Together - Part 4

I'm celebrating a first today. At least a first as far as my life recollection goes. Today I bought myself my first ever galoshes! And I'm way more excited than the event warrants, but deep down I've always, always wanted some. And even better, there's a chance of rain on Monday! So...goodbye soggy socks and shoes, hello fabulous black and white awesomely printed galoshes!!!

I just know you share my excitement.


And I finished these two commissioned pieces. I absolutely love that I reworked almost every single element of these paintings...some parts several times. That is so much fun for me! Here are the two originals and below are a few of the last stages. I also think I like the title "Together" so I'm sticking with it.

"Together 1"

"Together 2"

I sketched the boy.

I began filling in the details on the boy.
I also totally redid the background.
Did ya notice? :-)

I began adding details to their outfits.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Together (working title) - Part 3

My big guy stopped by today after work.


Big guy: "Can I have a bandaid?"

Me: "Sure, where do you need it?"


He held out his hand, palm up, and showed me a big blister.


Me: "You've been doing the monkey bars! I haven't seen a monkey bar blister on you since elementary school!"


He smiled.



I love that! My twenty year old kid has a monkey bar blister. What fun!



And I continued working on these paintings. Working, struggling, and taking care of business. I so love this process!!! Tomorrow will be finishing day, I'm positive.

I added shadows and darkened some areas in the water
and on the sand.

I added clouds and waves.

I sketched out more definition on the kiddos.

I changed the little girl to be looking more toward the
water as her brother is. I also filled in the parts I'd sketched.
I wasn't happy with the boy's left arm so I painted over it.

And...oh, yes, I did...I got rid of the boy altogether.
I just couldn't make him work and decided I needed
a do-over. I cannot tell you how good it feels
to just "get rid" of something that's not working.
But don't worry, he'll be back. :-) And
he'll be even closer to his sister. They are "together" after all.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Together (working title) - Part 2

This is homecoming week for my little guy's high school. While I avoided all school sports themed things when I was in high school, my kid fully embraces them. Course he is a football player. So far this week there's been a mad rush to the thrift store to get tropical clothing and professional soccer player duds (that's what he's got on today), but for yesterday's outfit he was able to raid my clothes. Yes, it was animal print day and my guy wore my leopard print leggings to school. I thought surely he'd wear shorts over them to minimize the feline look, but, no, he wore my leggings, a t-shirt, and sneakers.

And he looked great!

Two hours after he'd gotten home (after a call begging us to pick him up so he didn't have to ride his bike home in public wearing said leggings...we said, "no") he was still wearing them.


Me: "They're comfortable, aren't they."

Little guy: "They are!"


While I seriously doubt he'll be a leggings convert and start sporting them on a regular basis, I'm quite sure it will never occur to him to give me any flack for the high percentage of the time I wear leggings myself. He'll totally get it.


I continued working on this painting. The more I paint the more fearless I've become when it comes to feeling fine about painting over something I've taken the time to work on. It's a blissful kind of freedom!

I painted over the watered down black with a thin layer of white.
My little guy and I loved this stage. We thought it looked like
ghosts on the beach or people that were made of water.
I was almost sad to paint over them...almost.

I roughed in the basic colors of the children.

I painted over the background. I pretty much knew from
the start that I'd do this at one point. For some reason
it was important to me to do a very light and detailed
background at the start. I like listening to what my
paintings want me to do. They're always right.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!

Together (working title) - Part 1

We held an election in our house last night. You see, ever since my big guy moved out, I've been making him and his girlfriend a casserole or some such thing pretty much every week. Last night I was trying to decide what to make. So...we held the great enchilada vote of 2015.


Me: "I have enough cheese to make only one kind of enchiladas for you guys. Do you want chicken enchiladas with green sauce or beef enchiladas with red sauce?"

Dave: "Make both."

Me: "Seriously, we have a cheese shortage issue."

Dave: "Beef!"

Little guy: "Chicken!"


So I texted my big guy and his girlfriend.


Big guy: "Chicken!"

Big guy's girlfriend: "Chicken!"

Dave: "My vote counts more than theirs!"


And so this morning I made two batches of chicken enchiladas with green sauce. I also made a couple of cheese enchiladas just for me...because yum!



I started working on a couple of commissioned pieces today. I'm actually creating two of the same image. I've done this a couple of times before and it's really fun. I don't get all wrapped up in having them exactly the same. I figure they're more like if you were to have taken a couple of photos of something happening...while the photos would contain all of the same elements, they'd definitely be different. As there are two it does take me almost twice as long, so this post will definitely span more than three or four days.

I lay down the basic beach/ocean.

I added waves and some clouds.

I added a darker part of the beach
and sketched the kiddos.

I taped the paper on a big piece of cardboard so I could
work using my easel.

I used watered down black to fill in the kiddos.

Click here to view my gallery.  Most of my paintings are for sale and I welcome commissions.

I'd love for you to share my art and blog with the links below.  Thanks!