5/8" Birch Plywood

This is a large board, about 2 1/2 feet by 5 feet that I work on. I doodle, wipe off brushes, scribble to get my pens to work, take notes on song lyrics that make me laugh. Eventually, when the board is good and messy, I'll take it outside for Mike to cut it into various sizes. The "work surface boards" turn into the series Street Magic.

Door

I love this door. It's part of a painting that 7"x11". I will show the rest of this painting tomorrow.

Today is a painting day

Tomorrow is a skiing day. Then about 6 painting days in a row.

This is 1000 Houses, #270.

Last weekend, our son and his girlfriend came to visit us from Missoula. We had so much fun. We really love Emily. He broke up with her last night. We know better than to get attached but ouch, ouch, ouch. I'm going to cry for a bit but then I'll be fine. Just when I promised myself I wasn't going to get personal in this blog---I can't help myself.

Road Trip

After sending out my newsletter, I went on a road trip with Mike to Idaho.

I just love this postcard---the Idaho map/shape is actually a cut out. I am so easily amused. I guessed that at least 5 of you would be easily amused too so email me, jamie@jamiejohnsonstudios.com, with your snail mail and I'll mail you this postcard with wishes that your next road trip be as exciting as going to Idaho!!!

Also let me know if you didn't receive images with your newsletter. This is something I need to figure out tomorrow.

1000 Houses, newest

This one is number 269. I started this series in April of 2005. I was inspired by Carla Sonheim who created 1000 paintings of faces for a gallery in Salida, Colorado. I believe she finished 1000 Faces in a few months. Unless I start painting faster, my 1000 Houses will take about 7 years!

Newsletter

I've been working on a newsletter for about 8 weeks or so. First there was the free trial. That was in December. No, no, no--back up. First Constant Contact was suggested in Alyson Stanfield's newsletter. Then I signed up for the free trial. It was so much work to put all my email addresses into the system that I spent about 4 weeks internally debating whether a newsletter system---is that what they're called? was something I'd really use? was something of benefit to me or anyone? One day I'd like to reduce my internal debating system time frame to about 24 hours. At last, I signed up plus had to add the unlimited images feature for only $5 a month more. I couldn't make it through a paragraph of a newsletter unless it had images.
Finally today I sit down after hours and hours of internal newsletter writing to do the actual writing. I'm cruising along but when I "preview" my newsletter my images and text are all wonky. I called customer service which is excellent, btw. The guy suggested I try out the new improved version. It seems I was caught in the middle of the old version, the new version, and not knowing what the heck the difference between the two was due to lack of spending any time with the free trial because I was in the debating phase. Except for having to start completely over, the New Version was exactly what I needed. So I believe you will see, with all it's bumps and warts, a newsletter tomorrow!!!!!

Joy-O-Meter

Today's To Do List with a 0-10 joy ranking.
Paint Big Paintings 10
Send out Newsletter 10
Figure out the best way to deal with a gallery who hasn't paid me in 3 months 0
Shovel the sidewalk 4
Mail Painting to T.R. 10
Mail Greeting Cards to B.H. 10
Take Max to the park to play in the snow 7
Creating wholesale marketing materials and strategies 0
Paint commission desert scene (see yesterdays post) 6
Buy Mike a James McMurty CD 10
If I just don't do the things (or feel guilty about them) with a rating of less than 6, will that bring Max's joy rating higher? I love taking my dog to the park. Does he only get a 7 because those zeros are on my mind?

One more

This one resides on my desk.

Rubble

Another piece in the Rubble series.

Chunks of Wood

This drives my husband crazy. I save any little chunk of wood left over from projects. It also drives him crazy that I will start painting on them before sanding them. These are very small. I call them my Rubble Series.

Salt and Pepper

Cute, cute, cute!

platter

My first newsletter will be out next week. I will be featuring new work, a prizes, a preview of ceramics with my imagery on them, newsletter "specials" on selected reproductions, and more. You will be able to special order the ceramics from me. One time only. I wanted to share these but I do not want to inventory and ship them on an ongoing basis.

Bikes

A very nice day for a bike ride. Mike decided that we needed another bike, bringing our total to four, because many guests are arriving in the next few months. I personally thought our guests would rather drink wine. Also I thought the fourth bike should be purchased via Craig's list. But no, off to the bike store which is about 8 very long blocks down the hill. Guess who got to ride the new bike home, up the 8 very long blocks? Does this seem fair?

In the studio

After the background, I block in the foreground with more gesso. Here are five paintings I'm finishing. There's a total of 12 that I think I'm going to finish today. Optimistic or delusional?

Background

After multiple layers of gesso, I do the background color. Here we have multiple layers of turquoise.

Painting on canvas

Latest pile of failed canvas'. Just won't cooperate. I don't like seeing the weave of the canvas. Maybe I just don't have enough gesso on them. Maybe I should just stick with what works. They are very fun to buy though!

working on Neighborhoods

My contemporary folk art paintings all begin with layers of thick gesso (I like Utrecht's gesso) on wallpaper. Wallpaper is on the left hand side, gesso-ed wallpaper on the right. I started painting this way years ago when a friend dropped off some wallpaper sample books. Experimenting with them, I found that I loved the added softness that the wallpaper gave my paintings. Every now and then (actually just this fall) I can't resist buying canvas'. But I'm never happy with the end result.

Playing Hookey

Last Tuesday the electricity was off all day for line repairs. This would be the only time I could legitimately play hooky. Working in my home studio, we could have 9' of snow and I really would have no excuse not to paint. So on Tuesday last week, practical brain was planning a trip to the library for research. By the way we have such a beautiful library. Library of the Year for 2006. Will post pictures in a future blog. BUT fun, relaxing brain won out and I drove up the mountain to Snowbird. For $10. Utah residents can use the spa on the top floor of the Cliff Lodge all day. Eucalyptus steam room, salt water pool, salt water jacuzzi, weight room, solarium. Pool and jacuzzi are outdoors on the roof. Nice.

Next teenager

This one (Dancing with Weeds #5) gets a "B+" for cooperation. Side edges didn't fit on my scanner.

My teenagers

My friend Jane asked, "do you have any new babies in your studio?"

My reply: I have about 20 unfinished pieces. I love them in this raw state---but I know they can't stay there. Next I go into the least favorite part for me-between raw and finished. it can be anything from a struggle to downright revolt. So here I go, into the studio, ready for anything! They're like teenagers right now----we might have a great time, totally entertaining or we might have to see whose Will will win out!!!

This teenager (Dancing with Weeds #4) gets a "C" in the cooperation department.