Another year, a bigger number

This year I am no longer fretting about the 3 in the beginning of the number. 31--sounds good.

I got lots of presents, a wonderful handmade card from Andrei, a sculpted dog from Anna and some lovely books from Arkadi (Fra Angelico's art book was my favorite, as well as a leather bound sketchbook). My Mom was visiting as well and it was very nice to see her on my Birthday, does not happen very often now. We are also getting ready for Easter and I am having a great time making pysanki , highly recommend to anyone who has not tried! (here is a link to a simple kit)

Little Glimpses 1

Ukraine first batch of little glimpses

Happy Birthday to Me

Christ is Risen!
It is Orthodox Easter today, my favorite holiday of the them all. Spring, blossom, blue sky, night service in the church, candles, joy...Everything seems possible and one believes the Miracle is taking place.
This year my Birthday fell on Easter. Sometimes it happens, every once in a while.
29 is an awfully big number , or so it seems at the moment.
I can't say that it was a happy Birthday this year, a chain of coincidences (or not coincidences) that made the day not so very happy. oh well.. but another year has passed and I am ready to approach the big numbers starting with a 3.

My birthday cake was a Pasxa cheese creation that I finally made properly this year:) Obviously it takes only 29 years to start learning to cook, by the time I am 58 I should be superb!

This is Ana picking out a Birthday flowers for me.

A story of a 22 year old doll

The doll in this picture is about 22 years old. I might be off a year or so, but it is still very close.
Where we lived owning a German made doll was the biggest happiness for a girl. They had soft stuffed bellies, their eyes had real eyelashes and they had faces that looked almost real. This is all compared to our native made Ukrainian/Russian dolls. My family could not afford to buy such a doll for me. They were expensive. But how I dreamed of one!
At that time I was about 7 or 8 years old. I was attending drawing and sculpting lessons for several years, and our teacher taught us how to make sculpey figures. Little funny looking creatures, that you would bake in the oven to make them hard and then you could put a lace in them and wear around the neck.
And I had my first business idea. A whole bunch of kids from our street made many many figurine necklaces and went to sell them to the nearby park were there were lots of tourists.
We did it on weekends for several weeks in the summer, and made money. Real money that seemed huge at the time. At the end of the summer I had almost enough for the doll. My parents added the rest--and here she was! A true beauty! With golden hair and beautiful blue eyes. I adored her. Dressed her, washed her, made clothes for her. Brought her to the USA when we moved. One of the few things that travelled across the ocean with me.
Anna , my daughter is her new Mommy. She takes good care of her and tucks her in at night. I am so happy that this doll has such a long and rich life. The first money I made back than made me feel that being an Artist can be a real job. And I still tremendously enjoy using sculpey clay.
Is it a coincidence, or is it my imagination that Anna looks like her?

Making your Own Sunshine

I read this phrase on one of my favorite blogs today and loved it! What makes spring real?
Is it spring yet? In my mind it is!
Everything is growing:


I see sunshine, and I see greensI see animals wide awake after their winter sleep:
It is spring all right!

Spring has sent me a gift

The amazing world of the Internet, letting us meet people we never met, talking to strangers who become friends, meeting kindred souls in places far from where we are!

