Pumpkins by YOU!

Halloween is days away, but today in York it feels more like Christmas.  This is the view from my bedroom window:

And it has only just begun!  We may get up to eight inches of snow today!

And now back to our regularly scheduled October.  Here are a few magnificent pumpkins carved by some of you:

Elizabeth Jancewicz and Eric Stevenson of Pocket Vinyl carved these three.  They exude personality which is how every jack-o-lantern should be.

This one was carved by Jess Ross.  I love the subject matter and the glow of this pumpkin.  She she did a great job!

I have several images of this next pumpkin which was carved by none other than Harmony “Minion” Niphakis.  Harmony carved a mystery house that can be viewed from any side.  Each of the windows has a different scene.  

Thanks again for submitting these photos.  I am SO impressed with your work.  And if you have a pumpkin you’d like me to post, email me today and I’ll put it up!  My email address is: melodyjmartin@gmail.com.

The New House

Here are some pictures of our new house.  I saved a few because  I’m going to put them in another post about possible spaces for my studio.  Most of these pictures were taken over the summer when Eric and I went to check out my mother-in-law Carolyn’s handiwork.

The outside of the house

The back

The kitchen

I love how airy it feels.

The view from one of the kitchen windows

The counter tops are so beautiful.

The dining room and the front door

The living room

The bathroom

The Showah

The upstairs hall

Bedroom number one

The view from the bedroom windows

Picture of bedroom two taken this morning. Soon to be the office.

Bedroom number three

The laundry room

View from the back door. The detached garage.

The detached garage

The yard is huuuge

I’m going to post again with a few more pictures because I want to show you the great options for my new studio.  One of the spaces is just crazy huge.

I love that the house is move-in ready but, even more than that, there isn’t anything that I don’t like about how the house was decorated.  Carolyn, you did an amazing job!

The Happening

On Thursday, Eric and I were living life as usual.  Then on Friday we moved.  It just sort of happened.

You see, two years ago my father-in-law went to an estate sale to buy an antique music box, and came out with the music box AND the house.  My in-laws went to work on the house and turned it into a gorgeous little gem.  I am not exaggerating.  The house is beautiful down to every little detail.  I’ll share some nice pictures with you soon because their work deserves to be seen.  But for now, in the spirit of honesty, I want to show you how Eric and I are living in our new home.

I am sorry to say that my blog will have a disappointing lack of art for a little while.  But I will be back with some cool tidbits about the house, and my plans for my new studio.

Hi Ho.

Can you guess what this post is about?  I’ll give you a hint:  I was not greeting a promiscuous woman.  Although, if you are a promiscuous woman I don’t want to be rude.  Hi.

I’ve been experiencing some symptoms lately that just aren’t natural.  These symptoms include consistently forgetting what day of the week it is, poor time management, excessive Facebook usage, and lethargy.  I’ve been denying these symptoms for some time, but I can’t ignore them any longer.  It’s time to tell you that I’ve decided to get a part-time job.

When I first graduated from college I worked part-time as a receptionist and was really excited when a year later I was able to quit and start what I believed would be a full-time job as a painter.  The problem is that I wasn’t as disciplined as I needed to be to make this work and quickly fell into part-time painting.  I loved being free to do what I wanted, but I was filling up my free time with worthless activities such as surfing the internet.  I know now that spending hours “window shopping” online is a great indicator of rapidly spreading epidemic known as boredom.

After some gentle prodding from a few trusted advisers, I finally came to the decision that it was time to look for a part time job.  I began to think of the kind of job I wanted.  I felt that the job I wanted would be more of a hobby…or as Eric put it, a Jobby.  My dream job would have these things: sixteen hours tops, fun, good working environment, a place to look nice,  and no evening hours.  On the very evening of the day that I decided to look for a job, I was offered a job at my church.  I hadn’t even gotten around to looking for a job yet.  I hadn’t told anyone.  I hadn’t even prayed about it!  But God knew.  The coolest thing is the job itself.  I officially have the job now and am an intern for the children’s ministry at my church.  The job is part-time (12-16 hours a week, but more if I want), temporary, a great working environment, I can mostly choose my own hours, and I don’t have to wear paint clothes.  Also, until they hire more interns, I get my own office!

