Day 1-My intentions of waking up at the crack of dawn didn’t go over too well this rainy New Year’s Day morning. It was black as night when I looked outside still at 8am. From the start it was one of those mornings that you want to pull your blankets over your head.

Armed with coffee I entered my studio and rather than starting to paint straight away I began to write. I write practically every morning. I started after reading the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. In her book she suggests that you write 3 pages about anything that comes to your head. They are called “Morning Pages” For me it’s a way of clearing the fog out of my head and beginning the day fresh. Sometimes I have been surprised with some ideas that have been born from writing in the morning.

This morning as I wrote a phone call came delivering bad news about my Aunt Gretel. She is 80 years old and last Christmas she became sick. The doctors said she would live for 6-8 months. One minute after midnight last night she passed away.

Today I choose to paint a painting for Uncle Kurt and in memory of Aunt Gretel. You see my Uncle Kurt is also an artist. He used to paint and take pictures before he got Parkinson’s. I found an old photograph he took from the 1950’s and used it as inspiration for today’s painting. 

Aunt Gretel always said “Don’t wait to do something till tomorrow, it might be too late.”