Hi everybody!

It’s Monday! AAK! 😉

So far so good today. I prepared several prints for shipping this morning and got those out, walked over 2.5 miles on the treadmill (by the way I’m down 29 lbs. now and have ONE to go to meet my goal for this month!), did the banking, put paperwork together for re-mortgaging (how fun?!), and I am getting ready to paint! YES! Paint!

I will be working on a small 6×6 Orange Poppy today in india ink. I need to clean off my easel/table and set up my supplies, and with inks drying so fast, I may be able to finish it yet tonight and list it on eBay. I realize that I have been working in oils so much, and those are so much more time consuming and costly for my buyers, I am depriving some of my most wonderful clients of great original art for their homes! I’m going to be working on a very cool Horse portrait too some time this week. 🙂

My yard is covered in creeping charlie, ug! My father-in-law gave me a great recipe to get rid of it before my grass is completely choked out. Mix 10-1/2 oz. of Borax with 2 gallons of warm water, and lightly saturate the area with a watering can. So that’s on my schedule for today too! I keep putting it off though, since our backyard is so big I will probably need to refill in the house about 40 times to cover it all. Over 90% of our yard is creeping charlie now. (Maybe the girls will be nagging ME for coming in and out and in and out and in and out of the house! LOL)

All is well, a lovely start to a week that looks like it might warm up pretty nicely!

Have a great one!
xoxo
me & charlie

Erikie, I hope you had a wonderful birthday yesterday!

The new printer arrived yesterday and I spent a good chunk of time setting it up and preparing a few prints to ship out on Monday. My Print Auctions end tomorrow so I am waiting for those to finish to get everything printed. Now the folks who purchase these prints will be getting not just a print, but Giclee’s since the new printer has pigment based archival and waterproof inks, so this is the last time my prints will be offered at this price. I have to go up a smidge in price to not only cover the cost of the inks, but also because they are the best quality available and will last forever! 🙂

I did get to speak to Mark this morning for a little bit. Things are much more calm there now, which is great news. Hopefully I will be able to talk to him more regularly soon, there were apparently some problems with his connection which bummed me out all week since I have some very cool photos to share with him. And now I wait. sigh.

I walked over 3 miles today!! This week has been phenomenal as far as exercise goes. I’ve walked over 2 miles every day, most days 2.5 or more, and today I really pushed it increasing speed and time. So the drop for the week has been 5 pounds, and I’m now only 2 lbs. away from my goal for the month of April. 😀

The other cool news is that Erica Richards and I will be collaborating on a custom pet portrait contest/giveaway for the month of May. I will host the contest here, each of us will be GIVING AWAY a custom pet portrait (we’re still figuring out what size), hers will be an acrylic painting, mine in oils, both on chunky gallery wrap canvas. I will start preparing the contest entry pages, etc. this week and we’ll kick it off on May 1, it’ll run through May 31. Her work is fabulous, you can click the leopard to visit her website. She’s only got a couple of things available on eBay now, and she’ll set up an exclusive animal gallery for the entrants to see samples of her work. But here’s a sample of her wildlife artwork anyhoo! GREAT STUFF!

Leopard (by Erica Richards)
Click the Leopard to visit Erica’s Website!

I have to add one more thing. This is amazing, if you have a few minutes to view it please do, and you may want to have a kleenex handy. WeSupportU

That’s all the news I have at the moment. Have a great evening!
xoxo

Hey there! I painted yesterday, layer upon layer on this daisy to make it FUSCHIA. I love fuschia. It’s my all time favorite color; my senior prom dress was even solid fuschia. 🙂

So it’s turning out pretty cool I think, I love the stem, I painted the sides lastnight and just continued that dark midnight-cobalty blue around to the sides of it (it’s a 12×12 – 1 1/2″ thick gallery wrap). The only thing left to do is add the pollen! And of course that involves waiting for the layers to dry in the center so the pollen pops when I add it. I’m going to start this one on auction for a BUCK. Yep a dollar. It’s spring, and I have mucho faith in my fellow fuschia and flower lovers. It’ll probably be finished up later today and I may be able to get it listed tonight. How bout that!