Sometimes when a decision comes up, it is so clear what the right thing to do is.  This is one of those decisions for me.  I am not worried about painting less.  I think I may even paint more than I do now.  Sometimes, all that is needed for better productivity is a little structure.

The End of a Project and a Tangent

I am so happy to have finished the paintings of Eric and me.  Here they are (although poorly photographed):

There is something that I have been wanting to talk about for a couple of weeks, and it seems as if now is the best chance I’ll get.  I say this because these paintings depict something that I have been thinking about constantly since starting them last November.  Before you get worked up, let me say that I am not pregnant.  In fact, this month marks one year since we started trying to get pregnant and there is no end in sight.  I felt the need to tell you this, because I know that there are a lot of women out there who are in this situation as well.  (You know you are one if your trash cans are filled with negative pregnancy tests and ovulation predictors, you keep a thermometer next to your bed, you get choked up when talking about getting pregnant, you cry when you get your period, you try any silly thing you think could increase your chances of getting pregnant (I think I’ll try Mucinex before ovulation next), you find yourself online shopping for baby clothes even if you’re not going to buy anything…the list goes on.)  It is such a sad existence, but if you’re going through it I want you to know that you are not on your own.

If you can relate to this post, feel free to email me at melodyjmartin@gmail.com and tell me a little about yourself.  Almost everyone knows someone who is pregnant, but it’s a lot harder to find those who have struggled or are struggling to get pregnant even though there are many.  It is an even more difficult thing to face when you feel like you’re the only one.

If you have a friend who is trying to get pregnant and you don’t know what to say to her, just tell her that you’re praying (but only if you really are), or that you are sorry and you are there for her.  Please be sensitive and try to put yourself in her shoes.  Comments like “Are you pregnant?” or “You look pregnant” often give false hope or rub salt on a wound.  And, unless you struggle(d) with the same thing, tread very carefully when giving advice.  ”It’s in God’s timing” is something that a lot of people say to me.  Although it is true and it is a nice reminder, it makes me want to say “Believe me,  I know better than anyone.  It’s certainly not my timing!”  Also things like “It will  happen soon” or “before you know it” are pretty hard to hear.  ”Soon” and “Before I know it” came and went long ago.

And lastly, if you are pregnant, I hope you can always remember what an amazing gift you’ve been given.  Never take it for granted.

Pumpkin’s Back Alright!

I know that the headless horseman is a Halloween cliche, but for my pumpkin carving I still found myself drawn to the typical image of the horseman riding in the moonlight.  I used a couple of reference photos for the headless horseman, but deviated to make the design my own.

But first, the pumpkin had to be chosen.  Minion and I headed to Raab’s Fruit Farm to check out the gourd situation.

I shelled out twelve bucks for that baby and brought it on over to my parent’s house.

Minion chose a tall pumpkin and opted to carve a house with different scenes in the windows.  It is awesome, and I’ll be sure to share it in a later post once she finishes it. I chose a pumpkin with a flat side so that I would have lots of room for my scene.

I lightly sketched some of the image onto the pumpkin so I would know if it was in the right place.

I even got into the character of the HHM and beheaded my pumpkin.  I remind myself of Gollum in this precioussss…I mean, in this PICTURE.  In other news, check out my guns…not too bad for a scrawny girl, right?

Remember, when beheading the pumpkin, cut at an angle so that the top doesn’t slide down into the pumpkin.

Once I removed the innards, I could begin carving.

They never look like much until you light em’ up.

I even made a slight reference to Ichabod Crane peering out from behind the tree on the left.

