#i am enjoying my entirely un-digital art-making but i need to find a better way to scan the pictures

[quatregats]

Pullings and Mowett as midshipmen U18s making their first team debuts

[kadobeclothing]

A Chat With Stella – WWD

“We’re all in this together” — a universal mantra of the coronavirus era. Sometimes that commonality is comforting in its more superficial aspects. Last week, when uncooperative English-country cell service put the kibosh on a no-visuals conversation with Stella McCartney, her p.r. went swiftly to un-planned B: Zoom. We settled in to chat equally undone, granted, with Stella flaunting a much better top, a sweatshirt from her collaboration with “We Are the Weather” author Jonathan Safran Foer. (Full disclosure: Before joining, I switched out of my Clorox-spotted, Bronx County DA sweatshirt, an artifact of a younger brother’s stint on my couch 25 years ago.)

While some people embrace the primp-up-at-home approach to quarantine, that’s not Stella’s thing. “I put makeup on for the first time in a month last week, when I had to do something,” she offers. As with most conversations these days with someone you haven’t spoken with recently, ours starts with “How are you coping?”

“I couldn’t be luckier,” Stella says, ever self-aware. “I’ve got a little bit of help here, which is a massive blessing. I can’t complain.” Like millions of others, she is working through 24-hour household-running, juggling work, meals and homeschooling of her four kids, ages 15 to nine. Her day starts with Stella McCartney brand meetings — more frequent and of broader scope than before lockdown. While the kids are old enough that interruptions aren’t an issue, she goes into “tough-love” mode when it comes to school. Last week, English schools were still on Easter break, so she was anticipating readjustment this week. “They all go to different schools and each school has handled it in a different way. Some are more tech savvy than others,” she says.

As for cooking, Stella is top chef, but lately, she’s getting help. Because her work day starts early, she tries to think through each day’s meals the night before. But on this morning, she woke up to a surprise. “My daughter Bailey had already cooked tomato soup. I have to say, it was delicious,” she boasts. “It’s great, they’re getting into [cooking], I mean, they’re making fun of me because it’s, like, soup every day. I’m such a waste-not, want-not type, it’s at the core of everything in the brand and in my personality. Literally, I’m using everything. It’s great. That’s how I was brought up.” To our primary purpose: a check-in on Stella’s business in the age of COVID-19, and what this particular Earth Day represents to her. I learned after we spoke that even from quarantine, she’s found a way to celebrate its spirit. Stella worked with Ocean Outdoor, the digital advertising company, to host a major screen takeover at London’s Piccadilly Circus. It launched on Tuesday and runs through Sunday at midnight, rotating a series of upbeat messages including “Mother Earth has started healing” and, captioning a photo of the Earth painted on Amber Valletta’s face, “For us, every day is Earth Day.”

Amber Valletta as Mother Earth in Stella McCartney’s Earth Day screen takeover in Piccadilly Circus, on display through April 26.  Courtesy Photo

WWD: I just saw Barry Diller on “Squawk Box” [on April 16]. He was not optimistic. Stella McCartney:  Well, f–king welcome to Stella McCartney, Bridget Foley.

