Lukas and Tabitha 1995

September makes me sad.  If I had to explain it, I would have to say it was the angle of the sun. Things are always changing, I know, but in September, the sun moves away..quicker, it seems...a little farther every day.  It comes up later, and goes down sooner.  It's lower in the sky, and it's hard to tell when the middle of the day is. There's early morning, and then, suddenly, it's late afternoon. Time moves quicker.  You can almost see it running away. Very strange. Like life, itself. You think you have your whole life ahead of you, and then, all of a sudden, you're looking back at most of it.  Where did all the time go?  How did I get here so quickly? My son is in California, serving in the Air Force.  My oldest daughter will be driving solo in two months, and my youngest just started middle school.  I have two drawings I did when my son was 6, and my first daughter was just a baby.  On a whim, at the grocery store, I bought a drawing pad, just to see if I could still draw faces.  Lukas asked me, "What are you going to do with that?" I told him I was going to draw his picture.  He was very skepical, but very patient to sit for me, and when I finished, he was amazed. It really did look like him. I knew it wasn't perfect, but he was so proud of it, and I got a small taste of what I might be able to accomplish one day...(when I had the time, of course.)  I tried to draw Tabitha, but at a year and a half, she wasn't interested in standing still for long.  I happened to have my paper and pencils with me one day when I stopped at a friend's house.  Tab was asleep in her car seat, and I thought I would capture the moment. I have both of these framed and hanging on the wall going up the steps.  Most days, we walk by them without much notice, but come September, when the sun is slanting low, and the air is bit different, and I'm not quite sure what to do with myself, I stop, and cherish these two sweet faces, and wonder where the time went.

Cupcake and Shadow 4"x5" Oil on Canvas

I took the challenge!  This is the latest creative challenge for Karin Jurick's 'Different Strokes From Different Folks.'

Copy vs. Original

Last year around this time, I was preparing to enter my first two paintings in the art show held annually (semi-annually, now) at the local studio, and hoping it would all go smoothly...I would finish the poppy, get it framed, get it to the studio on the right day, at the right time, etc. (Big deal for me.)  Done. When I handed over the paintings, I was asked: "Original, or copy?" Well, since I hadn't had the painting copied, and I didn't COPY anybody's painting, I said, "original".  Eyebrows were raised. "Really?", they asked.  "Oh, ummm... " Then the two sweet ladies clarified the difference for me... This is what I learned:  If you paint from a photograph, and YOU didn't actually TAKE the photograph yourself, it is called a COPY....a picture out of a calendar, or a magazine, for instance.  For your paintings to be considered ORIGINAL, when you use a photograph as your reference, YOU must be the one to TAKE the photograph. Simple. But a bit disappointing. I actually did change a couple of things from the photographs...I left out leaf... and a tiny little flower that was in the way...I guess that doesn't count. Perhaps if you tried to sell a 'copy', you would be infringing on the photographer's copyright to that image, unless you had specific permission to paint it, as you would for a commissioned portrait, for instance. (If I'm wrong about this, somebody help me clear it up...) So that's when I decided from that point on, I would paint originals - take my own pictures and use them, crop them, etc. Except this one last little (2.5x2.5) one, which I copied from a print of a painting that hangs in my living room, which technically makes this a copy of a copy...