It's A Whole New Year!

Remember Snickerdoodles?

They won a Betty Crocker baking contest way back when and an entire generation of children grew up eating Snickerdoodles.

Lilburn, Georgia, began the new year with unusually cold temperatures. It was 18 degrees when we woke up this morning. Brrrrrrr. This is how Snickerdoodles once again entered our household after a hiatus of at least thirty years.

We decided that a wonderful way to spend the day would be to light the fireplace and sit and enjoy it while Carl read the new book he got for Christmas and I began my cross stitch of "Santa Of The Forest" - a project that will probably take until next Christmas to finish.

Perhaps because Christmas cookies were very scarce in our household this year, Carl decided he would like cookies he remembered from a long time ago - thin, crisp, and had cinnamon on them. It had to be Snickerdoodles.

I found the original recipe on the Internet and unexpectedly spent an hour in the kitchen. Santa Of The Forest was put on hold for a while but what better way to start off the new year than pleasing your husband by recreating a memory?

Happy New Year, everyone.

A Really Big Challenge

Artists have a way of never being quite satisfied with the status quo. We are always pushing ourselves to try new techniques, new products, new subjects, and, in this case, a new challenge to paint a self-portrait larger than life. It's our latest Southern Colours exercise.

Most of the Southern Colours artists have enthusiastically embraced this idea – some more enthusiastically than others, I must admit. Several have never before painted a self portrait, or any portrait for that matter. It's a learning experience extraordinaire.

Here you see me standing beside my 3 foot by 4 foot canvas that I now have to fill with an image of myself. Try this some time if you really want a daunting in-depth self examination.

The first thing I've learned is that I am older than I envision myself. There is no denying it when one has to put those brush strokes on the canvas. Where did all those wrinkles come from? Where did my tiny waist go? Surely I do not really look like this when, in my mind, I am in my mid-thirties. After bemoaning this fact for several weeks and listening to my fellow artists voice the same doubts, I have divorced myself from the image I am painting. Above all, this stranger must be portrayed honestly. Suddenly, the task is a whole lot easier.

My big canvas sits waiting in my studio while I am hard at work on a smaller prototype. There's no way I am going to dive into a painting this big without assuring myself ahead of time that my concept will work. I will make my mistakes on an 18 X 24 inch piece of pastel paper. Stay tuned and wish me luck!