Starting the New Year

It's been an up and down past few weeks, but after some good conversations with friends and family, and a few days of boosted Vitamin D intake, I'm feeling much more like my chipper old self today.

Still getting lots of heavy use out of our bamboo tile mosaic.

I love how the afternoon sun streams through the schefflera leaves.

And lights up our crystal candle holders in the dining room.

As a sort of New Years resolution, Roo and I have been working together in the art studio while Moo naps...

And then finding a way to include him too, after he wakes up.  (Don't you paint pants-less, too?)

This past week I've been working on a watercolor study of this awesome picture of a frog.  Good to start dusting off some of my old art skills.  My head is full of ideas, if I can just get a creative rhythm going.  For one thing, did you hear about this?  What a fabulous idea.  I'm trying to decide what wise old tome I would rediscover and re-imagine this way.  An old favorite, or one of those classic heavyweights I haven't gotten around to yet?

And if you're curious about some of what I've been fretting about of late, here's a snatch of an e-mail exchange I sent to Todd's mom, who is an artist herself:

I'm trying to do some oil and watercolor painting, trying to get back into my art after years (and years and years) of back-burner status, and I'm struggling with all kinds of self-doubt and self-motivation.  I know that I need to start somewhere, somehow, to get back into a rhythm and to rediscover my skills, but at the same time I feel frustrated by my smallness (both in subject and emotional depth, and in audience) as an artist, and trying to feel motivated by just doing it for myself.  Which is all silly, because obviously as I work on practicing my skills and my perspective I will mature as an artist and expand my connection to the arts culture here.
I'm trying to find a way to fit it into my days with R and M, and that is challenging, too.  Right now R and I head into the studio while M naps; I get her started on her own project, and then we work side by side for an hour or two.  It all seems so ideal when I describe it, so why is it so hard to keep on?

Especially silly since I am in such a privileged position to begin with - having time and a place to start following these dreams.

We're off to the park on a glorious sunny afternoon.  Tomorrow we're supposed to get our first real snow of the winter.  Oooo!