Together (working title) - Part 2

This is homecoming week for my little guy's high school. While I avoided all school sports themed things when I was in high school, my kid fully embraces them. Course he is a football player. So far this week there's been a mad rush to the thrift store to get tropical clothing and professional soccer player duds (that's what he's got on today), but for yesterday's outfit he was able to raid my clothes. Yes, it was animal print day and my guy wore my leopard print leggings to school. I thought surely he'd wear shorts over them to minimize the feline look, but, no, he wore my leggings, a t-shirt, and sneakers.

And he looked great!

Two hours after he'd gotten home (after a call begging us to pick him up so he didn't have to ride his bike home in public wearing said leggings...we said, "no") he was still wearing them.


Me: "They're comfortable, aren't they."

Little guy: "They are!"


While I seriously doubt he'll be a leggings convert and start sporting them on a regular basis, I'm quite sure it will never occur to him to give me any flack for the high percentage of the time I wear leggings myself. He'll totally get it.


I continued working on this painting. The more I paint the more fearless I've become when it comes to feeling fine about painting over something I've taken the time to work on. It's a blissful kind of freedom!

I painted over the watered down black with a thin layer of white.
My little guy and I loved this stage. We thought it looked like
ghosts on the beach or people that were made of water.
I was almost sad to paint over them...almost.

I roughed in the basic colors of the children.

I painted over the background. I pretty much knew from
the start that I'd do this at one point. For some reason
it was important to me to do a very light and detailed
background at the start. I like listening to what my
paintings want me to do. They're always right.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

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Together (working title) - Part 1

We held an election in our house last night. You see, ever since my big guy moved out, I've been making him and his girlfriend a casserole or some such thing pretty much every week. Last night I was trying to decide what to make. So...we held the great enchilada vote of 2015.


Me: "I have enough cheese to make only one kind of enchiladas for you guys. Do you want chicken enchiladas with green sauce or beef enchiladas with red sauce?"

Dave: "Make both."

Me: "Seriously, we have a cheese shortage issue."

Dave: "Beef!"

Little guy: "Chicken!"


So I texted my big guy and his girlfriend.


Big guy: "Chicken!"

Big guy's girlfriend: "Chicken!"

Dave: "My vote counts more than theirs!"


And so this morning I made two batches of chicken enchiladas with green sauce. I also made a couple of cheese enchiladas just for me...because yum!



I started working on a couple of commissioned pieces today. I'm actually creating two of the same image. I've done this a couple of times before and it's really fun. I don't get all wrapped up in having them exactly the same. I figure they're more like if you were to have taken a couple of photos of something happening...while the photos would contain all of the same elements, they'd definitely be different. As there are two it does take me almost twice as long, so this post will definitely span more than three or four days.

I lay down the basic beach/ocean.

I added waves and some clouds.

I added a darker part of the beach
and sketched the kiddos.

I taped the paper on a big piece of cardboard so I could
work using my easel.

I used watered down black to fill in the kiddos.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Stoic - Part 3

My nerves are engaging in a great disagreement today. Ever since my surgery a week-and-a-half ago, the back of my right arm and some other parts have been numb. Well, I think progress is being made because this afternoon the back of my arm started itching. Yup, those nerves were crying out, "Scratch us now!" So, as I was super excited to be receiving any message at all from that vicinity, I obliged. Thing is, the "scratch me" nerves hadn't cleared the request with the "touch us and you'll be sorry" nerves. I'm a quick study so following a brief episode of electric knife jolts I decided that the "scratch me" nerves warranted ignoring...at least for now. I'm happy for progress none-the-less.


I finished "Stoic" today. I'm so sad that I don't have the original sculpture to credit. I went looking for it and was unable to find it. I must do better next time. Here's the finished piece and below are the last few stages.

"Stoic"

I added some yellow highlights.

I added more blue to the body and headpiece.

I darkened some of the shadowed areas
and added lines for the arms.

