I don't know about any of you, but I usually think of other people's photos when I think of reference photos. But I realized something. In my Dropbox, I have years worth of photos I took of places I've been, things I have enjoyed, and I don't mind giving myself artistic permission to draw or paint what I took photos of. I know that there might be some things to be careful of, like a floral arrangement or anything someone else did artistically that I took a photo of. Still I've spent the last few hours downloading several images to my phone that I can use later this month. I had to share, since I was truly surprised by what I found lurking in my photo archive. I don't grow flowers. I would think it weird if someone gave me flowers. However, our family visited the botanical gardens so I have fun photos of flowers and butterflies. Watercolor flower paintings might just happen this month. Plus a fun fog on the lake picture begging me to paint it.

Happy Mother’s Day Warning: deep coffee thoughts here: I invite you to share about someone….. Your Mom. Your Grandmother. Your Child(ren) Someone who helped shape the beautiful you that you are today. I want the REAL little things. The human feels. Maybe messy, maybe neat. Who was that person? Do you feel gratitude or something else? Have your feelings changed over the years? How? Is this person still here? Do you feel strongly about a specific scene in your togetherness? The way she held her cigarette. Or twirled her hair. THESE are things that make meaningful paintings. 💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️💔❤️ Here is my Mom…. an absolute gem. She left this life about 6 years ago. Her phone number is still in my Favorites list (even though I know that number now belongs to someone else). She was a beautiful soul and my memories are so delightful, it’s an honor to share them. I don’t have any children of my own so this day has just become a day that I think about her longer and harder and more intimately. The first pic is Mom and me. I finally convinced her to ride on the motorcycle with me even though she HATED motorcycles. Second pic is when we went fishing but she wouldn’t touch the fish that she caught so I had to render assistance every time she got one on the hook. If you blow up the pic, you can see the itty bitty fish she caught. The last one is the last pic I have of her - one week before she suddenly passed from a heart attack. We slept in the same bed together while I was visiting. I know this might be weird but it was such an intimate moment with my Mom that I am grateful to have as my final memory.

So there is this thing about emails. The law says I can’t add the email that you gave me already to my email list unless you specifically opt in. When you sign up here in skool, you are NOT opting in to my email list for my professional paintings. You are only opting in for Skool associated emails. I take this rule very seriously. No one needs email that they don’t want. So, IF you are interested in getting email about my professional paintings, exhibits and IRL classes, you can go here. Michellecyr.com If you hang out for a little bit, you will see a pop-up to opt in. There is zero pressure from me at all. This is only if it interests you. I am getting ready to send a newsletter about my IRL classes in Wisconsin for the summer and it made me think that it might interest you. Cheers!

The 8.5x11 are me following a book. She drew it and I paint in between the lines. She also tells me rough percentage of color mixtures to get the colors right. The rest is free hand afterwards.

My studio is a disaster and currently looks like: 🫯 Amazon exploded 🫯 my trash can puked a unicorn 🫯 unfinished paintings everywhere 🫯 cords trying to strangle me 🫯 and Mini Me is currently buried in papers with only her little feet sticking out 😂 (can you find her?) This is NOT the beautifully curated artist studio people imagine or that I usually share with you. I am walking the walk here. This is: 📍 creating 📍 experimenting 📍 teaching 📍 filming 📍 building kits 📍 repainting 📍 thinking 📍 trying new things 📍 working hard I think creativity is often a little messy but I don’t always work this way. I do think of myself as more organized in my brain than this temporary chaos that you see here. Honestly, it’s a little uncomfortable for me to share this with you. So now I want to see YOUR imperfect thing this week. Your space, A project Even a conversation Something from this week that is: 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 🫟 🫟 Crooked 🫟 Weird 🫟 Half finished 🫟 Burnt 🫟 Messy 🫟 Chaotic 🫟 Barely held together with spite 🫟 🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟🫟 We start with being ok with messy imperfections. Drop your imperfect thing below. You can do this.