WWD: Thank you. How are you feeling? S.M.: I am very much split. I’m split between my personal emotions, and then obviously, I have a business to run. I’m living two lives right now. I’m the mother of four, I’m a wife. I’m cooking three meals a day and I’m loving it. I’m with my babies, and blessed to be in nature and not in the city. I’ve got my horse. So I’m fine in my solitude. Then, obviously, there is a deep sadness for all of the lives that are lost and for what people are going through. I have a huge respect for the people on the front line here in England in the NHS and all of the emergency workers. That reality, the mindfulness of what other people are going through, and that we’re all connected in all of the same thoughts, which is a really heavy realization, not to be lightly dismissed. I am very aware of that. Then, there’s the side to me that employs hundreds and hundreds of people globally. Obviously, we are affected as a business, like every other business right now. I’m always wanting the business to do well because of what we stand for as much as anything, and also because I’m a businesswoman. But right now you think, “Wow, this is the first time we are all connected in so many ways.” That’s the important thing that sits on my mind. WWD: It’s odd that that connection comes through isolation. S.M.: Yes. I have a large family network so I’m not isolated that much on my own. The first couple of weeks were really interesting for me on a working level because in our industry, we work with teams, and we feed off each other creatively. I was trying to settle into working via device and using my teams in a different way. [Now] all of us are feeling connected. I’m more connected with teams globally than usual — “let’s meet with China; let’s meet with Japan,” bigger meetings with teams. I’ve enjoyed that and I want to carry through. One of the big questions here is how does this impact our lives going forward, when things get back to whatever the new normal will be. I’m looking to my team a lot, also. Holistically, making sure my teams are OK mentally and emotionally. And that, normally, I don’t have time to do; [usually] I’m just getting involved in my day-to-day. But now I’m like OK, we need to have calls every week just to check in on everyone and see how everyone is feeling. I worry about people, just how they’re doing. My teams in Italy, they’re not allowed out, they’re allowed out to go food shopping and that’s it….I’m mindful of that, like how are you all doing emotionally and mentally because that’s hardcore, going out or not going out and looking out and seeing nothing there. That’s quite hard hitting. I’m not sure if any of us really know how that will affect us all. WWD: Nuts and bolts, I’m sure the specifics vary from region to region. S.M.: Yes. there’s one side that’s creative and there’s one side that’s very, very much responding to different regions and who is quarantined, who’s not. Obviously, we’re massively based in Italy, so it’s been a big conversation about what we can make, what we can’t make, what we can have access to. When you do work in a sustainable way, you have to work far in advance to be sustainable. I develop the majority of my fabrics far in advance, and I have such a deep commitment to my suppliers and to where we’re growing the yarn and the process and the entire circle-ness of it all. I try to remain respectful and loyal to X amount of [suppliers] because I know they’re my reliable source points. WWD: Quarantining with family is very different from quarantining alone. But it still puts stress on work. S.M.: I grew up in a creative household. And creatively, it was pretty much isolation. When The Beatles broke up we moved to a farm in Scotland, completely isolated. My mom and dad did an album; my dad did an album of McCartney, and I think it was his best work. It has been a massive impact on my life, that isolation, on how I think and how I live my life through my business, through my family, through my friendships. The majority of my friends are artists or work in the creative fields, and the majority of them work in isolation; it’s just what they do. Name-dropping, I checked in with David Hockney, and he said, “I’m painting more than ever.” The birth [of] creation is a very insular moment. And then [creatives] go into a teamwork frame, if at all. So my dad will write an album on his own. When he has that creative birth, he will then take it to the next step, engineering it, producing it, art-working it, and ultimately it goes on tour in front of hundreds of thousands of people. So it’s sort of this journey….Our industry goes very quickly away from isolation in the creative sense and goes into teamwork. It becomes a production line, if you like. WWD: It sounds as if you prefer a longer solitary creative process. S.M.: I seem to be busier than ever because I’m doing more and more calls. This is taking me away from my creative process and isolation, so I’m trying to find a balance, which is at the core of everything we do at Stella McCartney. Maybe the answer to all of this is trying to find the balance. WWD: Other designers have talked to me about the creative process being teamwork. It sounds as if your process still starts singularly. S.M.: My name is on the door of the brand, so everything that it stands for has come from me at some stage in my thinking, from my belief systems and my creativity. And then the team around me, we all feed off each other and we all create from that starting point. In our industry we all complain about not having time. So I want to be respectful of that right now and [think of] how can we find that balance between teamwork and creating with your team and bouncing off of each other and all that stuff. Even before all of this happened, I was already approaching spring like this. I was like, OK, how can we not buy new fabric for spring? How can we look at everything that we [have already]? I’ve done that for years. It’s the way that I work; it’s the way my mind works. What have we got in stock, how can we repurpose it? How can we give it a re-life or a rebirth? We did all the upcycling two seasons ago on the runway. How can we look at what’s in a warehouse somewhere? So it’s a really interesting moment for our brand.

Vegan leather — it’s not just for the Falabella bag. This coat is from fall 2020.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: What does your sweatshirt say? S.M.: It says We Are the Weather. It’s my Jonathan Safran Foer collaboration. We Are the Weather — it’s very apt. It feels like most of what I’ve done seems apt right now. It seems like everything I’ve done in my career seems to be quite apt right now. WWD: To that point, and going back to what you said a moment ago, do you think you’re a bit ahead of other brands fabric-wise? S.M.: My viscose comes from sustainable managed forests. It took me three years to [develop it]. So once I’ve taken that long and it’s the only source I have, I then commit to it. I [now] have had to look at all the business, which I do anyway, but it’s more magnified. Then that goes into, can we have access to

