I received this beautiful bouquet of flowers & balloon’s from my absolutely amazing hubby in Iraq. Now how sweet is this, to get flowers from a man in a war zone 6000 miles away. He is the best hubby EVER!!! (Today is the 3rd Anniversary of our second marriage after a 2 year break and 7 year marriage prior to that with 2 years of dating..haha, figure that one out!)

Been painting on Toronto Swampy today, I have his eyes done and I have about 10 minutes worth of daylight left – I may set up a lamp or something in a few minutes so I can get the grasses done. Either that or I’ll get up at the crack of dawn in the morning to continue painting on him. Hm. Dawn is sounding like a better plan.

I have more fabulous photos to share. (they’re big!) If any artists are reading this and want to paint them please do, and let me see it when you’re done wouldjya? Two of them are very dramatic photos of the Sweetheart Roses in my Anniversary Bouquet. (Know what I got him? A fancy schmancy print that I formatted of a section of our vows that were/are absolutely perfect for our second marriage to eachother..what else do you get a guy who only has wall space and tacks?)

On to the photos:
Dramatic Anniversary 1
Dramatic Anniversary 2
First Prize Rose Closeup

‘Til tomorrow!
xoxoxo

Wanted to get a pic of me after my marathon, and since two of these (Honey and the Stargazer) shipped this morning I had to get it done early! So sorry for the scruffy dew-rag look but hey, it keeps my hair out of the paint. 😉

Anyone else having troubles seeing the info and scroll columns to the right of the text here? Please let me know!

I wanted to share some of the pics from my new camera..these are amazing! Yes, I will be painting a few of them, and Erikie will be, too!

These are big files, if you want to see the detail of the shots you’ll need to let them load. 🙂

Double Delight
Pinkie
Double Delight II
Caitlin Closeup
Pinkie II
Sweet Sleeper
Sunset
Squirrely eating Breakfast

The squirrely shot is a smidge blurry viewed large. Still figuring out the zoom on this.

Going to be sketching on Toronto Swampy today, we’ll be heading down to a local swamp/marsh for photos, too!

Before painting commences, I wanted to share these lovelies with you:

Double Delight Blooms
New Orange Gerber Daisy
Mama & Youngin’ having breakfast
Jay with her hair down

Ah yes, the last one is not a flower. 😉

My new digital camera is scheduled to arrive on Monday, so I’ll be getting MUCH better macro shots of my flowers in just a couple of days! Yahoo!!

Going to work on Dom now.. my Mom is enroute – believe it or not!!! She’ll be here helping me out for the weekend. I just love it when family offers a hand when you’re buried up to your eyeballs. There was a huge sigh of relief on my part, since there is SO much to do to finish up these paintings and prepare for a weeklong adventure in Enamel Froggieland. No easy task when you have two little ones hanging around and a household to maintain. Don’t get me wrong, they are SUPER and SO understanding about my painting schedule, but the Frog will be under the carport, so they will be outside with me all week. Next weekend the girls will be going to stay with Gramma & Grampa W. so I can put all the final touches on Toronto and get him ready to go.

Off to paint!

Have a great weekend all, don’t forget to stop back & see my finished paintings!
xoxoxo

There’s one of the two canvases that are JUST about dry enough for me to start two cat commissions! Both canvases look the same at this point, tomorrow I will begin painting the kitties!

For today, I have had 2 canvases prepped for a couple of weeks and it’s raining out, so I’m going to paint something else while I’m waiting for the other two to finish drying. 🙂 I am waiting for two packages with more pics, I will be painting a Smooth Fox Terrier (pet portrait contest winner), and another commission (a Yorkie!) in inks.

Yardwork update: the pool is up! See? I dug up the yard under the pool, threw down 16 bags of sand, then dug up a smidge more to add 5 more 18″ square patio blocks, then 8 more bags of sand to have a little mini “beachfront” so we don’t get dirt & grass in the pool.

The roses are doing really well, all 5 plants have new growth. I’ve clipped the blooms, brought them inside and have a very pretty Bouquet sitting on my desk now smelling all nice!

Then I have the front flower planter thing all full now and it looks LOVELY! Here’s an updated pic (I’m taking this out in the rain now..LOL), you can see I’ve added quite a few more things and it’s really taking off and is quite colorful! See the flowerbed here!

Ok now I should be tired from all of this, right? No. LOL

Lastnight I shampooed the carpets and cleaned the floors until midnight with this new cleaner. This stuff is AMAZING! Here’s a link if you want to buy some: Super Duper Cleaner! Not kidding, this door to door salesman hit our house the other night. He came in, showed me how well it worked cleaning up stains in the carpet that have been there for YEARS, and of course I was skeptical. I always am! I really dislike door-to-door salespeople. Ug don’t invade my home!! Anyway I told him that if he could clean anything up in my studio that had dried oil paints on it then I’d buy a bottle. Welp, I had splattered some on my curtains and he cleaned it right up! So I bought some. After my painting session the other night I had splattered it all over my clothes, I was a mess. So I used the stuff, cleaned it right out of my clothes! Lastnight I decided to put it into my Kirby shampooer and WOW the carpet is CLEAN!!! Very very cool stuff. Highly recommend it!!

What else… oh yes, weight loss! Well, I have been holding steady at a loss of 37 pounds. Only thing is, I’m losing INCHES now and gaining muscle mass from all this outdoorsy hard manual labor stuff I’ve been doing! So, as of yesterday, I’ve gone down 4 sizes (and I’m counting by two’s since that’s how our stuff is sized), and am wearing clothes from like 7 years ago! YAHOO!

Alrightie then, I think I’ve rambled on enough to get you all caught up, now I need to get ready to paint! Show ya later! 😉

xoxoxoxo

Ain’t she a beauty? These roses are really taking off! Here’s another one, this is one of the “Remember Me” blooms:

Gotta add a couple more!!!! Here’s a melon gerber daisy:

And a lovely threesome of DEEP and bright orange gerbers!

Does anyone know what type of flower/plant this is? My girlfriend has it growing (wild?) in her yard.

More pretties!

Single Peach Rose

Remember Me

Yellow Rose

🙂

This is a Mandevilla bloom, isn’t it beautiful? You can click for a larger view of it. I love the sunburst look down in the center, it is so pretty! I have about 15 buds on the trellis now and I am so excited! Last year I planted clematis there that did not do well. 🙁

More flowers! I took a few photos this morning and decided that I’m going to invest in a better digital camera with macro mode. (Thank you Erikie for pointing out that it exists!) Then I will be able to have MUCH larger and sharper closeups of pretties for you!

Ok here are s’more for ya. (and if anyone wants to paint them, be my guest!) An Orange Gerber Daisy, Peach Rose (just opened this morning!)and this Yellow rosebud (will probably open in the next day or two.

That’s it for now! We’re heading down to Wallyworld for some stuff, pool filter, chemicals, pistachios for Mark..yadda yadda…

Have a great Saturday!!

p.s. if you aren’t grossed out easily, here are a few of my bruises. I told you I look like I’ve been in a wreck! Will heat packs work to get the bruising to go away faster? These are awful!