I darkened the background. I thought
the background needed to be a tad "dirty".

 Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Stoic - Part 2

My chickens love me. Or at least they love what I'm associated with. Every time I walk out in the back yard they rush me and I absolutely love it. But if I don't happen to have food I'm absolutely positive that I can see disappointment on their sweet little faces. So what do I do? Well, pretty much every time I go out there I open the fridge and try to find something, anything, that a chicken might love. Here's what my spoiled rotten, and extremely happy chickens have gotten to dine on today (in addition to their regular chicken food, of course):

• bread heels
• frozen corn
• egg shells
• half of a tomato
• grass I'd saved from yesterday's lawn mowing
• spaghetti noodles

I'm pretty sure my chickens have a more balanced and varied diet than I do.


I continued working on this painting. It's really starting to take shape!

I sketched in his basic features.

I added more yellow.

It wasn't enough so I added more!

I began working on some shadows and
some elements that were blue.

I lengthened the shadow around the neck,
added a feature to the cap, and defined
the shoulders and arms.

 Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Stoic - Part 1

I ate tonight. I ate a lot. And now I'm realizing just how little I must have been eating over the past week during my recovery. I knew I'd lost a few pounds. If I stood with my hands down at my sides my wedding rings would fall right off. Apparently Chinese food delivery was just the ticket to get me eatin'! And now my stomach is busy swelling from the delicious rice noodles. Welcome back, appetite! I've missed you!


A friend of mine recently posted a photo of what I think was a sculpture. I found it so beautiful that I wanted to create a painting inspired by it. Here's my start.

I started with a lovely yellowish green color
for the background.

I used watered down black paint
do lay dow the basic shapes.

I went over it with white so I could
begin adding color a details.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Surrounded by Flowers - Part 2

I had a "chat" with Amazon yesterday do to a minor issue with an order I'd received. Throughout the rather stilted, yet effective, conversation I was totally convinced that I was communicating with a robot. Here's part of our conversation.


Me: "Thank you! I appreciate it! Have a great evening!"

Amazon (robot?): "You are very welcome! :) Was I able to properly assist you?"

Me: "Absolutely!"

Me: "Are you a robot? :-)"

Amazon (robot?): "Haha. I am not Kali, I am a real person :)"

Me: "Well, you'd make a darn good robot. Thanks again!"

Amazon (robot?): "Haha. Thank you very much, I guess. Perfect! Have a great rest of your day! :) Please click on "End Chat" located on the upper right corner of the chat window to close the chat."

Me: "OK, bye."


I'm still not convinced that they were a real person. Robots know how to lie, right?


And I finished "Surrounded by Flowers". I'm so happy to be painting again! Here's the finished painting and below are a few of the final stages.

"Surrounded by Flowers"

I went even darker on the edges...
and I didn't really like it.

I added leaves...
and I didn't really like that either.

I went for a happy green/black medium and
that worked for me. I also added a bit of
detail to the centers of the flowers.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Surrounded by Flowers - Part 1

I'm dipping my toes fingers back into painting after slightly over a full week's break. I feel a little like I'm starting over as a beginner...so of course I'm starting with what has always been my "go to" subject matter over the past four plus years...FLOWERS! And happily for me, I've been given a few "speedy recovery" bouquets since my surgery.


Me: "Oh, thank you so much, they're beautiful!!!" And then I'd get my phone out and photograph them from all angles for future reference.


This particular painting is inspired by a lovely bouquet that my big guy and his girlfriend gave me when I got home from the hospital. Love, love, love!!!

I've had this canvas laying around from a previous project
when I just used the left over paint to create a background
for a future painting. Well, today that day came!

I used watered down black to lay out where I wanted
the flowers to be positioned.

And of course I got excited when I started using
color and completely forgot to take photos
of the different stages. Sigh....

I added green to the background.

So much fun painting again!!! Excited to see where this one takes me tomorrow!

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!