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our e-commerce if [production] is all in Italy, and da da da. And what markets are opening up more than others, or which ones are going into isolation or coming out of isolation. We’re all doing the same thing I’m sure. WWD: What differences do you find among the various global markets? S.M.: Every single market is reacting differently. But what people are buying is what would be expected, much more home pieces, much more classics. We’re so lucky in that we have real iconic, timeless, staple pieces — the Falabella bag, for example, the Elyse shoe. It’s not dissimilar to what I’m sure a lot of brands are finding. Hopefully people will lean toward a more mindful culture now. To be a more conscious consumer more than ever, I hope, starts to have some kind of resonance with people. And I think that that’s what we represent in the industry. WWD: It surprises me that people are shopping at all for clothes or accessories. You’re finding that people are shopping? S.M.: They’re not shopping as much. I think the whole reality of this is buy less, care more. That’s the highlight for me, but it has always been the case. As I say, before when I was looking at doing spring, I was already thinking, why do we offer so much product? Waste is a big, big, big issue in our industry, and I am a massive fan of trying to reduce waste or do better with the waste that exists. I think we probably waste the least out of all the brands, we’re so mindful and careful. The challenge for me to my teams is how can we be better at our production and how can we be much more efficient. So we’re pretty on it. I think that now more than ever is the time to look at our industry and say, OK, the truck loads of fast fashion that are incinerated or buried. That’s $100 billion worth of waste a year in fibers, in resourcing. It’s crazy. There is just so much we don’t need. And I agree, I don’t think anyone needs to buy anything ever again. It’s how you repurpose. This is what I think all the time; this is not anything new for me. That’s why I’m [looking] to the classics that I’ve created, because they’re timeless. It’s how I approach the birth of design — by starting with, how can I create something that lasts somebody a lifetime, and then another lifetime after that? How can I design something that is so not relying on a trend so that it can be recycled or repurposed or resold or rented? How can I encourage all of that? I am so open-minded to all of that.

Sustainably sourced viscose is a Stella McCartney staple. This dress is from fall 2020.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: When you have that attitude about less is more and less is better, how do you keep on a growth path? S.M.: There’s real growth. We’re not a massive, massive brand. Look, there’s always going to be brands, there’s always going to be products, you’re always going to want a mug for your cup of tea, and when your mug breaks, you’re going to buy another one, or you’re going to get bored of that mug and you’re going to go, “I want a new mug; I deserve a new mug.” That’s OK. It’s allowed, we’re allowed to consume. What we need to do is consume in a better way. And what companies have to do for the customer is make better and source better and be better brands. We are really f–king good at that at Stella McCartney. That’s a nice mug, Bridget. You’re allowed to buy yourself a new one in a week. WWD: Thank you. From a craftsperson in Ireland. S.M.: Exactly! Look, my way of thinking has always been, it’s allowed. You’re allowed to buy s–t, right? No one is going to stop buying s–t, but people are going to, I hope, buy more locally now, they are going to buy better, they are going to buy more online. That will reduce a lot of carbon in the air. For me, I’ve always had this really difficult dilemma where it’s like, if I do things mindfully and ethically and environmentally, [does] that mean I’m not allowed to have a successful business? But I believe now more than ever that my business model should be more people’s business model. When everyone is doing things [mindfully] then fine, then we can have a non-growth conversation. But right now I need to set an example, I need to show people that you can have a healthy business, you can employ people, you can employ mills in Italy, you can work with farmers all over the world. You can create commerce in a more conscious way. WWD: During these massive global quarantines, we’re seeing cleaner air and cleaner water; it’s been measured. But it has taken a total shut down and total isolation. So does that make you optimistic or pessimistic? S.M.: I’ve been really optimistic that we’ve seen a dramatic reduction in a matter of weeks. Pollution — you could see the results really quickly. Obviously I never envisaged a shut down so dramatically. WWD: No one did. S.M.: More than ever now, we need to have these conversations, and we have to learn. [Otherwise] I think it is such a disservice to the suffering. I feel like every single person that has lost their life or lost a loved one from COVID-19, that cost and pain and suffering needs to see something good come of it. If the people in power can respect those lives lost with some kind of environmental respect and management and policymaking, then I feel like it’s not in vain. People have got to stop and ask, “What was the cost, and what can we do in a positive way [to honor] the pain that people have felt?” WWD: Yet some public health protocols seem at odds with environmental protocols. We’re all washing our hands constantly, so we’re using more water than ever. Also, the return to single-use items. In New York State, the plastic-bag ban went into effect only a while ago, and it’s now suspended. And before it closed, Starbucks stopped accepting customers’ containers, at least temporarily. S.M.: The single-use plastics — that’s where tech will come in. I’ve been looking for many, many years at things like that. We’ve been looking at a company making single-use items that are completely biodegradable. It’s now looking at single-purpose spoons and cutlery, because obviously, the world wants disposable spoons and cutlery. Look, water. We’ve done so many things over the years at Stella, just simple things like clever care such as a whole campaign around not dry-cleaning, not washing your clothes so much, turn your washing machine down, doing it less frequently. The amount of water we use just in the fashion industry — the facts are ridiculous. So outside of washing hands, there are ways to reduce water consumption, many, many ways. And that’s just everyday practice in pretty much every industry. WWD: Do you see a dichotomy between the environment and the public health issue or do you think ultimately they come together in the big picture? S.M.: Ultimately, they come together in the big picture. Ultimately, we’ve got to have some kind of respect for animals on the planet and we’ve got to stop the way in which we farm them and kill them and eat them because it’s a hotbed for disease. It’s not an industry that is healthy or pretty. I’m not isolating out a nation because I think the entire globe is guilty of how they farm and kill and manufacture animals. We have seen many diseases come of that. So, you know, it ain’t gonna go away until somebody looks at that predominantly. They are all connected. And I think it’s so interesting that it’s the conversation nobody is really having. WWD: Why not? S.M.: Because people don’t feel good about the fact that they kill billions of animals a year. There is a guilt attached to it. They don’t feel proud of it so they don’t want to talk about it. They know it’s wrong, and it’s hard to face that. We are all part of it. Well, I’m not part of it. But the majority of the planet is part of that conversation, and responsible. Again, I’ll be the glass half-full type where I say, “you don’t have to give it up completely if you can’t, but just reduce it and just buy it better.” Draw a line in how you consume. Set yourself goals, set yourself parameters that are better. Because it comes down to individuals. The individual consumption and demand will dictate what the ceo’s and the businesses invest in, what they buy into. I’ve been working on my mom’s vegetarian food [company] since she passed away 22 years ago on Friday. She started it, what, 30, 40 years ago? She started a vegetarian, alternative food brand, and it is growing year on year. And I have never seen more competitors in a most exciting way. My mom would be so happy. She probably would have closed the business, seeing how many vegetarian alternative competitors there are now. That’s not because KFC loves chickens. It’s because they see that the consumer wants a vegan KFC. The biggest burger selling at Burger King right now is the Impossible Burger. This is due to customer change. This is the reaction to hopefully the new way of life.

