Brave, determined and ...sick!

Tulips in the students' gorgeous present

Acrylic on bond paper (formerly a palette)

14 x 17 inches

Barbara Muir © 2019

What an amazing New Year's Eve party we had!  So lovely.

Friends bringing every kind of food, lots of wine, champagne,
soft drinks, fizzy water.  Plum pudding with flaming brandy,
singing. So much singing!

These sketches are from photos of an opening in NYC, but they have the right 

mood -- on the left At the party, on the right Toast to the New Year.

Both are black marker on drawing paper.  

7 x 10 inches,

 Barbara Muir © 2019.

I ordered Louise Hay's I can do it calendar before the year

began and it is such a daily inspiration.  Plus I've read two
amazing books by Danny Gregory:  Art Before Breakfast,
and A Kiss Before You Go.  These are books combining drawing
and writing.  Amazing.  I've been a fan of Danny Gregory's
for years, and think of him as one of the most positive
people on the planet.  So I was shocked to read that his first
wife - honoured in A Kiss Before You Go, died in a tragic
accident.

The upshot of reading Danny's books is that I've been drawing
a lot.  But I came down with a bad cold two days after New
Year's Eve, and have not been out to get art supplies. So that's
where brave comes in, and determined.  Another great inspiring
artist for me is Harry Stooshinoff  who paints every day.  And his
work is amazingly wondrous -- landscapes brilliantly defined and
abstracted.

Harry uses the paper he mixes his paints on in collages so
that nothing gets wasted.  I'd run out of notebooks without
lines, and decided to draw on a piece of paper I'd mixed
colours on for another painting.  Thinking of Harry, I
thought -- just go ahead. I quite like the resulting sketch
of an amazing bunch of tulips called Tulips in the students'
gorgeous present.  One of my positive psych classes a few
years ago gave me this beautiful glass jug.  I love it.

Chloé with the tulips

black marker on notebook paper

7 x 10 inches

Barbara Muir © 2018

Danny Gregory says to draw everything.  

So with that in mind I attempted a portrait

of my niece, who we lost a year ago

with tulips both hanging over her photo, and

tulip shadows surrounding her. Her photo
stays in my studio.  I miss her and wish
she could be here so I could give her a hug.

Here's to a wonderful year, and the bravery to keep producing if at all 

possible, and the audacity to try new things.  Thank you for your kind

and generous support in 2018.  You are all over the top wonderful!

Have a loving your life day.