In the 80s and 90s, those who lived in the greater Boston area of New England were used to seeing commercials for Prince Spaghetti. It was well known (by those commercials) that "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day". The commercial showed how mom's called their kids home - by yelling their names out the door - (now moms use cell phones). When the kids heard their mom's yell on Wednesdays, they were sure to get home in hurry because they would be treated to a spaghetti dinner. This obviously was the practice in the northern end of Boston, but Prince Spaghetti company wanted to make Wednesday the day when all of New England would eat their spaghetti.

One Major Task Per Day

I have a handful of responsibilities these days, and I try to keep the number of major responsibilities to a number that I can count on one hand. This works out conveniently because there are five digits on my hand, and also five workdays in a week. Just as the Prince company named a day after their product, I've begun to name each one of my days after one of my main responsibilities. For example: Monday is Blog Day, Tuesday is Ebook Day, Wednesday is Household/Social Day, Thursday and Friday are Painting/American Artist Article Days.

Since I write 4 instructional articles a year for Watercolor Magazine, many of my paintings end up being published there, so I kill two birds with one stone, so to speak by taking step by step photos of my paintings as I go along just in case any one of them would work well in the article. But sometimes I just paint what I feel like painting, and then I can put those up on my website for sale.

Meeting With My Friends in Real Life

Every other Wednesday, I'll try to get out with real people (in person) because I need social input. On alternate Wednesdays, I'll devote the entire day to cleaning, shopping, and updating financial records. Plus, since my husband adores spaghetti... why not make it Spaghetti Day. I can't promise I'll use Prince products - I use Healthy Harvest combo whole wheat/Semolina products... which my husband tolerates. He says I put "sticks" in his food when it contains things like whole grain and flax seed.

The Ebooks Are Coming

One of the major projects which I've been meaning to make a priority is to begin writing ebooks. Some will cover painting tips I've learned from the masters I've studied with, including Sondra Freckelton, Jack Beal, Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik. Others ebooks will be about a combo of art marketing and living a productive life as a professional. I'm planning on offering these from my website and on Fine Art Views with Clint Watson because he has a larger audience.

This week, I'm moving my studio into the largest room in the house: the living room. My husband is totally OK with this, and I'll use the smallest bedroom as a storage place for frames, finished paintings, and other art supplies. This will hopefully keep the clutter out of my working space. The living room has cross ventilation, a nice gas fireplace, and an ancient carpet which we intend to remove at some point, so getting paint on it won't be a problem.

Fine Art Views and American Artist

PS In addition to writing a weekly blog for Fine Art Views, I'm now writing a bi-monthly blog for American Artist Online Forum: It's called, The Artist Life: it gets posted every other Friday morning. I'll post a link from my facebook page and my twitter account when it becomes available.