Cliche or not, I’m glad I chose the headless horseman to carve.  I feel  like I was challenged, and that’s always a satisfying feeling to overcome. Eric was disappointed that I didn’t carve a portrait of Ron Paul, but maybe I will before  Halloween.  Just for him!  I am, after all, hankering to do another pumpkin portrait!

** If you have any pictures of pumpkins that you’ve carved please share them.  I would love to put together a post featuring your pumpkin carvings!  Email me a picture or two at melodyjmartin@gmail.com on or before October 22nd, and I’ll see what I can do!**

Almost

Today, as I was photographing my latest painting, I was surprised to find that I am almost done.  Just a few finishing touches.  Famous last words, right?  The painting of Eric also needs a little tweaking so that it fits together better with the one of me.

Here’s how the painting looked the last time I showed you:

And here is how it stands today:

The fingers are a little odd, and I have some minor adjustments to make to the hair.

And here are the two paintings together:

Notice how I altered the bottom of Eric’s painting a little to match the bottom of mine.  You can see how it used to look here.  I like how it looks like we’re enveloped by nature.  The vine-like pattern in the background is my interpretation of the woods.   Well, that’s all for now, folks.

Oh, wait.  I just wanted to say sorry for not warning you of my new posting “schedule”.  As of right now, it is still sort of random as opposed to every M, W, and F.  I’m still trying to do three posts a week though.  The schedule of my life has recently shifted so the M, W, F thing wasn’t working out.  If you want to receive email alerts when I publish new posts, you can sign up on the side bar to the right.  You won’t get spammed and you can unsubscribe at any time.  I’ll let you know if I settle on a more consistent posting schedule.  Until then, I’ll be doing three posts a week as they come to me.  Hopefully that will make things seem more inspired than canned.

EEEEK!

When playing Mario with my four-year-old nephew Asher, I kept saying “EEEK!”  Asher thought it was funny and asked me why I kept saying it.  I told him it’s what I say when I’m scared or excited.  Since I’m horrible at Mario, it was mostly because I was scared and kept dying.  I had to laugh when I heard Asher reluctantly testing it out a couple of times.  Every once in a while I would hear a very soft spoken “eek.”  Well you can imagine the sheer volume of “EEEEEK!” reverberating in my heart when I stepped out into the crisp autumn air to discover two much anticipated boxes.  My Dick Blick order has arrived!  As I was painting last week, I discovered that some of my paint tubes were rapidly diminishing.  I have also needed more stretcher bars for a while.  I knew I couldn’t put off my order for much longer, so I bit the bullet.

I’ve decided to give you a list of what I got and the pricing so you can see what my average order looks like.

• Titanium White Alkyd Paint 37ml (3 tubes x $4.77=$14.31)
• Raw Umber Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($4.77)
• Permanent Alizarin Crimson Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($7.02)
• Ivory Black Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($4.77)
• Cerulean Blue Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($7.02)
• Cadmium Red Light Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($7.02)
• Burnt Sienna Alkyd Paint 37ml tube ($4.77)
• Titanium White Acrylic Paint 200ml ($5.25)
• Ivory Black Acrylic Paint 200ml ($5.25)
• Grey Matters Disposable Paint Palette ($3.99)
• 16″ Heavy Duty Stretcher Bars ($2.83 x 6=$16.98)
• 20″ Heavy Duty Stretcher Bars ($3.40 x 6=$20.40)

With shipping the cost came out to a little over a hundred dollars.

I always tell people that I paint with oil paint, but I actually use Alkyds.  Alkyds are just fast drying oil paints.  They are a bit less traditional than standard oil paints, but I love that they can dry within a day.  Standard oil paints can takes months to properly dry.

With these supplies I’ll be able to stretch three 16″ x 20″ canvases.  The Acrylic paints will be used for the under paintings and will last at least a few months.  The Alkyds should also last at least three months depending on the size of the paintings and the colors that I work with.  Soon, I’ll be revealing my plan for my next painting.  AND what October would be complete without pumpkin carving?  I hope to post on that within the next two weeks, so stay tuned!