"With Wand" Part 2

Last night when I was walking my dog, Hazel, a fellow passed me on his bicycle, got a little bit ahead of us, and made an attempt at a jump. Well, he ended up flipping all kinds of ways, mostly sideways. He turned and looked at us right away and took a deep bow. Hazel and I caught up to him and asked if he was OK. He was fine, though perhaps a little humiliated. I told him not to sweat it and that it reminded me of the time when I tried jumping something and flipped in front of a whole crowd at the state capitol building. And I suggested that maybe he might want to start wearing a helmet. I'm such a mom nag.

I continued working on this painting. It's so fun watching her come to life.

I used a wet paintbrush to smooth out the marks.

I added some brown marks...

...and smoothed them with a wet paintbrush.

I used white acrylic to highlight parts of her
face and added some color to her lips.

I added more definition to her mouth and
painted her eyes blue. She's coming to life!

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"With Wand" Part 1

Elf outfit update...yes, the kid wore his elf outfit to school again today. I wish I'd been that comfortable in my skin when I was seventeen. Not that I was meek or anything. Rather than wearing a whimsical elf outfit, however, I was shaving my head, sporting combat boots, and tempting fate each day with the school dress code (I was only sent home once). A bit of a difference I suppose.


I started working on a practice piece for the class I'm taking. We're going to do several of them working on different skin tones and shadowing. This one is caucasian.

I sketched out the character. Note that my pencil
eraser is pretty much gone. The length of my pencil,
however, is still substantial. Guess this means I
make more "mistakes" than accurate marks. :-)

I used watercolor pencils to lay down some
color. I took a wet brush to the color and
evened it out. I also changed her skirt
and added a wand.

I added a layer of color with water soluble crayons.

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"Surrounded by Sparkles" Part 3

I've been celebrating my crazy wonderful little guy. On Saturday he let me know that he simply had to have some holiday pajamas. So off to Target we went and found him elf PJs. He wore them all that day (including to two parties), and then he wore them to school Monday and today. I can only hope and assume that he'll wear them the remainder of the week, too.

Way to bring some levity to finals week, kiddo!!!


I finished this little painting. I love its sweetness.

"Surrounded by Sparkles"

I gave her a neckline.
I added arms and a flower.
I also painted the stars yellow.

I painted the stem and leaves green,
the center of the flower yellow,
and her arms a flesh tone.

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"Surrounded by Sparkles" Part 2

We got a new refrigerator yesterday. It turns out that when the ice cream won't stay frozen it's an emergency situation. So yesterday Dave went to get us a new one. And after taking the doors off of our old one so we could get it out of the house reinstalling the doors so we could give it away...and taking the doors off of the new one so we could get it into the house and reinstalling them once it was in place...it was time to dash off to a party.

A couple hours later we were missing our new fridge so much that we had to head home to hang out with it.


I continued working on this little whimsical painting.

I sketched out the basic features of her face.

I gave her shoes and painted the outlines
of the features of her face.

I gave her rosy cheeks and painted her lips.

I gave her green eyes and highlights on her shoes.

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"Surrounded by Sparkles" Part 1

Had my own "cat on a hot tin roof" experience yesterday...well, maybe more like "cat on a warm steel roof". I was getting in my car to head to the gym and my goofy cat, Tommy, was lounging on top of my car. I gave him a little scratch, got in, and started backing out. When I didn't notice him jumping off by the time I got to the end of our driveway I got out to check. And there he was, still lounging. So I plucked that precious little guy off of the roof, gave him some sweet snuggles, and set him in the grass.

As I drove away I realized that I had likely just totally reinforced his "cat on a warm steel roof" behavior. Sigh.....


I started working on a tiny whimsical piece. I love using small canvases as paint palettes when I'm working on larger canvases. Then after they're thoroughly covered in paint I use them as wild and wonderful backgrounds to small paintings. That's what this is.

I sketched my figure on one of my
small palette canvases.

I painted white on the figure and some stars.

I changed my mind about the body shape
and went with a dress shape.

I began adding some color.

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A Handful of Daisies

In the car today...a delightful one-sided conversation.

"Do you know how to get people to smell your farts?

Say, 'Do you smell popcorn?'

That's all it takes...and they won't be smelling popcorn."

My little guy. Gotta love him!


Here's my version of a whimsical girl with some stars as supporting characters.

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Supporting Characters

How do I know that David and I are perfect for each other?


Appliance repair guy commenting on our fridge's coils: "Your bottom looks good."

David and me: "Thank you."


Oy, you can't take us anywhere...even our own kitchen.



Today I worked on some "supporting characters" for my future whimsical paintings (as part of this class).

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