Sophisticated fake fur from fall 2019. “I’ve got my own little supply network,” McCartney says.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: Do you oversee your mother’s company? S.M.: Well, the whole family does. We create the products, we create the range, I do the packaging, we look at the marketing. It’s a family brand.. WWD: That’s amazing. How long has it been? S.M.: I don’t know the exact founding year. I need to look at it, actually; this reminds me. I want to put it on the packaging when we re-brand. [Linda McCartney Foods launched in 1991.] WWD: You have stayed faithful to your upbringing, and the tenets you were raised on. Do your kids embrace the lifestyle that you live at home? Has any of them ever questioned it? S.M.: Yes, they do. They are exactly how I was. But I think now there’s more people around [with similar views], although there’s still not a huge amount of vegetarians. Like, surprisingly, not all their friends are veggie. But it’s a much more well-versed conversation now. They are a lot less freakishly alone. But it’s very similar. I remember when I was really young, I’d say to my mom and dad, “why are we vegetarian? Why can’t I eat meat?” And they would say, “Well, you can eat meat because it’s an individual choice. But this is why we choose not to, because we don’t want to eat a dead animal.” My kids have asked me the exact same questions, and I give them the exact same answer. I’m like, “You are totally free to do what you want to do. I really respect your choice, but this is why I do it.” I see it through their eyes. Because when you’re part of a high-profile family that the world knows doesn’t eat animals, you don’t feel like you can go and sneak chicken Kiev on a weekend. But at the end of the day, my kids — I believe very much that children are so beautifully connected to nature and they’re so innocent and they’re so pure and the minute you say to them, “Look, there’s a chicken alive and there’s a chicken deep fried. Do you want to eat it?” I mean, nobody wants to eat stuff if they see how it’s made. I don’t think anyone would eat it if they really saw how it got to their plate.

