First Robin of Spring...

A little over a week ago I saw my first spring robin hopping over my boggy winter brown lawn. I know they're everywhere and you even see them sometimes during those winter warm spots...but robins in the Spring always make me feel a little optimistic.

No matter the human events that are wringing us all out emotionally (and maybe financially)...year in, year out there they are. These fairly ordinary--yet beautiful and even magickal--little birds.

I felt inspired enough by my own little Spring ambassador to immediately sit down and sketch. The first idea to hit the paper was exactly as I wanted it to be---which, as you know, hardly ever happens.

Now, I've been buying and hording these blank cigar boxes for a while. They sit in different corners and drawers, waiting for me to figure out what I'm going to do with them. I've done all sorts of things so far...flowers,decoupage,covered in buttons and beads; lined in fabric and paper and even a dollhouse rug.

This one I've decoupaged first--with scrapbook paper for the background and cut up pages from a vintage book filling in the form of the central figure; which I'm now painting: Robin Red.

She is still in progress, but I'm so happy with the way she's turning out.

She represents a return to an old style for me; something I thought I'd left behind--not intentionally,but because I just couldn't find that muse anymore.

I love her... I don't want to jinx her progress...but I'm hoping to have her done by next week sometime. We'll see.

When an art piece is going so well, it's hard to bring yourself to stop. I don't want to deal with chores or cooking dinner or running errands. I just want to sit in my studio and paint and watch her come to life under my fingers.