Cecelia Comito Art

08/14/2026

I have been obsessed with ravens and crows lately — something about the way they know everything.

Here's a 60-second look at how a piece comes together: I start with a surface built from layers and layers of textures, fabric, papers, and then, in the words of Portlandia, I put a bird on it.

Enjoyed this, or curious about the finished piece? Comment or send me a DM — I'd love to hear from you.

I'm thinking I might add a little silver leaf....

If you're a Recovering Good Girl too, join my list — for art, encouragement, and room to be yourself. Link in comment below.

08/13/2026

When someone asks if I'm a morning person.

Tornado sirens went off at 5:30 a.m. this morning. Sat in the basement until the all clear, forty minutes later. Then did the only reasonable thing and went back to bed.

This is me. Still dragging. Still painting anyway.

The Midwest giveth adrenaline at dawn and taketh away your whole day.

Anyone else up at 5:30, or was it just me and the sirens?

08/11/2026

You don't need permission to treat yourself well. You don't even need to earn it as a reward for good behavior.

Treat yourself to something today -- even if it's so small no one but you will know about it.

I dare you.

P.S. If you're a Recovering Good Girl too, join my list — for art, encouragement, and room to be yourself. Link below.

08/10/2026

I own corn plates now.

Little ceramic ones shaped like corn, with ridges so the cob doesn't roll off.

Nobody in Iowa needs a plate that looks like the food it's holding — you just eat the corn off whatever's clean. Growing up in a house with ten kids, we weren't exactly a corn-plate kind of family. But I married a New Yorker, and apparently that's a starter-marriage-kitchen requirement where he's from.

Tonight: tomato salad from my garden, corn and sourdough from the farmers' market, and the corn plates finally earning their keep. This is what August in Iowa is for — simple food, grown close to home, eaten at a table that doesn't need anything fancier than what's already on it.

Do you have a kitchen item you never knew you needed until someone from somewhere else brought it into your life? I'd love to hear it.

P.S. If you're a Recovering Good Girl too, join my list — for art, encouragement, and room to be yourself.

08/07/2026

Apparently there's a whole trend right now for "Kinda Chic" — and I thought, well, I have a studio full of things that are exactly that chic. Let's do this.

The plastic headband: one dollar and does the job. The blue vinyl gloves: also doing the job, also not fooling anyone. The apron that used to be denim and is now more paint than fabric. The Bubba cup that has survived every paint splatter I've thrown at it — and occasionally contributed a happy accident of its own when it spills over onto a piece. And the bag. It was my mom's book bag. It's more than 35 years old and still going strong, hauling my art supplies around like it's got something to prove.

Turns out "chic" in my world just means "still works." I'll take it.

What's the least glamorous thing in your workspace that you'd never actually replace?

08/06/2026

Sunday I packed up my oils and drove out to Grow & Gather in Glidden — a pick-your-own flower farm — to paint outside for the first time this summer. Two things I learned: oils are still a new language for me, and bees do not respect personal space when you're standing in their flower field with a paintbrush.

Two paintings came out of the day, and this is the start of a small series I'll be working on there through the rest of the summer. I wrote about the whole afternoon — bees, chicken coop, unfinished paintings and all — on the blog.

Newsletter subscribers get first look at this collection before it's released more widely, so if that's your thing, there's a spot for you to sign up in the post too.

Read the full story here:

Sunday, I packed up my easel and drove out to Grow & Gather in Glidden — a cut-flower farm where you can wander the rows and cut your own bouquet, and where, apparently, you can also set up shop with a paint box and make a mess for a few hours.

08/05/2026

Endless possibilities are freeing. They're also completely paralyzing.

Today I picked up a white crayon and started scribbling on paper. No plan. Don't know what's next, and for once, I don't care. The important thing is that I did something.

What crayon did you pick up today?

08/04/2026

Growing up, I was a rules girl.

Homework never late. If curfew was 9:00, I was home by 8:55. I studied hard, worked hard, carried that discipline all the way through college and law school. If I wanted a pair of designer jeans, I saved my allowance and babysitting money for them — it never once occurred to me to ask my mother to buy them for me. And on the rare occasion I did cross a line and got caught, I didn't argue. I admitted it and took my punishment.

I was, by any measure, a very good girl.

As an artist, I am slowly — and with some resistance — learning to let the rules go. To let a painting go somewhere I didn't plan for it to go. To leave a line messy on purpose. To stop asking permission from a version of myself who kept score for more than forty years.

It turns out the rules that made me a good student didn't make me a good artist. Some days I'm still working on believing that.

Were you a rules girl too? What are you still trying to unlearn?

P.S. If you're a Recovering Good Girl too, I'd love to have you on my list — art, encouragement, and room to just be yourself, straight to your inbox. Link in comments.

08/04/2026

Setup, composition, chicken coop, flowers, repeat. This is the Grow & Gather painting coming together start to finish — bees included, mostly. I spent the whole morning fighting them off, and the second I pulled out my camera, every last one vanished.

Cowards.

More on this one (and the whole morning) on the blog — link in comments.

08/03/2026

So excited to call Painted Pony Quilt Shop neighbor! Welcome to Adams Street!