Good friends have a sweet but ferocious companion who is very good about protecting his territory. I always know who will greet me when I ring the doorbell. Timid T-Bone (didn't I just call him "ferocious"?) has quite the reputation answering their door. He has me shaking in my boots!

Kayaks, canoes, oars, paddles, boat houses all seem to be everywhere I go these days. I went to a memorial service for a woman I never met this morning. In front of the church was her car with her kayaks on top. From the number of family and friends gathered to celebrate her life, she must have been quite remarkable.

The Bankhead Theater in Livermore, CA is holding the art exhibition, In Good Company:Celebrating Women Artists. This juried exhibition is jointly presented by the Bothwell Arts Center and the Silicon Valley Women's Caucus for Art. Birds on Green was accepted and will be on display March 2-May 2. Opening reception for artists, friends and family is Saturday March 12, 2-4pm. Looking forward to attending and hope to see you there!

I had a birthday a few days ago and celebrated the day by riding my bike to studio, putting on a little jazz music and painting how I felt...so not necessarily a self-portrait here, but if colors are indicative of emotions, then I'm telling you that it was a great day. And just for those who may be reading I'll post a self-portrait of another time just for some contrast.

Seeing the effects of the five year drought on Lake Shasta, California's largest reservoir influenced me enough to go to the studio and try to paint something abstract with environmental impact. Fish fin shapes mingle with concentric rings of red clay. Teal blues surround exposed rock once covered by water. Trickles of water share space with algae and reeds of crackling, dry grass. They all rotate in disorder around the canvas. El Nino has helped to fill Lake Shasta the past few months but we are still in need of more rain and snow in the Sierras to get water levels back to normal.

Oranges from a neighbor's tree, a little red house I bought at the hardware store and my chair from a used furniture store all came together recently. Not sure why, but they did.

Back in August I packed up my supplies and schlepped them up the Camille Trail in Alamo (California) to a wonderful place where I could set up my easel, paint and enjoy the solitude. A flock of Acorn Woodpeckers swooped from tree to tree and entertained me that whole afternoon.

Hildagarde Dowdle Callahan was my maternal grandmother and this painting looks nothing like her…but it’s a tribute to her. She was such a good cook and loved baking pound cakes! I placed the jar she kept her flour in for her baking in the lower right.  She was a quilter, gardener, shop keeper, painter, weaver and seamstress. Her large knuckled hands were in constant motion. In an old wicker rocker on her front porch waving to the cars that went by, she would string green beans, crochet or knit.  I’ve seen her with a dowager rod searching for water and later having my grandfather dig her a well. She knew the local farmers and knew when a field had been freshly plowed. It was a grand opportunity to go in search of shards of Cherokee pottery and arrowheads.  I think she had a sixth grade education but she was a renaissance woman to me. When I was born my mother told me she walked into the hospital nursery, bundled me up and took me home. You could do that in the mountains of NC in 1952. I was her first grandchild. Rosemary is the herb of remembrance. If you look closely, I tucked a little sprig of it in an envelope for memories of the Smokey Mountains and Hilda.     www.kwillspaint.com

Just received word today that this painting was accepted in the Art Works Downtown "Small Works Exhibition" in San Rafael, CA. Reception is December 11, 5-8PM. It's a fun place to view art!

When I was working on this I wanted to paint just to paint. I didn't want to paint "things". But things emerged. So my yellow horizontal marks turned into steps. I'm not sure if there really are nineteen steps but that's what I got on a quick count. My thoughts of all these cliches that have landed on my front doorstep lately seemed to find their energy down my right arm, into the right hand and out the paint brush. "One step at a time". "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step". "Every adventure requires a first step". And remember Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for man..."? I'm truly grateful every morning when my feet hit the floor and I can begin a new day taking as many steps as I can.