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Nope, not a lady.  And no Golden Globe dresses either!  I did look.  I started sketching out Anne Hathaway, I think she was one of my faves in all her simplicity, and that short hair!

One other thing I am doing right now is reading Happier at Home, by Gretchen Rubin.  She talks about the value of time, not only hers but that of her children.  I was reading on the couch in our living room post workout, snuggled under a blanket and procrastinating on coming up to the study to paint a new lady, when I read this amazing passage about how we funnel our children into ‘safe’ careers without taking time to observe what is is they are passionate about.

She had this great insight about how we feel guilty for certain pleasures that really could have turned into our vocation, and that thing we really love doing.  And it got me to thinking.  I don’t really advertise it, but don’t make it a secret either that my background is actually in architecture.  My favorite part of being in school was rendering, and learning to create textures on paper using marker, watercolor and pencil crayon.  This sketch is rugged, granted, but I’m trying to play with two things here.  First of all, loosening up my style.  I used to try to paint scenes all the time, but would get caught up in minor details, then one thing wouldn’t work for me and I would walk away from any kind of painting for a year at a time.  I tried to keep this simple, and I kept it small.  The actual drawing would fit into a 4×6″ frame (if anyone is interested in it 🙂  Number two is facing up to something that maybe I have been simultaneously circling around and avoiding this entire time I’ve been painting my ladies:  I want to start painting architecture and street scenes.  I’d say again, but I’ve never really finished one.  Not a big one.  I even have the perfect space set up in my study, and a huge board prepared that can hold paper that’s as big as 60″ across.

Back to Gretchen, her site the Happiness Project has a ton of great insights and suggestions if you ever find yourself in a creative rut.  I’m also signed up for her ‘Moment of Happiness,’ a quote that lands in my inbox at work every morning.  I’d suggest checking her out!

Happy Wednesday everyone.