A fanciful take on boho-cool, knitted from upcycled leftovers, from fall 2019.  WWD/Shutterstock

WWD: What do you think the lasting impact will be of COVID-19 on the industry? S.M.: I don’t know what the lasting impact will be, if any. My biggest fear is that things will just get back to what we consider normal, whatever that is. But I think that the immediate impact will be thinking differently, I hope. I’m always trying to push myself and my teams. They laugh at me. I’m, “OK, so what are we going to do? How are we going to do this differently?” For me, if every single day I didn’t try and figure out how to come at something differently, I feel like I wouldn’t be able to do what I do. I think that the entire industry now, and anyone in business now, has had to stop and say, “this is a moment I didn’t see coming. How am I going to be the one to think outside the box?” We are all competitive. We all want to win, and we all want to come up with great ideas. Right now people have got to push themselves and try to guess what might happen next. It’s a breaking of the norm as we have known it. I think if you are in fashion, you need to think that way every single day, regardless of the coronavirus. That’s our job. But there are obvious ways in which things will change. I think people are going to be much more cautious with their money. They’re going to invest more carefully, and they will buy in a different way, physically and emotionally. WWD: Small picture, back to spring, a little more on your thoughts right now. S.M.: We started working on spring, and then we paused. But I feel like at Stella we need to do something to [speak to] this moment and not just say, let’s just cancel everything until it’s over. For me, it feels like creatively we should be more inspired than ever to stand out. So I have been working on this little idea of individual pieces and individual gems, and being mindful of the two ends of the spectrum. I think some people will come back and go, “oh f–k it, I deserve to enjoy fashion for a second. I have been sitting in my flat in my pajamas for three months.” So I think there’s going to be [some people who want to shop]. Again, it comes back to working sustainably. I’m trying not to order new fabrics for [spring]. I’m just like, what have we got? We have fabrics that we buy in bulk because they are sustainably sourced. They are our go-to’s. We’re not like other fashion brands. WWD: No, you’re not. S.M.: I have a relationship with environmentally friendly suppliers. I have even created them in some instances. That’s the core value system of the brand, so that’s what we can go to. We’re lucky in that sense. It’s like saying I know that I can get my organic oat milk from this supplier, that’s not going to change. It’s just then left to me as to what I print on it this season or if I can embroider on it this season, which I probably can’t. I work like that anyway. My upcycled collection [fall 2019], those pieces all become limited editions. My final coat was like five seasons’ worth of prints sitting in a warehouse. So it shows that if you are sustainable as a business in fashion, you’re kind of ahead of the game when something like this happens. I’m not reliant on the same things that other people are reliant on because I am much more reliant on a sustainable source. WWD: Your ethical premise becomes pragmatic business. S.M.: Yes, and it becomes a supply chain conversation. I know there’s only two non-leather suppliers that I want to work with, with whom I’ve developed a soft non-leather or a faux fur. And so they are who I go to. I never start a season with, “let’s see 700 fabrics from Italy.” It’s not how I work. I’ve got my own little supply network. Over 60 percent of our environmental impact happens at the raw material stage, which means that this is where we have the biggest positive impact as well. If I didn’t use a fabric maybe in one season because it didn’t feel right, I don’t then sell it or chuck it away. I go, “OK, maybe I’ll use it next season.” It will sit somewhere and then I’ll reuse it.

A fluid coat crafted out of fabrics from past collections, from fall 2019.  Giovanni Giannoni/WWD

WWD: How will this crisis impact the show system? S.M.: I feel like we’ve been having that conversation for 20 years. Like, ugh. You know?  WWD: Yes. But do you think this is, finally, the essential reset button? S.M.: I think maybe more the conversation is, it’s our job to come up with newness, come up with different ways of grabbing attention and reflecting the feelings, the thoughts of other people. We represent that in what we do. So there’s always got to be a new way of doing it. We all think that fashion shows are medieval. We all question how that works and if it needs to be done that way. It’s just always hard to find an answer on that one. This will [force the issue], for sure. Exciting new ideas will come out of this, for sure. NOTE: On Monday, Stella’s p.r. Arabella Rufino sent word of the screen takeover at Piccadilly Circus. Asked why she planned the initiative at a time when there are so few people on the streets to take it in, Stella sent a thoughtful reply. “For the first time in history, we can truly measure the damage done by human activity,” she wrote. “Will we go back to the norm, or will we give Mother Earth the respect and time she deserves to continue healing — so that these city centers with their huge screens can be seen through unpolluted air? I hope we can learn from this moment of pause and that nature can reclaim its rightful focal place in our lives. My message is a gentle, loving reminder: Every day is Earth Day.”  

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[gaildaley]

I started this year in Review in December of 2015 because that’s when I think the year really began.

Dec 27, 2015

Wow! Its only four days until another year begins. I’ve made a lot of changes this year. I began writing novels again and wonder of wonders, I’ve actually finished book one of the Handfasting Trilogy, A Year And A Day, and I’ve began on book two Forever And A Day. This story is about three sisters who live on a planet called Vensoog and the choices they make to help their colony survive the aftermath of a galaxy wide war.

