The Everyday Artist

Most of the folks that know my work, know that my subject matter is usually pretty humble pickings. I like to paint everyday trinkets I find in my house, simple flowers, and lots of fruit and vegetables. They make great models – they never fidget or need bathroom breaks. This piece is entitled, 'It's Keen Bein' Green', and today, it's got me thinking. I'm an everyday gal. My day-job pays the bills – I work as a graphic designer for a great magazine called Calgary's Child. But I love to paint. As luck would have it, my natural painting style is 'alla prima' – fancy talk for 'all at once'. Rather than creating layers upon layers like many other artists do, I start and finish a painting in one or two sittings. So that got me thinking too.

Why doesn't this everyday gal paint her everday subjects – well, every day. Usually, I wait and wait until I can finally eek out a half-day in my week, then I scurry to my easel. Believe me, those free half-days are few and far between. And I get sad sometimes because of it. But what if I turn it around? Instead, what if I take an hour. Just an hour, and see what I can create in that amount of time. The pieces will be small for sure. But again, as luck would have it, my 'signature' work is small. Seems like a good fit, so let's try it out.

For the next month, I'll be at my easel everyday. Just 60 minutes. Let's keep in touch and I'll show you what I create.

Sincerely, Cheryl Peddie
The Everyday Artist

Clean Eating Day 5

It was a quiet week, as my husband was at the farm, helping with harvest. Usually on weeks like this, my face would be at the bottom of a Doritos bag, wolfing down anything and everything I could get my taste buds on. It just gets so quiet when he's not around. This week was a little different though.

On Wednesday, I began changing the way I usually eat – 'clean eating' is the buzz phrase I guess. I've even set the alarm on my watch so I don't forget to eat at each of the golden 3-hour marks. So far it hasn't been so bad. What has really surprised me when I look back at the week, is how little I've eaten each day – without feeling hungry. Don't know if it has made a difference to my waistline yet, but time will tell.

As far as the effect on my creativity and energy, I had an incredibly productive Wed, Thurs and Friday. I'm currently designing and illustrating a new pregnancy planner by Dr. Melanie Beingessner – check her wonderful website out at www.drmelaniebee.org. I've done a large number of wonderful 'doodly' illustrations for it, so it's been great fun to work on. We are all excited to see the final result once the printers work their magic on it.

Will touch base with you early next week and let you know if I've landed in an Oreo bag or not. Wish me luck.

Stay healthy, everyone.

On Turning 40.

Turning 40 does weird things to a person. 'This was the year', I thought. Time for great things to happen for me. And I promptly steered my life into the 'fast lane'. I adopted a puppy, moved to a new house, thought I'd gotten a spot in a gallery (that was unceremoniously later revoked), begun guitar lessons again, and three days a week, began waking up before the birds (5am, thank you very much) to work out at a bootcamp in our new neighborhood. Even started to run again, and made plans for a couple 10-K's next year. Sounds and looks impressive, when I see it all in a big list like that.

But then all of the sudden... Crash. The end of August arrived and I was drop-dead-pooped. Gained back all the weight I lost in the first month of bootcamp. Didn't want to work, didn't want to exercise, didn't want to do.. well.. anything at all. And had artist-block – bad. I wanted to paint. But just couldn't get myself 'there'. Any free time I had, I just wanted to lay, sloth-like in front of the tube.

I'd figured I'd been just fooling myself. 'Your 40's are the new 30's' – my a**. Who am I, trying to keep up this charade? Really, wasn't I just a dreamer, deep down after all? And a lazy one at that – all talk and no action. But Why?? I've got a good career, university educated, no kids to tire me out, and I'm in pretty good health. So I should have lots of drive, lots of motivation, right? I didn't get it.

Until yesterday. Yesterday, Belinda Morrison, the trainer who owns Be More Fitness (the afore-mentioned bootcamp I've been attending) tested my body fat percentage. Bleh. But she'd warned us. Yes, exercise is a 'must'. But you can't get away with it alone and expect to have the energy that only good nutrition combined with exercise, can provide. I thought I'd been good, really. We don't keep a lot of junk food in our house. Well, yes, there was the peanut butter Chipits. Who can live without those, I ask you?? But I digress. The result of my body fat test was so bad I promptly went to Safeway, loaded up on greens, went home and threw away half the food in our pantry. Then last night, I attended her nutrition seminar at our community centre. After that, I went into my pantry and threw out the other half. Goodbye Chipits.

When I look at what I was trying to do it's surprising I lasted until 40 before I crashed. But who knew? I could still fit into my size 10 Levi's. To look at me, most wouldn't think I really had a health problem. Even I really didn't think I looked all that bad. But I was wrong. And I'm going to do something about it before it gets worse. With the help the 'clean eating' philosophy Belinda introduced me to, I'm going to kick the fanny of my140lbs and 30% bodyfat. Wish me luck; I'll keep you posted.

Take care of yourself, people.