The Best Kind of Winter Blues

The past month has been a whirlwind of events, none too exciting but worth sharing just because I feel good about overcoming hurdles and accomplishing bits and bites. My husband and I welcomed in January with a marathon of Breaking Bad episodes while bed-ridden with a bad flu. I recovered quicker than he did, but felt jet-lagged and lazy the entire month.

Finally I snapped out of it and started painting pretty things again. That felt great! A friend of ours asked if I could donate a painting for the Dartmouth Skate Park Coalition's fundraiser event at Pro Skates, to help raise funds to build a much-needed skate part in downtown Dartmouth. This project has been a buzz for a while, and I was already excited about it for all my skater friends and the little up and coming ones who need a place to play. The event took place on January 25th and I was so happy with the result of my donation…

I was on a roll. I had several new paintings sketched out that I was looking forward to working on. Then one night the dreaded phone call came… it was CRA giving us 30 days to file our 2012. Of course such things are never simple when we're a household of 2 independent businesses, with various sources of revenue, together owning 2 income properties to report for that year. Which is why such things tend to attract procrastinating behaviours in people like us. Fortunately, we had been somewhat organized and quite hoarder-like in our receipt collecting. I wish I had taken a photo of my spare bedroom/office space before everything got filed into tidy boxes. I felt headachy just looking at it all! But I'm pleased (and relieved) to share that it's done. Now to tackle 2013…

Meanwhile, a customer had her hopes up of having her new commissioned oil painting hanging in her living room. But when the CRA calls, all other important plans need to take a back seat for a while. And so was the case of her painting, that sat half-finished in my studio while I took care of business. I worked on it all day yesterday and was over the moon when it finally all came together in the last couple hours (this was a challenging project that had 3 makeovers before I was satisfied). I hope to deliver it later today. It was meant to be a Valentine's Day gift to her and her husband from each other.

In between all that though, I still needed to make new art to be able to sell at the Halifax Seaport Market on Saturdays. With our big road-trip quickly approaching (The Painted Road Project), I need to be cautious not to dip into our savings. Saturdays are my gas and grocery money-making days. I had been thinking of painting a tall vertical wave for months, especially after the fun I had painting the skate deck in January. Taking breaks and breathers from my tax pain, I was able to create a beautiful elongated wave based on the one I had imagined. It fuelled me to create several more encaustic waves that I was super happy with. The 3 above all sold the first Saturday I brought them to the market, and the tall vertical wave sold the day after I made it at The Halifax Crafter's Pop-Up Market at Two if By Sea last Saturday (side note: Sorry guys! I should have told you about all this fun stuff BEFORE it happened).

This Saturday I'll be bringing some of my original oil paintings (pictured below) to the Halifax Seaport Farmer's Market, along with the smaller encaustic waves I made this month. It should be a great day! For all my fans who live afar, as always my artwork is available to purchase online: www.etsy.com/ca/shop/OceanArtStudio

I have a blank canvas waiting for me upstairs in my studio. To see what this will be come, be sure to join my FB Page: www.facebook.com/oceanartstudio FB has been a bit weird lately. They've really made it difficult for people to see updates from the pages they like. So to make sure you can see what I post, hover your mouse over the "Like" button until a window pops up, and check off "Get Notifications". Simple as that, but it's as tricky as finding a secret door in a castle. 

'Til next time…
XO DS