Yesterday I received a wonderful letter full of spring from Bulgaria. It came from a wonderful lady Rossichka that you can often see here on the blog. In this day and age a real letter with real stamps from other country is always a treasure. This treasure had a little spring miracle in it. It had a beautiful postcard and two Martenitsas. Martenitsa (Bulgarian: мартеница /ˈmar.tɛ.ni.ʦa/, plural мартеници, martenitsi) is a small piece of adornment, made of white and red yarn and worn from March 1st until the 22nd March (or the first time an individual sees a stork or swallow). Mart (март) is the Bulgarian word for the month of March. The name of the holiday is Baba Marta, a Bulgarian tradition related to welcoming the upcoming spring. The month of March, according to Bulgarian folklore, marks the beginning of springtime. Therefore, the first day of March is a traditional holiday associated with sending off winter and welcoming spring.
I never knew of this holiday, but I fell in love with it. My kids loved to hear the story of the knitted little people travelling all the way from across the ocean to wish us a happy healthy spring. This kind of geography lesson will last a life time.
Thank you dear Rossichka! I am always very happy to see you here and your comments are the most wonderful! Since there is nothing green to hang it on outside, the Martenitsas will meanwhile live on my bamboo in the kitchen. And hope that that will welcome spring into our home.
Meanwhile in the Russian Orthodox Calendar this week is called Maslenitsa.
Maslenitsa (Russian: Ма́сленица), also known as Butter Week, Pancake week, or Cheesefare Week, is a Russian religious and folk holiday. It is celebrated during the last week before Great Lent—that is, the seventh week before Pascha (Easter). Maslenitsa corresponds to the Western Christian Carnival, except that Orthodox Lent begins on a Monday instead of a Wednesday. The Orthodox date of Easter can differ greatly from the Western Christian date. In 2008, for example, Maslenitsa was celebrated from March 2 to March 8.
Sorry for all the wiki info, but it is hard to resist. We made pancakes this weekend and have been eating them since then. Except for the days when I had a horrid stomach virus, and did not eat anything at all.
And to honor this ancient holiday I introduce a new Tea Party with a Maslenitsa twist. They do have pancakes on that table:)

A Tuesday in my House

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my work days. And unlike some of creatures shown above I am usually quite busy:)
The kids go to Grandma and Grandpa for some hours, and I get to work on my custom portraits, do the catching up on the correspondence and do whatever else needs to be done.

I am happily finishing 2 custom portraits, working on 3(!) more...and waiting for some new images to appear in my head.

The give away at Soulemama produced unprecedented results, I've been having 6-15 sales every day for the past 3 days. Which is a lot for me. I am not used to this kind of speed. But it feels very good to be so busy!

Kids are annoying the heck out of me these days. It must be the air, like Dr. Seuss would say.
And speaking of Dr. Seuss, a friend of mine recently introduced me to this book
And you know, the genius of the author never seizes to amaze me.
t crosser and i dotter. what a job! :)

Who Put the Socks into my Printer Box?!

I have gotten myself a new printer!

My older Cannon was doing a pretty good job printing, but the scanner there was dying a slow and painful death. Or should I say it was killing my scans? Slowly and painfully. They gradually became more and more grey, less and less contrasting...And finally I decided I needed to replace it.
It turned out that buying a separate scanner is almost as expensive as buying an all-in-one. So I chose the later. It is a Epson Artisan 800.
And it is still on sale on Amazon for something like $229. I used to own an Epson about two years ago, but my incompetence brought its life to a premature end. And I have been reminiscing about it's scans ever since.
Just to show the scans done on my Cannon and on my new Epson I will show you a couple of images.As you can guess the one on the left is the Epson one.
What does all this have to do with the socks in the box?
Well, the box that the printer came in proved itself to be an extremely valuable and useful thing.
First it was a boat, then it was a space ship, then it was a house, and later it was a Bear's den. How many thing can do that? I can assure you, that not too many. At the end of the day I find food, toys, my cooking devices and all kinds of random objects in that box. I think I will keep it for another day or so, and then send it for reincarnation in recycling.
I love that my kids can play these games. I love seeing that their imagination is well and alive and keeping them busy. Competing with computer games is no easy task, but so far so good--I like that they can now the joy of these simple games.

My Tea Party

A while ago I promised to host a virtual Tea Party for all my Blog Friends.
I think it is a good day to do it today. It seems that all of America is celebrating the results of the elections. I am not into politics, and the most support our president got from my almost 5 year old son, who seemed to genuinely care about the process and kept me updated.

So on this slightly chilly New York morning, I would like to offer a cup of warm tea to all the ones that stop by my blog today. Sit down and grab a cup that you like the best. You can also pick the teapot you like...I personally prefer green tea with jasmine, but I also have some chamomile tea, and black tea with strawberry jam. All of them are freshly brewed and ready to be enjoyed.

