Well….. really the second Friday because the First Friday of 2021 was New Year’s Day. Whew… WHAT a year 2020 was for me! I always like to look for the ray of sunshine peeking through the clouds and this year with COVID-19 I had the big thought of Yay! I have more time to whip my online “art stuff” into shape. Life and work happened, and I procrastinated right through December 31st, 2020 where online tasks were concerned.
Writing makes me think of my mom Rose Mary Clarke (columnist for The Weekly View) who was very dedicated about writing something everyday and had zillions of ideas. Me, I tend to be more dedicated to creating and less dedicated to writing. Oh yeah, and this is my very first blog…. Ever… and I miss my Mom. Sigh.
But! I am taking the bull by the horns and following Mom’s example. My primary non art goal this year is to create one themed blog per week. Some potential items… what I’ve been up to in and out of the studio, featured artists, The Zentangle Method®, and maybe some tips, tricks and “Ramblings by Rose Mary” with the illustrations for starters.
So, enough about the new blog! Let’s jump into what I’ve been up to with a quick year in review. For a few months, my Dad came to stay with my husband Tom and me at the beginning of the pandemic. In July, he went back home, and Tom and I adopted a stray Chocolate Lab, Snickers, (pictured second) from our Veterinarian Dr. Sam at Monon Vet Clinic. Tom had been wanting another dog every since we moved to our current home near Monticello Indiana and I had kept telling him once he was living at home full time we would get another one. I also thought our 12-year-old Lab Lily could use a little sister. In case you don’t already know me, Lily (pictured first) is our love child, adopted around the same time we were married and living in Fremont Indiana.
Lily 
Snickers
Dr. Sam informed us Snickers was about a year and a half old, able to jump 6 ft fences and was not leash trained. After messing around for almost 5 months trying to train her with some help from Dani Sosbi of DogWood Kennel we decided it was a good idea to send her to doggie boarding school for a month at Ruff Lyfe to work on her manners. Additionally, she is learning to be friendly to cats so that she can go on visits to Grandpa’s (my Dad) house. We pick her up tomorrow…. It should be interesting…. Fingers crossed.
Besides getting to spend almost five months with my Dad and working on various acrylic painting commissions, another COVID-19 ray of sunshine was that I became a Certified Zentangle Teacher® (CZT®). For the first time ever the fine folks at Zentangle® offered the Certification online so I was finally able to attend. What a blast and what an awesome group of people! I’m looking forward to helping other folks start a new avenue of personal creativity. More on that next week! Look for my next blog titled “Zentangle.
Instead of writing this current blog and whipping my website into shape (like I knew I should) I spent most of November and December painting commissions, making Zentangle® holiday gifts and cards, participating in 12 Days of Zentangle® as well as painting a gift for one of my sons from our trip in 2019 to Barcelona, Spain. I’ve included some pictures below.
On New Year’s Day the “New Year, New Me” syndrome kicked in and… (fingers crossed) hopefully this will become a good new habit instead of falling by the wayside like so many New Year’s resolutions seem to. I hope you enjoyed spending a little time with me and my crazy life and hopefully we’ll get together again next week. In the meantime, if you want to follow my progress on various art projects feel free to look me up on Face Book (@vclarkeart) if you haven’t already and like my page. You can also find me on Instagram (victoria_clarke_projects) and just for fun on Pintrest (vclarkeart).
Have a wonderful week!
3 commissioned paintings. Each are acrylic on canvas board “Grand-Doggies,” “Pickles” and Dave
“Barcelona Flower Shop”
V Clarke Art Studio 