Love splotching paint and then seeing what comes out of it.
Category Archives: ART
Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?
It all began on a farm hundreds of years ago miles from town. There was the farmer, his barn and workshop, the chicken coop, and his chickens.
One cloudy day in the summer while feeding the chickens, the farmer looked at the sky and said, “Glad it’s going to rain today, the fields are dry.”
One chicken heard the farmer and was taken with the sound of his voice. She cooed and clucked along as the farmer spoke. Indeed, she loved the sounds of the farmer’s voice so much that from then on, she would travel from the hen house each morning to the farmer’s house just to hear the farmer talk about the weather.
The farmer enjoyed the routine too. Each morning he’d go outside, and wait for the chicken to make her way from the hen house. It was quite a distance, but she made it every day. The farmer would then talk about the weather and the chicken would coo and cluck along. After the weather report the chicken would make her way back to the hen house where she would go about her daily job of pecking and cleaning.
After so many years of this routine, a very clear path was worn from the hen house to the farmer’s house. When the farmer went to get the eggs each morning, he would also use the chicken’s path, and eventually the path became the main trail leading past the barn to the hen house.
Eventually, other families joined the farmer each bringing their own skills. One family rented the farmer’s workshop to fix wagons, and with time, the wagon repair shop became the busiest part of the farm. The wagons would roll up to the workshop just behind the main house. Once repaired, the wagons pulled passed the front of the farmer’s house and went on their way back to town. Eventually, a path even larger than the chicken’s path was created around the farm house by the wagons. That path soon became the main road running through the property. With wagons going this way and that, it was clearly the wagon’s road that crossed right over the chicken’s path, not the other way around!
So you see, the question “Why did the chicken cross the road?” should never have been asked. After all, it was the road that crossed the chicken’s path. All this time the chicken has been wrongly flagged. It’s a classic example of prejudicial gender targeting and ethnic profiling! If it had been a rooster’s path, there never would have been a road in the first place. The wagons would have been re-directed by the rooster with a toll collected by the hens. The rooster crowing at the top of his lungs, would then declare himself an expert urban planner and get paid double whatever measly sum the chicken gets paid.
Riddle solved!
Art, Books, Art!
Great Falls Va. has a community of artists and crafts people. My table will have hand-painted cards, all my kids books (five now and counting) watercolors and a few mixed-media/embroideries (sounds complicated but it works!) Here is an example:
Love to see you there if you’re in the area. Not sure which building I’ll be in but enjoy it all!!
Kids Book #3
This book is an easy reader. I really don’t know if they are any good or not but I loved doing it! My stories don’t have a lot of conflict and definitely no violence. They are just for fun. I think my excitement at finishing this one is with the illustrations. I’m beginning to feel a little more competent as an illustrator. It doesn’t come easily for me but here we go!
Amazon has them:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=penny+ross+burk&ref=nb_sb_noss_1
Looking for Spring
On my daily walks with our dog, I saw some crocuses. Spring is just around the corner. So fun when all the color bursts out of the ground and from the trees! It made me want to do a loose, free painting.
I liked that one so much I did another!
I love just swinging the brush around!! Splash, swipe, sketch, sketch….voila!!
Painful Self Promotion
I am trying to learn self-promotion. First question: how do I know I’m good enough to promote myself? Originally the point was to get rid of art that I call closet stuffers, or insulation. But, silly me, I doing the whole social media thing with digital downloads which doesn’t help get rid of anything! So again, why bother? I hate to say it but maybe I need the acknowledgment, or social acceptance? Would I go as far as to say I need praise? Jeez – pathetic.
The process to me is so far from the artistic process that it becomes cumbersome. Like the sizing and editing of prints in photoshop – pixels, inches, resolution etc. Yet here I am putting my silly little paintings (cartoon-ish looking animals) on Etsy, and Pinterest while promoting them on Instagram. Nauseating somehow, but necessary. Wait, why is it necessary? I can’t imagine that I can make a living off my goofy little digital downloads. This all must be in the hopes that people (publishers) might explore further and buy (want to publish) a book or two? Yes, I do write fiction.
Well, here’s a glimpse of the goofiness:
Illustrations for my book
I’ve been working on and off on this book for months. Maybe it’s been a year or more, I’ve lost track. In any case, I have the bulk of it done but can’t help but add and subtract pictures. My husband, desperately trying to learn In-design, cringes every time I want to make a change. I’m so sorry, really I am.
The book is an easy reader, for ages 7 to 9. Most of the time publishers don’t want illustrations for that age or if they do, drawings are simple. Since I haven’t found an agent or publisher, I’m doing this on my own and not paying attention to publishing guidelines (standard me behavior).
Here is the problem. I started with a picture like the one below. At first making a simple magnifying glass, then deciding I could make it a little more interesting. And so it goes…one picture after the other.
What that means is that, if nothing else I’m enjoying the process.
