Creating a zen garden within

I shut down my website this week, and have officially moved to Substack. I’ve had the site since 2012, and now it’s gone in a poof. I know it’s cliche, but it feels bitter sweet. Bitter, knowing that years of hard work swirled down the drain at a mere click of a button. It was my baby for so long.

Yet, at the same time, I know the timing was right to let it go.

Creating a Zen Garden Within
Oil pastels on panel

I could have imported my entire blog over here, but it would have been a lot of work going through it to fix what would now be broken links since the site no longer exists. The task seemed too daunting, and nobody would read it anyway. I have it all saved as pdf files, so I can look back at it anytime I want. I most likely won’t, but knowing I can is comforting.

The sweet part is the relief I feel about no longer having to think about maintaining, updating, and covering the expense of running my own site. The cost of hosting has tripled since 2023. I couldn’t imagine what the cost would be in another 2 years, so it was time to bail.

Moving to Substack is going to make my work life easier. I’ve been able to delete many tasks off my to-do list, and add them to my “never have to do again” list. Ahhh! My workload lessened before my eyes. I barely have anything to do now besides paint, and blog.

Oh, and play fetch the stuffie with ChewyBarka Boo Boo. Life’s about to get more fun, so says Chewy, anyway.

🐶

Other things that have happened recently…

My husband gave me a stack of full page ad inserts from some old magazines he bought at an auction. I was thinking the paper would buckle and warp like some paper I’ve used in the past, but I dug out my gouache palette, and gave it a try.

It actually turned out surprisingly well, so I’ve started a new series called Artsy Adverts. It will be a short, limited series, unless he keeps finding more of these ad pages.

He also gave me a stack of old sheet music - pages that had become unhinged or torn out of music books. These pages aren’t as thick, and the paper did warp slightly. I’m fine with it though.

Making art out of something that would have ended up in the recycle bin makes me happy. It’s my main focus these days, and I don’t care about the end result.

This guy’s eye sprung a leak, but it was an easy fix.

What I’ve been watching:

I normally have a list of links to share, but I haven’t had time to explore the internet as much this week.

This video Drawing with Child-like Curiosity by Lewis Rossignol is so funny, I watched it 3x. I don’t think anyone tells a story like he does.

Peter Draws has been doing loooong livestreams lately. I’ve only been able to catch him live once, but I’m looking forward to watching the others soon. Peter’s videos keep me company when I’m doing long painting sessions, so it’s exciting to see him posting once again.

Now that I’ve moved in over here to Substack I can get back to blogging more regularly. If you’d like to get an email when I update, please subscribe.

My work is available on Daily Paintworks, and eBay.

You can also find me on pinksky & blsky. I’m just getting started there, also, and I’m looking for more artists to follow.