Thanksliving

First of all, I want to thank the Stevens family for having me over on Christmas Eve.

We enjoyed a lovely meal, played a rowdy game of Farkle, read the Christmas story, sang a couple of carols...

watched the Christmas story on TV (rather than playing it out like we use to) and when I left at 9:30, the Stevens family had started watching a Muppet Movie. Did I mention they had spent the day snowboarding at Echo Lake?

The next day Paul and I got up late, enjoyed a hardy breakfast and then open present while we watched the Yule Log on TV, complete with Christmas carols.

Later we enjoy a meal of filet migon, mashed potatoes and a spinach salad. We also had a slice of pumpkin pie and ice cream for desert. Paul fixed dinner, while I went down to my 'studio' and worked on a couple of new, not yet completed projects. It was a prefect, stress free holiday.

Thank you, Joan for the lovely set of paints, now I can enjoy my two favorite activities (painting and bathing) together.

And thank you, Mom, for the lovely plant. It's nice to have something to remind us how much we loved and cared for Ed.

White Christmas

Looks like we are going to have a white Christmas. At least the dog is happy. I have bit of a sinus infection, but I plan on loading up in drugs and working on themed holiday projects, that I have not completed. And then, enjoying a Christmas dinner with my sister, Barbara and her family.

I have painted the chickadee at least ten times and I got to tell you I am happy with the bird, but the background is another story, don't understand why I can't do backgrounds.

I like the little mouse, but there is not much back ground there.  Maybe I will do the chickadee with minimum background.  Looks like I have a lot of reading to do, good thing I have 88 cataloged art books.

My new goal is to learn how to paint Brandy in the snow, not just in the snow but  to somehow show how much she enjoys winter, but for now I will have to be happy just adding a little style to holly.

Cyber Monday

I kept hearing on the News what great deals Wal-mart, Amazon, Kohls and Best Buy would be having for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and I am sure they did have great deals in electronics, but I was not in the mood. I suppose I am resisting change a bit, but then again change is not always a good thing. But I regress, I just wanted to say the best deal I found was at Costco. I got a Daniel Smith Artist Grade introduction set of water colors for under $60! Woo Hoo!

Spruced up to pine fir decidous trees

I had a painter seminar on Saturday that concentrated on painting trees. There were so many techniques demonstrated, and I only got to try out a couple. needless to say, my head was spinning  by the end of the day!   One thing I remember is that  fir branches grow down and spruce branches grow pointing up.

I am including a picture of the aspen leaves I am working on for my regular class, even though it is not finished. Taking pictures of paintings half done is a good way to remind me what has to done in between the finished product.  I seem to be good a remembering  the first couple of steps, and the last step, but the in between stuff kind of gets muddled. I still have to negative (and positive) paint in the stems and the paint the sky (gouache).

Saturday ,I just started this exercise, when we had to move on to a different technique (painting aspens with a butter knife), but I am including it because I could not  help, but think how much it looked like the Rorshach Inkblots.

Blowfish Brandy

Got Brandy ready for her Halloween close up over the weekend.  Who says Halloween is just for kids?

Painted Aspens

I should not post this picture until a mat as been place around it, but it has been six weeks since I posted anything. and it looks like it might be a while before I can get a mat around it picture. So, I am asking you to just 'pretend' the masking tape that is hold the paper on the masonite board is a mat.

Maybe the outside mat might be a middle tone gray leaning towards a soft purple and the inner mat would be a darker gray leaning towards the blue family.

It is suppose to snow on Wednesday 2-7 inches so I doubt I will be trekking to Englewood to have it matted until next week which means I won't have a mat for at least two weeks.

Pieces of me

The Aurora branch of the Society of Decorate Painter (DSP) has an annual lunch slash art show. This year the show is held today at the Aurora Summit (Happy Birthday, Mom). I had a one day painting 'seminar' on the 27th of August (we were painting tulips). Most of the participants were members of the (DSP).  Nice group, they make a point to include everyone. I was asked what I was bring to the 'show.' I explained that I was new and while I would not be bringing something this year, I would next year. I wanted to see what the expectations (lay of the land) were before I committed anything to paper. I was told that because are only twenty members everyone needs to bring at least two pieces, otherwise there would not be much of a show.  Back in the 80s there were over 200 members of the Aurora branch (Billings had about 200 members also) but decorative painting is pretty much out of vogue right now.  Maybe, that is why I can't find a painting soul mate. Anyway, here are the two pieces I am submitting.

The picture of the thistle is my own design (simple as it may be). The picture of Crested Butte is not my design, it is one of the choices we could have picked when we were doing batik, I thought it would look too dark as a batik.