I took these fab pics the other day for Mark, and he hasn’t even been able to get online. Fooey. I changed my AOL IM so that when folks log on my puter says “Cock-a-doodle-doo!”, and I cranked up the volume lastnight and slept on the couch hoping to sleep light, which I did. (So yea Erikie, I heard ya! Stumbling back here all sleepy eyed and stuff..LOL) I am so anxious to talk to him now, ‘specially since I have stuff to show him! C’monnnnnnnn honey, log on! (you know, like rolling dice…hm, what can I roll….)

I also re-invested my earnings lastnight on that cool new printer I mentioned, it’s an Epson Stylus CX5400 and sports a scanner, copier, AND waterproof and 70-year archival inkage! Woowee! That will arrive tomorrow and I will be hooked up to generate some wickedly cool and valuable prints like the Lolo and Care have going on. 🙂

Walked 2.1 miles total yesterday (down .4 from Monday & Tuesday), but the coolest thing is that I got to walk with TWO of my buddies long distance! We coordinated Mountain Time with Central and Eastern and did a three-way-call-walk-a-mile-and-a-quarter! (only one of us is speedy gonzales and walked 2 miles. lol) So very cool to walk with friends. The weight is still melting away too, but I’m not gonna say my progress just yet! Thanks girls!!

Time for me to scoot, I hope you guys have a fabulously fuschia daisy day!
xoxo

It’s Caitlin’s turn to say good morning! This cute little short outfit brought to you by none other than the Easter bunny.

I had mentioned starting work on Mark’s second portrait. Well here are a couple of shots of what’s going on with it. First, we have the full painting, which is an accurate color representation, even tho you can’t see him. The piece is 24×36 on 1-1/2″ deep gallery wrapped canvas, and the sides are gradated to match. Then there’s the close up of his face where you can see his profile outlined. And this is the photo I’m working from here. You like? He’s a handsome fella. I will work on this one soon. Gotta finish up that Daisy, which I plan on working on today. 🙂

Back later with more! Have a great day!

xoxo
-me!

Hey! It’s a mini-me! Just wanted to say good morning, will update more later today! 😀

I’m back! Today was productive. YAY! I’m back on the treadmill, walked 1.5 mi. so far today, and I’ll get back on in a little while.

Did some grocery shopping and stopped to pick up dinner for the kidlets, now we’re home and I’m just going to hang out for a bit and wonder what on earth I’m going to do with our finances for the next couple of weeks while I wait for the mortgage company to do their thing, and then I’ve got to shop for a new car too so we can have something more reliable to tool around in this summer.

The coolest part of course is that I got to chat with Mark again this morning for a bit, it is so nice to “see” him online! I think this is really going to help make the time pass in a much more positive way. Since he is so motivating for me, I’ll be making sure I keep my blog updated every day and “stuff” (more art!) so when he stops by (hi honey!) he can see I’m not sitting around moping like I’m known to do when he’s not around. 😉

I downloaded the COOLEST CD from Walmart.com this morning! The group is Maroon 5. If you like upbeat tunes, you have got to check out their music. Jay and I bopped around the house for a while today listening to it. I usually hear just one song (that’s the one that’s got us boppin’) and go looking for the CD to see if I like anything else they’ve got – and by george the whole CD is awesome! It’s great music for summer drives with the windows down, walking, whatever. GREAT great great stuff!!

I also got a call from Aunt T. lastnight, she browsed the site for a while with my cousin and saw all of my new stuff. I love hearing from people who browse through everything! She reminded me that I’m not done with my own site yet, my figurative/portrait gallery still doesn’t have the enlargement windows. I gotta get that done!

Yay! Mark’s new laptop arrived safely along with a couple of other boxes of goodies. I had been waiting to hear from him on the phone, but when I jumped on the computer this morning there he was!

YAHOO! We chatted for over an hour. He’s got the great patriotic nude from Erika hanging up in his trailer now along with some prints that Trev sent along with Mark’s belated Christmas present. A nice, colorful and artful place to call “home” for the next year! The cool CD’s arrived, he’s experiencing some technical difficulties with them but hopefully it’s just a little too much sand in his CD player. One of the guys wants me to make up a few more CD labels with Alex on it. Such a pretty birdie!

In other news, I had to go to the doc Friday. Just when I thought I was getting better, I wasn’t. So now I *think* I really am. LOL We shall see! We did spend the day outdoors yesterday, Mark’s dad came over and took care of the lawn God bless him. They helped me burn down the leaves in our burn pile too – which was huuuuge! So now the yard is purdyful.

