Well I just got back from a 10 day stint in Joshua Tree. I still don’t have all my bearings in place yet, but it was totally refreshing, interesting, wonderful, peaceful, productive, relaxing, invigorating, and zesty!

I had planned to do nothing but draw, but watercolors and gouaches came with me, and they take a little more time. the important thing is that I did art pretty much every day I was there if I wasn’t sleeping or staring at rocks. There were a lot of times we had to go looking for my dog too. He was roaming free and made a friend with a local female and they seemed to go away together a lot.

There was no television, no internet and my cell hardly worked. It was totally secluded and the property we rented was right up against the west entrance of the Joshua Tree National Park, so it was absolutely breathtaking.

I worked on a few things. Firstly, the art that is going into a bookwork I am doing with Chance Press. A lot of that is finished now, but I can’t show it before the book comes out. That will probably be winter 2010. The first part of my stay went into that project. You see, the house we rented had a main house, a separate writer’s studio for Michael, and a separate art studio for me. It could not have been more perfect. MJP is well on his way to finishing up his novel now. He devoted a lot of time to it there. I am so proud of him for what he got accomplished.

The rest of the time, I worked on large drawings that I am very happy with. I am finishing up the last one today and then I will take pictures. There are 3 of them. Two on Fabriano paper, and one on yellow handmade paper. The ones on the Fabriano are very important to me. After sketching and sketching, I had a wonderful breakthrough. I am very pleased with the ease of the creativity that came forth after that and went into these 2 large drawings. I feel like I’m finally onto something I’ve been after for a long, long time.

In other news, I have a new print available. No, not the new etching. That has yet to be editioned next week. This is a small 7 x 9 inch silkscreen I did as part of Margaret Garcia’s STAMP PROJECT/CREATING CULTURAL CURRENCY. The edition is 30 and they are all signed. I’m selling them right now for a mere $35.00 for if you’re interested, click here to find out more.