February 8, 2016

This was a good week to get some work done. I am more than halfway through Forever And A Day, the second book in my Handfasting trilogy and I have covers done for both of the first two books. Rather than painting a cover in acrylics, I decided to go with some digital artwork so that I could make them very similar.  I think I will go ahead and use Amazons PDK system. It will mean that I can’t put my book up anywhere but Amazon, but its price is excellent—free. And I really don’t have money to pay a regular e-book publisher. My son’s book at Outskirts Press cost almost $2,000. He did get a lot for it, hard copies of his book and it’s marketed in I-Books and Nook as well as Kindle, but sometimes you have to cut your coat to suit your cloth.

I also got my two latest Acrylic paintings done, Cat Napping and Street Vendor and framed. I think I will put at least one of them in ACA’s membership show. Of course entering one of their shows is always problematic, as many times the judges they select don’t seem to care for my art. I used to worry about that, but not anymore.  Having seen some of the art ACA’s judges deemed worthy in the past, I killed any feelings of inferiority I used to have art wise.

Now that I have my enlargements back from the printer, I can also start on the three longhorn paintings I intend to do for the Old West Art show in April.

February 28, 2016

Well, so much for good intentions. I DID manage to get the three paintings started. Unfortunately, I also started a bladder infection; my husband came down with the flu (which he shared) so I haven’t done anything else yet. The medicine the doctor gave me for the infection has caused an almost constant migraine and nausea. Hopefully, however, March will be a better month. Here are three canvases.

March 13, 2016

For the last three weeks, I have had three unfinished paintings for the old west show sitting there glaring at me from my art table. Not really my fault I haven’t been able to work on them: I developed a bladder infection for which I went to the doctor, had a bad reaction to the meds he proscribed, and then I came down with Vernon’s flu he brought home from the Pool Workshops. This Thursday, I was finally able to start on Home on the Range and I got part of it blocked in. Unfortunately, after I sat there and looked at it for a while, I decided that I needed to get rid of the clay cliffs I was using as a background because they were competing with what I intended to be the focus — the Longhorn cattle resting in an almost dry river bed. I painted over my entire mornings work on the cliffs with grey and then had to let it sit long enough for me to be able to work it. I confess I really don’t understand why other artists complain about how fast acrylics dry because at some point in a painting, I will have to stop and let it sit so it will be dry enough not to make mud! I substituted some rolling hills for the cliffs with all those dark, cracked clay lines, which looks better, but I still need to cool off the background hills so that I can push them back or maybe I will add a structure or a tree line; I haven’t decided yet. I will be using pieces of the same dry streambed in all three of the paintings. I have one more day to work on it before I have to stop and do Vern’s invoices for this month.

March 22, 2016

Today I finally managed to start on Chilsolm Trail. I got most of the background done and the horses and men drawn up with white pencil. The background took more time than I thought it would, especially the riverbank.

March 23, 2016

Today I was hoping to get all the cows and the cowboy blocked in, but all those horns and legs took a lot more time than I expected. I finally left one of the cows un-blocked and worked on the horse and rider. I used ultramarine blue and powder blue underpainting on the horse. I will go in tomorrow and finish it off with black.

  March 24, 2016

Well today, I feel as if I am finally making progress; I do still have quite a bit to do to finish this one though. I think adding a second cowboy and more cows was the right thing to do. Five cows just didn’t look like a trail herd! Tomorrow I am taking a break to do housework, but hopefully by Monday I will be able to go in and finish off the foreground. Then I get to start on the 3rd one—The Bozeman Trail!

March 26, 2016

Saturday morning and I still have to finish off my household chores. Put up the laundry washed yesterday and do the dishes so I will have a clean sink to rinse out my paint brushes. (I say I’m only doing them every other day to conserve water, but the truth is I loathe housework). I’m pretty satisfied with the way Chilsolm Trail is coming along. For Monday I will need to finish off the foreground grass and then put in some shadows and highlights to identify which direction the sun is coming from. Details…

Tuesday March 27, 2016

Well Monday turned out to be a wash. It’s wonderful how other people seem to fill up your day without asking you first… Oh, well. Today I got the foreground grass done on the Chilsolm Trail done, and the background and drawing done on the Bozeman trail. I also got the backing prepared for four paintings. I use contact paper for backing and I reinforce the edges with clear strapping tape and use thumbtacks and Gorilla wood glue on the edges to fasten it down. This is easier to clean than plain brown paper, which seems to absorb dust. No surprise that the back of a painting gets just as dirty over time as the front!

