My walls are bare

Most of my paintings are on exhibition and I miss them! My living room is usually like a scene 'out of Africa'... wild animals and wild places adorn every open spot.

Now there is nothing except for a very lonely falcon, a small painting, hanging on the wall where my leopards used to be. I know its only my imagination, but the rooms echo with loneliness.

My dog is confused because there are no big cats eye's staring down at him.

He (my dog) usually is the boss of us but now he is impossible. He owns the house and we live here by his grace. No enormous zebras, no big cats, no elephants, no buffalo - not even a meerkat. No competition for him.

Artists are really crazy people, I think. We fall in love with what we do.

At least, I think we should.

I must feel the passion, the thrill of creating, the feeling of textures and movement within the canvas. Every painting, whether it be landscapes, buildings, the sea or animals must become a part of my being and a sense of loss when the painting is gone. It is exhausting to feel like this but I cannot imagine painting without that passion.

We have to love what we do when it takes months to work on one painting. All that love, all that painting - the incredible worlds I travel to in my mind when I paint fur, feathers, golden eyes and stripes.

So, while my walls are bare, I am using every minute I can spare to work on my new paintings: lion, leopard, elephants, otters, castles, etc. My studio is filled with works in progress so forgive me while I disappear to add a few more hairs to the otter and glaze my lion.