Thankfully I’m feeling more motivated now that the line of communication with my hubby is much more open than it was. What a relief!!!

He will be stopping by so if you want to say anything to or for him, he will be reading & replying to you some time tomorrow!

Love you!!
xoxo

Hey Lolo, when you read this can you confirm this is a Gerber? I’m pretty sure it is, but of course I’m more knowledgeable about animals than flowers.

Well, it’s not quite fuschia yet, but it will be. I spent a couple hours yesterday trying to mix it from primaries and got close, but frustrated. So now by george I think I’ve got it! This is a reeeeealy deep pink right now, not as red as it may look to you, and my next stages will be lightening it up and adding the details. The background color is very cool, it’s not black, it’s like a midnight cobalt blue. I’m thinking about painting the sides of the canvas another color, maybe green? Pale pink? Not sure yet. We shall see.

So there! I’ve been painting! Happy Happy!

Oh yes, ok, I can do a weight loss progress update too, since I’ve been sick and it’s assisted my goals for the month. (iew! but ok.) Ok just counted on the calendar (man I’m behind!)

75 days, down 25.5 lbs., 4.5 lbs to go for goal for the month of April!>Mark called Tuesday night. Once again, thank you guys for keeping him and the guys in your thoughts and prayers. They’ve successfully made their way through some of the tougher times to be had over there. He’s anxious to get the care packages that are on their way, there are a few coming to him from different directions – thank you guys for that, too! You’re the best!

The weather here has been beautiful, my stomach flu is about gone (I couldn’t take it anymore after lastnight and got some quick-stop medicine in my system finally), Lolo thanks for the bag! 😉

So there you have it, on the upswing once again, the pits are the pits are they not? I can do without them!! I hope you are all staying virus and bug-free so far this spring.

Ooh yes I will post a WIP of Mark’s second portrait that I started soon too. Now that the daisy is drying for the day/afternoon I may start working on filling him in and might have something identifiable to show you. My in-laws LOVE it so far… but I think they’re biased, you know? Maybe? A little? Eh that’s ok, doesn’t make ’em wrong, hehe! ::wink-wink::

Feels good to be sorta almost normal. Phew. Have a wonderful and beautiful day! I’ll be back!
xoxoxo

I’ve been sick. 🙁 Spent most of the last two days curled up in a ball on the couch, Cait took care of me and Jay yesterday the little sweetie. She was back to school today though, nice spring break, taking care of sick mom.

Haven’t heard from Mark on the phone, but we have gotten a couple of letters from him dated the end of March. He said he’s going to send a camel home for Caitlin. eek!

I got two pieces sketched on Sunday before I went out of commission, hopefully I’ll be feeling “normal” tomorrow and can get back to the easel. I don’t get sick like this often, I think it’s been a few years actually. Anyone else get this yuky stomach flu?! It’s MEAN!

I hope you’re all doing well and had a nice easter. I’m headed back to the couch and Mark’s blankie.

xoxoxo

Good evening everyone. 🙂

Believe it or not, this is a purple tulip growing in MY front yard! I did a little magic in PSP with it and thought it turned out very easter-y so here you go. A purple tulip to wish you all a blessed Easter with your families and loved ones. Did you know purple is my favorite color? And tulips are my favorite flower.

My husband sent me over 50 tulips for my birthday last year. They were fresh cut, and I had to split them into 5 different vases and had them all over the house. What a man.

Tomorrow we will celebrate with the standard morning egg hunt, the girls will follow purple bunny prints around the house to their baskets and treats. I tried to incorporate as much of Mark as I could. We will have dinner with his family Sunday night at Mark’s favorite restaurant.

I am working on three paintings this week. First, another portrait of my hubby in oils. Second, a very bold and beautiful fuschia gerber daisy. Third, I believe I will paint this lovely purple tulip, maybe take another close-up shot of my beautiful tulips in the front yard while they’re open.

I am also very excited to announce that my peonies are growing! I have been trying to grow them for years. FINALLY. ::taking a bow:: I look forward to dark pink, white and light pink peonies covered in ants and smelling up my yard in the most beautiful bumble-bee kind of way. 🙂

Have a wonderful, wonderful Easter everyone.

xoxoxo