The Proof copy of my first book in the Handfasting series came today, so I will be spending the next few days going over the proof for errors. I am a speed-reader so it should only take me about nine hours. I’m very pleased with the front cover design. The image I designed looks great.

Saturday, Vernon is going to be gone with some friends to the desert so I will have that day free to paint. He is actually very supportive, but the more people in the house when I am trying to work the more interruptions there seems to be…

April 12, 2016

I spent the weekend at the Columbia Inn (wonderful atmosphere, and they use real art bought locally in their room designs!) with my husband. It rained non-stop but that did not stop him and other members of CVP from enjoying panning the dirt brought in for them. They did this in the parking lot under pop-ups so that shows how dedicated they are to their notion of fun! We had a community dinner inside the 49er Mining Supply shop and Rob and Cheryl were wonderful hosts. Vernon has commissioned me to do a painting of the Inn and shop so I will be working on that later this year.

A Year And A Day, has been published on Amazon and Kindle and in May I will be making the rounds to advertise it. FYI, if you plan to use Amazon’s free publishing services; start with the printed edition on Create Space. I started with the e-book and ended up with two e-books (different covers but same book). In order to make the covers match, I took the first one I made off-line. Unfortunately, I had set up a pre-order on it, so Amazon has forbidden me to do any pre-orders for a year. Live and learn.

April 21, 2016

Well, the show and reception for Clovis Art Guild’s Old West & Rodeo show came off okay, despite the low amount of entries. I didn’t win anything this time, but that’s the breaks. The show comes down on Sunday. The next two weeks promise to be full also. Monday through Wednesday, I will need to get back to writing on my book and hopefully start my Safe Harbor painting. Andrew will be working with his Dad on Monday, so that will be the best day to paint. I also need to do some housekeeping on some of my POD sites (FAA, Pixels, and Red Bubble). Thursday, I need to change out my art at the Water Tower Gallery, and on Friday I take down my art from the Sunnyside Library Gallery (I also need to prepare a summer schedule for the library), then Saturday I plan to put up a couple of paintings in the Alliance of California’s membership display for the next two months.

I actually sold one of my hand painted keepsake boxes I have down at the Water Tower (Yaay!) So I suppose that this summer, I need to prepare some more for Christmas and Easter, which means developing some designs. Flower designs work well here as I am hopefully marketing these to women or to men buying for women! I ordered some Acrylic paint pens from Amazon and I plan to use them for the actual design after I paint the boxes. (Target date to do these is in June so they will be ready.)

June 10, 2016

Wow. Has it really been two months since I posted anything? Time flies I guess. I won’t say it has all been fun, but it has been productive. Sadly, I did not win anything at the Old West Show, but all the art was wonderful this year even though it was a smaller show.

I have finished two large seascapes and started my entry for the Miniature works show.

Forever And A Day is done and going through the editing process (this means I print it down at the local printer and go over it for errors. Fun). All Our Tomorrows is about halfway through the first draft. Because there are so many characters involved by now and the story moves from one group to another to remain coherent, I have to bounce back and forth between where the character focus is. I wish I could find another way to tell this so that won’t happen, but so far no dice.

Facebook kept rejecting my ad for A Year And A Day, so I ran it as a regular post and they blocked me out for ‘suspected illegal activity’ for two days…Big pain in the A to get back on. They won’t help you when you need it, but they sure do punish users who try to get around their system…

June 23, 2016

I’m trying to do better at posting to this journal. I just finished Vernon’s invoices for June, so I have had time to edit Forever and A Day three times, and I am starting on the fourth just as soon as I pick it up from the printer. I am in the process of writing All Our Tomorrows that I have already revised twice and it isn’t even finished yet! And I sold a copy of A Year And A day in April, for which Kindle will pay me around the end of June. That tells me if my ad campaign bears fruit in June, I won’t see money from sales until around the End of September.