I personally adore the pottery by the MonsterOpMaat, this cup resembles one of the animations that I had here--worms and love:)

And one day when I am rich and famous I will get myself one of these

In our Slavic tradition, tea is a symbol of being hospitable. Tea is offered to anyone who stops by your house. For more than 250 years, the samovar has occupied an honoured place in Russian homes as the centrepiece of the table, around which life revolved. It remains most stable attribute of domestic coziness. Step by step a peculiar ritual of tea-drinking emerged and was adopted in every Russian homes. Drinking tea from the samovar was a way of life. I need one of those as well, told you I can not be a snail:)
Here in US, tea is viewed more like a "girly" thing. Little girls traditionally have tea parties, and until recently I did not realize it. My little girl is growing up with a mix of the two, she has tea parties with our cat when the boys are away and I am doing my computer work. So please, join in!

I Would not be a good Snail

Just thinking about carrying everything I own on my back makes my head spin.

Since we moved into our new apartment a year and a half ago, I was trying to make it as homey as possible. And that includes painting on walls and growing basilica on the windowsill.

Yesterday I made a visit to Ikea, got another few things that I just had to have, and then came home with a sudden urge to change something. SO...I moved a bookcase:) Now I have my very own corner of the bedroom, that can be called MY STUDIO. I have all my supplies organized, I have the reference books that I need at hand, and most importantly I have an almost clear table, to work on.

Another benefit of that is that the paintings on the wall in my kids room are visible again. We had to block them during our last room rearrangement (Anna sleeps in a big bed now, and a big bed takes so much more room!) Andrei and Anna have been complaining that they can't see the knight and the princess anymore. And that made me so happy . NO, not the fact that they were upset, but rather the fact that they missed my Artwork. So the princess and the knight, and the cat for that matter are back. The final touches with chalk are done by Anna.

Work in progress

A new batch came out last night. I recently went to a bookstore with my kids and bought a few books from my all time favorite publisher А-БА-БА-ГА-ЛА-МА-ГА, and just looking thou those books always makes me want to paint. And mind you, paint something good:)

I do now know if I have accomplished it, but at least I tried. The hardest thing for me now , is to concentrate. I get only good 2 hours a day when I can work without distraction, and that is not much, because even if I sit down at my work table it takes at least an hour to clear the head from all kinds of useless thoughts. So I get 1 hour out of 24 to create. However, I try to use as much of it as I can. My goal is not to loose my drive, and in a couple of years when the kids are in school and I will have more time to myself to embark on a crazy-paint-all-the-time journey.

Would not it be wonderful to paint like this? I am mezmerized by this artist

Replanishing my paint and inspiration

Today I splurged, and bought a new box of watercolors. After trying many different brands and types of watercolor I have settled on Yarka. No, it's not only because they are made in Russia, although that adds to their charm. Somehow the texture and the opacity of the paint itself seem to me superior to the others. Also they are honey based:) and my cats always love to drink the watercolor water, while I paint.

So now I have new paints, a few new pencils (I prefer Ebony) --the only thing is that I need some time without the kids and some phone calls ,and jumpy thoughts and irritating ideas to do the laundry and wash the dishes. I will have to block out the rest of the world and concentrate on the inside .

This is my inspiration board. Can you find 3, no , 4 Etsy Artists that I admire?

(in no particular order Lisa Hurwitz ,Rima (intothehermitage), Elsita, Dilkabear, Natalya Sots)

My best students

The new school year has started, and I resumed my Art lessons. This time we were sculpting with air drying clay, and making a zoo. But everyone made elephants:)

My cat Totoro, with his keen love of books. This is the Art history book he is studying.

Busy working little hands, and Totoro as always being in the middle of everything.

One of the inhabitants of our zoo. I like him, he looks like a newborn, with shaky bending legs