Good morning everyone!

I was up late lastnight (make that early this morning) finishing up Timmy! **THIS IS THE FINAL SCAN of the painting! Much nicer than the digital, eh? Click on his image to view the auction! 🙂

Mark called a little while ago. He’s doing good! They have 2 man trailers over there that are a pretty decent size. No kitchen/bathroom or any of that fancy stuff, but they have power and blank wall space that needs fillin’ up. I think I can take care of that problem! Those calling card minutes are expensive! He ran out of minutes on the first call ’cause I didn’t have the right number from him to recharge it. So we got off the phone (after getting the right info) and he got back in line while I recharged. 😀 Caitlin got to talk to him when he called back. whooohoo! Now I have some shopping to do, he needs powdered gatorade, they don’t have it over there. He also wants me to go “pick up” a wireless laptop. I have no idea how I’m going to do that, do you think computer sales people take good looks and short skirts into consideration when bartering? hehe!

Weight loss progress: Same as yesterday, only add a day! (Friday night. Had to eat out. daggone it!)

HAPPY SATURDAY!!! I’ll stop back later and update if anything exciting happens. For now I think I’d just like to hang out with the girls a bit and find a new fuzzy animal that inspires me.

Have a great one!
xoxoxoxo

You have GOT to see Alex and his detail shots. Click here to see him on auction!

Here’s a little bitty image, but clicky on the link above to go see the good stuff. I am SO pleased with this piece!!

Mackie is finished! Here she is!

Here’s the Monochromatic Blue Egret piece, I’ve signed it, it’s done, but I won’t list it on ebay until tomorrow when it dries. (and I will be listing with my new fancy schmancy site-matching template, too!) I hope it feels as peaceful to you as it does to me. I really enjoyed working this. Here was my palette: Cerulean Blue, Cobalt, French Ultramarine (oo-lala, Lolo), White, Dioxazine Violet (just a smidge to deepen the French Ultramarine) and Alizarin Crimson to deepen even further on the beak and foot reflection (and my sig).

Here are a few photos I had developed this morning from our trip.

::sniffles::

A street sign on Ft. Polk in my maiden name (misspelled)
A nice pic of Mark in uniform. What a man.
A huggy emotional pic of the two of us. (Puffy from bawling the night before & that morning)
Our tattoos together
A nice profile pic of Mark, tattoo freshly finished
Outline work in progress pic of my tat
A closeup of my tat work in progress (filling in the heart)

Ok those are all I have to share at the moment, I just wanted to get a few of those scanned in right away.

I’m back. Mark departed early AM for Kuwait, with stops along the way. He already called from the first stop.

The trip was wonderful, I arrived to find him waiting at the airport – we went to find our hotel and WEE that was fun! Have you ever driven a “roundabout”? Crazy I tell ya. Can’t you just make a left? No, you have to go down 2 miles and then follow this big circle and come back. LOL Once we figured out how a roundabout worked, we were good. 😉 Got checked in, and went to dinner at a Cajun restaurant next to the hotel. I tried so many new things, I’m proud of myself! That evening we started with stuffed mushrooms (yum) which were stuffed with a chopped crawfish breading. I had Stuffed Snapper (also stuffed with crawfish and topped with a creamy seafood sauce). Mark had Blackened snapper, and we both had seafood etoufee. (and wine, and beer!)

He wanted to get his fill of fast food before we left as well. So there was Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Applebee’s on that last evening for steaks, Long Island Iced Tea and Raspberry Kiwi Margaritas. 😉

Things are closed on Monday’s down there, so we didn’t get to go to the art museums in Alexandria as we’d hoped. I did get some neat pics that I’ll scan later on. We ended up spending Monday driving to Marksville and stopping at the Paragon Casino & Hotel Resort. BOOOOO we didn’t win anything! We lost. 🙁 It was fun though, we paired up side by side on some nickel video poker machines and lasted a good hour before we depleted the rest of our casino fun money. When we got back we had enough time (I think it was Monday?!) to hop over to the local zoo, where I got some more very cool reference pics to paint from.

Tuesday we did it! We got our TATTOOS! That’s just the pic of mine. Mark’s is on his left shoulder, and I did get more pics on my regular camera that I have to have developed. I took progress pics of JD doing mine, I hope they turn out well! Our Tattoo artist was amazing, and funny that we ended up selecting him, because he’s originally from Iowa.

I had picked up the book “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Tracy Chevalier and read it on the way down. Well the natives were restless, so I also did this in gel pens in my little notebook I brought along. I’ve been wanting to paint that piece for a lonnng time, and now that I’ve worked that little sketch I think I’m feeling brave enough!

On the way back, I had stowed some of my zoo pics in my purse to work from, and we had also stopped at Hobby Lobby and I picked up a smaller purse sized sketchpad and more india ink brush pens. On the flight from Alexandria to Memphis, I doodled this macaw and then from Memphis to Minneapolis I doodled this squirrel. I met a really nice man in the seat across the aisle who watched as I doodled and it was neat to see his interest in art!

Ok I’m done for now, more later!!

Missed you all!
xoxoxxoo