely Husband.

My mother is no longer her on earth with me. But I am Grateful that the Lord allowed me the opportunity to call her my mother. I miss her terribly at times... I miss the sound of her voice,  the perfume that she would wear, the way it smelled on her skin.  I miss her advice (even the unsolicited) and wisdom.  I miss being able to tell her I Love her, face to face (I did not say it enough). I learned a lot about being a parent from my memories of you.  I love you mom and I and Grateful for the time we did have together.

This picture of me is Thirty-four pounds ago.... in a future post I will post a current picture.

 This picture is of a painting I have been working on and the flowers I recieved today from my Lovely husband.

 Fresh fruits and vegetables now play a more leading role in my "Healthy Lifestyle Journey."

Art on a mug

I like the idea but I don't like this particular style of coffee cup.... I am still looking for manufacturers, so if you have any suggestions on this topic leave your comments below or email me at The Artsy Life (at) gmail dot com

I Love Time Square

My sister and my oldest daughter were visiting us last week and this past weekend we went to New York to visit my aunt and decided to go to Time Square to have lunch first and of course a bit of site seeing for them because this was their first time there. We had Great fun. Here are some pictures of them on the streets. Every time I go it's very inspiring for me as a artist I always come back ready to produce more art, it's something about the rush of energy I get from being in such a fast paced setting. Although I feel this way I believe that if I had to live there it could become overwhelming to deal with on an every day basis, but love, love, love visiting, my sister and daughter loved it too.

Pic of the day

This picture came from my iPhone (it still won't upload all my pictures and I haven't had time to go get it looked at yet). This was taken right after we got our lights back on. I was drawing some ideas I had in my sketch book and I looked down after I took a break and decided to document what I saw with my camera.

Quick Study

In the bouquet that was shown yesterday my favorite flower (or maybe it's foliage) is this green thing pictured here (I don't know the name of it either, if anyone knows what it is please leave it in the comments below, Thanks). I LOVE fresh flowers and Thankfully my husband understands this and surprises me randomly, "just because," but he was out of town for the week. But my mother-in-law was visiting so I bought these myself to add a little more spice to our kitchen table but when she left I moved them into my studio. This morning I felt the need to use my watercolor pencils and the bottom picture is my quick morning study and I know that this plant will show up in a future painting in a more whimpsical way.

In the Studio

This picture is just a random shot of one wall in the upstairs studio. What have I been up to? Well I have 4 new paintings going and I shot a lot of video that I need to upload to ArtsyLifeTV, soon hopefully. The girls are back in school and me and baby "Z" are trying to figure out how our days without the girls can work for both of us, she misses them so. When the girls get on the bus me and "Z" shower and spend time together first eating breakfast them playing, singing B-I-N-G-O AND Itsy Bitsy Spider (those are her two favorites at the moment, you should see her trying to do the hand motions with "Itsy Bitsy Spider," too funny, she claps and laughs a lot (I Luv her laugh) until she goes down for a nap. Then I'm off to the studio (the dining room next to the kitchen) to get my creative juices flowing I sometimes do small quick paintings (watercolor) or draw... rarely are these sold, they are mainly just for me to tryout something new or just plain old exercise.

This is a bouquet I made with colors that reminded me of autumn, cutting the flowers and placing them in this little tin vase (with a smaller glass vase inside) I had purchased at a dollar store years ago always seems to make it's appearance around this time every year. I do enjoy changing seasons but just not the long winters. If we could lengthen the Spring and Fall I would be very happy. So to ALL my friends on twitter, facebook, ArtsyLifeTV and new people that drop by this blog, Thank You. And we have a new Giveaway coming soon, be sure to check out all the above links and subscribe, friend me and Like me... but in the mean time answer one or both of the questions.... What do you do to spark your creative flames? and or what do you tend to do every year around this time?

Hurricane Irene aftermath

Well thank God Hurricane Irene was reduced down to just tropical rains by the time it hit our area I can imagine how much worst it could have been if she actually showed up in her full glory. These pictures are of what our house still looks like two weeks later but hopefully not for much longer. The house looks so odd, our house is sticking out like a sore thumb because none of our neighborhood's had this much damage, if any. I have some great pictures of the tree that fell which were taken in the mist of the storm but they are on my iphone and they will not upload to my mac, I think it's the phone and not the computer but I will have to take both in to get the problem solved, so until then, this is all I have. The tree was cleaned up by our friendly neighbors (Thanks to them), we can now get out of our front door and into our garage.

When the tree fell the house shook like a large bomb just had exploded, so to be woken up by that sound but not knowing exactly what it was my husband and I jumped up and he ran to find out twhat it was and I rushed to my children. These pictures do not depict the drama of the whole situation it was very scary...VERY.

...and the WINNER is....

Thank you to all that entered our first GIVEAWAY.

We here at ARTSY LIFE studio are still without electricity and with sketchy iPhone service (this post is being made for the fifth time) but we will get our pendants sent out as soon as we can.
And finally the WINNER is
Marquitas Art

Thanks again and look for the Next GIVEAWAY!!!
once we get out electricity back, I will upload pictures of the tree that fell, grazing the side of our house and tore off the gutters.

Random Drawing- ENTER TO WIN

We will be randomly selecting a winner for our Floral Burst Pendants -Fall Colors on August 31st. CLICK THE LINKS BELOW

TO BE ELIGIBLE TO WIN YOU MUST DO THE FOLLOWING
1. Leave a comment on the blog post titled: Floral Burst Pendants- Fall colors.
2. Follow us on twitter: myartsylife
3. Like our FaceBook Page: The Artsy Life Boutique

OPTIONAL
** Retweet this Drawing link
***Subscribe to my YouTube channel: ArtsyLifeTV

The WINNER will recieve THREE of the small Floral Burst Pendants in their choice of the Fall Colors.

SHOP Here- The Artsy Life Boutique: theartsylifeboutique.etsy.com
Currently you will find the "Rustic Glamour" Jewelry- summer colors and a few of our summer pendants
*****Recieve 40% OFF (Until Saturday September 10th) Current stock in the etsy shop by using discount code:
I Entered (ONLY for those who do enter THIS drawing).
FALL Colors will be Available for sale on ETSY, Mid-September

People who left a comment on the Floral Burst Pendants-FALL Colors blog post previous to this post will still qualify.

Thanks For your Participation.

Color by COLOURlovers

Found a new site to go and play around with color. This site is a great artistic exercise, you might want to give it a try, click the link and have fun.