I worked on Luke tonight, he’ll be getting yet another coat of fur tomorrow before I start finishing up Ella.

NOT FOR SALE:

One tall, swanky & handsome man.
Perception range: 1000+ miles.
Knows exactly what you need and when you need it. Great around kids. Does dishes, laundry, light housekeeping and takes out trash without prompting. Enjoys yardwork, a good cup of coffee and nag-free environment. Great listener. Knows what to say and how to respond calmly to over a million possible situations.

One of a kind.

Yep, that’s him. (I made that up, in case you’re wondering. Didn’t snag it from anyone. Any similarities are purely coincidental.)

Sorry about yesterday, folks. The day just took of and started running while I was still sleeping. Jay was up sick after I finished painting Monday night, so I got a few hours of sleep before she was up again. Then I snuggled with her feverish lil body until noon, the day had almost completely escaped me by then. I did housewifey stuff, took care of our lil chickeymonkey, and didn’t even have the energy to paint lastnight.

Thankfully I scheduled Luke & Ella’s portrait over a period of a few days, and I don’t think it will take more than one or two more painting sessions to finish that one, so I’m still running on schedule. I’ll be painting later on today, and update my webcam status (which I failed to update when I completed painting the other night, WAH!) so check back this afternoon if you’d like to watch!

The completed, varnished & scanned painting:

I just finished the underpainting, now mom don’t get too worried, everything but the background will have a fresh & detailed layer right on top of this one!

The background is a nice rich brick red, lightened with a buttercream (not the butter, the paint that looks like butter.) in the foreground. So hey, Taba, how about brick red?

Meet Luke & Ella! I’ll be working on their portrait (12×12 Canvas Panel) over the next few days. Don’t they look sweet together? Actually getting along to have their photo taken! Aww.

Here are the digital shots of The Horse. He’s still wet of course, fresh off the easel. I am including a sorta-side shot so you can see the sides (which are green and compliments the painting REALLY well) as well as get an idea on the size. It’s 12×16 gallerywrap canvas. 🙂

Good mornin’! How are you today? (I say this as if everyone will answer me. LOL) I think I am finally caught up on things. No, not those things, the other things.

The lovely eye candy for the day is what you’d see if you were driving the distance between my house and the Chicago burbs. Oh fun! We do somewhat enjoy the trip though, and let me tell you why. We took a trip up this weekend to do some things, and I kept a tally on the drive of the wonderful wildlife we saw out in its natural environment. It is so cool, probably one of the coolest things I could ever hope to witness, to see these big beautiful creatures behaving as though we’re not around.

We are always aware of them and look for them, this time I kept count on a lil piece-a paper I stuck to the steering wheel:

9 Red Tailed Hawks
3 Eagles. Yes, eagles. Sitting on the ice of a small pond, fishing.
1 Doe, a young one, feeding under a tall pine tree.

I didn’t count the cows, horses, and other birds, just the ones that are a rare treat to see and made me gasp.

We got to visit Paige, my bestest buddy who is overseeing the care of her mom while she’s (still) in the hospital. We ate Maciano’s pizza, which has to be some of the best pizza I’ve ever laid my lips on, and we delivered Antoinette to its new home. (Insert mommy-like boo-hoo’s, I miss my baby!)

The drive back was (if you were paying attention to the photo) BORING. Add rain, and no visible wildlife eye-candies. Yawn. We got home, and I napped. Then I got up, and before long, I was sleeping again. I’ve been wondering if I have a case of the flu, only a really mild one, because since last Thursday I have not been able to keep my energy level up where it usually is. Today will be better, I can feel it!

I am going to be finishing The Horse this morning. I will start my next piece today as well, Luke and Ella. A dog and cat combo on 12×12 canvas panel. I’m going to attempt to get the sketch and underpainting both done today.

I also ran into another dear friend of mine who gave me a few minutes of her expertise to fix my “skin” selector (just above the calendar on the left), now it will be much easier to add new skin and not hog up a bunch of space. But if you defaulted back from your previous selection, this is why. Just pick again! Firefox users should also see an improvment on my stylesheet loading, and if you don’t give me a holler ok? Grazie.

So, I’m back, I’m alive, I’m still an artist, and I’ve gotta get painting!

It’s going to be quiet over here in my lil corner of the web this weekend, I took the weekend off and have a whole bunch of stuff to do around here.

It’s really springy outside and I am antsy to get out there and enjoy some of this weather, before it snows again!

Have a great weekend.

🙂

Ellie’s scan turned out perfect. She’s such a pretty girl! I’m including a close up of her face too. The photograph I had to work from was pretty teenie, it was a 3×5 photo but Ellie was only about 2 1/2 inches tall in that photo, I scanned it in at a super high res so I could get as much detail from it as possible. The rest, well, I made it up!

Ellie will ship on Monday – along with The Horse. I’ve been doing paperwork, packing and shipping all morning. My poor mailman is going to freak out when she sees what’s waiting for her! Ten, Tori, Emily, Nicki, Callie, Possy III and a Christmas gift I’ve finally gotten around to shipping (’cause she finally got around to moving to her new house!). I think I should go hide until the white truck is gone. heh!