I know you guys have been waiting for these! “J”, if you want the big versions just let me know, and I will drop them in e-mail to you!

I have been BUSY this morning! Got up (earrrrly), treadmilled, varnished WB&F, did dishes & cleaned the kitchen, did laundry, started uncluttering the house, paid bills, painted the background on Bailey (which I will post in a little while), scanned WB&F, pieced the scans together and now here I am!!! I still have more to do!! I’ll be back in a bit. Enjoy!

Click the thumbs for a larger view. 😀

Good morning!

It’s just past 8am, the webcam is on and I will be painting shortly!

I had a couple of other things I keep forgetting to tell you about, too.

First, I uploaded a new page to my website, 2004 : At a glance

The fall months make it increasingly difficult to keep things updated in my galleries. I thought having that whole grouping of paintings all in one place would show browsers all of my paintings just from this year, especially since some of them aren’t even in their appropriate spots yet! After the holidays I will go through and revamp some of my galleries so they make even more sense. 🙂

The other thing, remember Monday (I think?) when I said I was starting my program again? Well ta-da! I’ve been treadmilling and drinking 64 oz. of water a day, and I’m already down 5.5 lbs. See how cool that works? It won’t be long before I’m at my final goal.

Ooh yea, my holiday commission schedule is fully booked now, so if you’re wanting a custom pet portrait as a gift I will still honor my sale price until the 15th but replace the actual painting with a Gift Certificate instead. Sound ok to you?

Painting early today, I’m going to try to finish up these kitties today before my afternoon appointment. Have a great day!!

Homecoming is the final title for this painting. The scan is phenominal, and I’ll throw a couple of closeups in here too, the dog tags as well as my sig. Beautiful piece, I’m a proud mama.

I’ll start working on a sweetie of a Calico all curled up. I’ll get her sketched out this afternoon and you can have a look at her tonight before I start painting tomorrow.

All in all, I really enjoyed the positive response from Mark’s Portrait listing. I still can’t help but sit here and literally shake my head at the thickness of the people who took the time to write negative comments though! Even after adding big bold text at the very top of my auction to clarify the purpose of the listing for those who did not “get it”, they still don’t “get it”!

The funniest one, someone wrote to ANOTHER artist to tell her that she must have been experiencing double-vision when she listed my auction. ROFL – This, from someone so many clicks away from where he started I have to wonder if he even found his way back. :O

Some folks are really, really strange. What a wild way to find that out! LOL

For Mark: Sorry honey, you know I love you with every ounce of my being; I am SO ready for this listing to end, let those negative folks find something else to hate for a while! ;P~

Mark’s portrait is finished and listed.

You can see his eBay listing here: Mark’s Portrait Auction

I’ve also listed Girl With A Pearl Earring, you can see her eBay listing here:
Pearl’s Auction

I spent a lot of time writing their details, and preparing their auction images, so I hope you enjoy them both!

Loves & Hugs!
xoxoxox

I painted for a while today, he’s getting there!

Hehe! I am not going to finish painting him before he gets here, he’ll be arriving in just a few hours!!! YAHOO!!!! So here he is, and here I go! I will check in as soon as I can and maybe even have some pics of us TOGETHER! 😀

Oooo the hotel we’re staying at tonight – I called them to arrange some special little things and guess what?! They’re COMPING everything!!!! Free chocolate covered strawberries, free white zin, free room service…. oh my! This is going to be a fun evening!!

Ok I better go get ready! Love you guys!!!

On my tombstone: “Spent time wisely” (I hope!)

I don’t know if you remember this one, I began an oil portrait of Mark back in March. I was still so new to oils, just your standard over-achiever, and decided I wasn’t comfortable enough with flesh tones to even start anything more than the background.

Today was the day! Hey, when you can’t sit still, pace in front of your easel! He’s huge, Care can vouch for me, 2 feet wide by 4 feet tall. In other words, life sized, and possibly a smidge larger. Nice unveiling for his homecoming, eh? 😉

Good morning!

I woke this morning before 6am. I could not fall back asleep, I think the excitement is really kicking in! I’ve cleaned the house top to bottom, including the studio. I even went so far as to pick up some trays that work nicely on my drafting table, and arranged all of my oils by hue. Nervous energy perhaps? LOL

I met my goal for Mark’s arrival, lost another 1.5 lbs. which brings my total loss up to 51.5 lbs. 😀 I imagine with all the energy I have right now I will lose another pound or two before he arrives!

He’s scheduled to arrive on Thursday evening now. His current itinerary (as of yesterday afternoon) has him scheduled to depart Oct. 9, which gives us 16 days! YAHOO! And the bad part of it, he is very adversely affected by anything happening to his team while he is not out there with them, and yesterday it sounds like a couple of the guys in his unit were injured. 🙁 I hope they’re ok, it has been pretty rough over there lately and I just wish I were in charge, you know? I’m sure a lot of you feel that way, seems like we all would have a better plan to fix things there and prevent what’s going on than what is currently being done. Yea, I say put a woman with PMS in charge. We’ll take care of stuff pretty darn fast!! 😉

My version of “Girl with a Pearl Earring” is dry, and I scanned it this morning. I have a couple more images (linked) that you can look at, the first one is the work in progress collage from start to finish, I think 12 shots? It looks so wierd, different lighting makes every revision look like I did a major overhaul, so just consider the features and not the colors. LOL

Then the last one, I promise, hehe! A full scan of my painting (larger view) beside Vermeer’s.

And that concludes my 3-week long tribute to the Master!

I will finally get caught up on my e-mail now, and I would like to make a couple of revisions to my site, specifically the ordering information page. It is waaay too wordy! I will probably be removing a few things, rewording, and stop offering other medium for a while to work only in oils.

Okie dokie then! I’ve got nervous energy to spend, so I’ll catch ya later! 😉

xoxoxoxxo