Happy Little Trees

For the first couple of days this week I have kept myself locked away in my "creative land" (It's kind of a cross between Middle Earth, Hogwarts and The Ministry of Love sometimes) doing my best to churn out the first of three dresses in time for a shower.

So far mission accomplished, it's got over a week to get out to New Jersey so it should make it quite easily. And while I was waiting for ink or paint to dry I was on my computer editing pictures of puppies or making movies.

The tenuous rubber band of my highly constructive creativity was dangerously close to snapping. It was as I was going to print off the second dress and realized I was out of ink and then finding the store was out of canvas that I came quite close to curling up in a ball and refusing to go anywhere near that scary door.

But I took a little breath, curled up with my husband on the couch and while he read through a few more bits of Sandman, I painted.

If this were a movie, you'd have just heard the scratch of a record player.

Yes, I was stressed because of painting and so to calm down I painted. The leaps in logic are practically Superman height I know, but it's true. Only instead of doing the second dress, I made another tree painting:My trees are very soothing for me. First there's the background I create using a sponge you'd expect to find in someones bathroom that's more like playing with paints than having to meet with some expected standards. Think finger painting only a bit less messy (I say a bit, because it is still me. No idea how I got that big splotch of black paint on my hip, I swear).

And the tree's are almost a zen like creation project for me. Following the branches organically and just letting the tree take the shape that it wants instead of fighting something that is three dimensional turning it to two but still looking three (that may or may not go up to 11).

I also got to paint this tree for a blog friend, Kat from Ruby Slippers who resides all the way off in South Africa. But rather than dealing with the expensive shipping and weird exchange rates I just scanned the painting and e-mailed it to her.

It's kind of a neat idea I've been kicking around. In exchange for a little bit of PR I'll make a tree painting, scan it, and then e-mail it all for free. It isn't quite as fancy as actually having it painted on canvas and ready to hang as there is all that pesky printing stuff, but it is still a mostly free print in the end.

I don't know if anyone else aside from Kat and Valerie are much interested in my trees, but you're welcome to leave a comment or e-mail me if you're interested.

In the mean time I'm back to the dresses and when that gets to be too much, maybe I'll finally attempt a large willow I've been wanting to work on.