My only entry I painted this year for the Miniature show is almost finished as I got to work on it today. Right now, it’s sitting on a little easel waiting for me to decide if I’m finished with it. It’s a night scene and those are always a struggle to split the difference between accurately showing that it’s at night and still making the paintings features visible…

August 7, 2016

Wow. I have gone an entire month without actually creating art. Well, not true really; I did five color studies for my Vensoog Handfasting series. I started to do a landscape of it also, but I ended up tossing it out (a rarity for me but it was just awful.) I actually have 4 small paintings drawn up (one 8×10 and two 5x7s). I also have two of my hand painted keepsake boxes started. They only need the painting done on the lids and then put together but there they sit…

Next week won’t be productive art-wise either tho’ because I will be starting on our Income tax. Ick. Migraine coming as always…

October 1, 2016

Wow! I’ve had a really busy summer! I have been working non-stop on getting the second book in my Handfasting Series published, and on top of that Clovis Art Guild had an art show and the Guild had to make arrangements to shuffle things around (our meetings, getting our 501(c) submitted to the IRS, etc.), so I confess I have neglected to write here in this journal. I went to a professional cover designer at fiverr.com to re-design the covers for my books and I am really pleased with how they turned out. I also finished the 2nd draft of the book “All our Tomorrows”. It’s currently being beta read by my son Andrew and a couple of good friends. My hand painted keepsake boxes are selling really well at the Watertower Gallery in Downtown Fresno, so I have also been busy making six more of those (actually a pretty time-consuming project). I start with a raw wooden box that I get from a local craft store, seal it, and then paint the base coat on the bottom and the lid. Then I draw a design on the lid and paint that. Then a varnish coat to protect the box is put on the outside and felt lining is added to the inside bottom and lid. Then I put the jewelry back on (hinges and clasps) and finally it is ready to take to the Gallery!  So I have been a busy girl. I also have six smaller paintings prepped (undercoat done and the image drawn up). I hope to have at least one of them ready by Christmas.

I had Pismo Beach critiqued by Master Artist Dennis Lewis at the Clovis Art Guild meeting last night. He confirmed what I was afraid of—those dratted cliffs in the back are still too bright. Considering how many times I repainted them trying to soften them, doing it over again is no big deal, but I wonder if I should also darken up the front. He also had some other suggestions for improving it, so since I have a month before the Fall Open where I intended to enter it, I will probably re work it.  Of course, that does mean re varnishing, but what the heck. I think I will re-wash the back with several layers of light grey and add some yellow to raw sienna for the sand front of the beach.

I also need to get in touch with my friends Betsy and Ron who volunteered to Beta read All Our Tomorrows for me and find out what suggestions they had. Andrew already made several, which I have implemented. It does make the book longer as he said I had rushed through several climaxes and through the chapter on the festival so I have added several pages there that involved re-ordering how the chapters were presented. I admit it does make the book seem less choppy. Beta Readers are a blessing… And just think, I haven’t started the editing for format errors yet! Still hope to get it into publication by Christmas…

December 7, 2016

Well, I did it again—missed an entire month of writing on this. In my defense, I should say that during this month, we adopted a new kitten. She was all alone out at one of Vernon’s commercial accounts. The manager had been feeding her but only twice a day, and a cat or puppy that young needs to be fed at least four times a day. We think Mab’s mother must have been killed and she couldn’t come back for her kittens. We never found the others, and it’s my opinion that Mab survived as long as she did because she is one stubborn feisty cat.

We also put on an art show at the Art Hub. Going to be taking it down later today. Yes, I know it’s raining, but sometimes you have to do what you can do.

All Our Tomorrows will be going to print in about 3 weeks. Yay!

I was hoping to get back into my regular artwork, but I caught a sore throat and it has turned nasty. (Can’t get the flu shot until after this clears up. Ick!)

December 15, 2016

Writing my 4th book in the Handfasting series. It’s a Cozy mystery set on Vensoog. Using Jayla (Gideon’s niece from Forever And A Day) as my heroine and Luc’s best friend Jake (All Our Tomorrows) as the hero. The story centers around the theft of the royal family’s Crown Jewels on planet Aphrodite. The thieves escape to Vensoog to try to fence them. There is a planet wide festival on Vensoog that draws interplanetary traffic so it makes good cover. The fence (Lipski) is killed and the jewels disappear. Jayla innocently buys the Lipski’s shop and then finds her body on the beach while she is out jogging.

I have got local, Royal and interplanetary cops who are suspicious of Jayla’s involvement. I have the original thieves, and the local mob who want to find the jewels.  A housekeeper robot who was programmed by the original owner as a gigolo and a sales bot who likes to run around naked (haven’t quite decided exactly what I’m going to do with them yet-maybe just comic relief).  Then there is Jayla’s nosy, interfering family, and her bossy boyfriend Jake who all trying to help her clear her name and getting in each other’s way.

Note to self: I think I have a form of writers block. I have to decide which of these plot lines to use as the main one, which ones are going to be red herrings and which ones are secondary. My problem is I like all of them so I haven’t written a thing on it that hasn’t felt forced for at least a week.

  A Year In Review I started this year in Review in December of 2015 because that’s when I think the year really began.