Re-touching the tree and madonna

I was tweaking the painting with the colored pencils, and was able to save the baby a bit. I think I will hit it again with the acrylics and see if I can fix it.































These came in backwards, somehow. The tree on the right is with acrylics only before I tried mixing in the colored pencils. I have been looking at the oil pastel pencils, but havent made the $$plunge yet. But it did help wake up and give more definition and shading to the bark and the grass and the leaf masses too. I think it was an improvement.

Two "in progress"

I did get a chance to do some more painting in this heat. Not much else to do, (finished the books I had from the library already.)
I kind of like how the first, the Madonna is turning out, but the poor child is a Potato Head. I will look at this, and try to figure out what I can do to save him. The Madonna wasn't too bad though (as long as you dont look at her lobster hand....)

The tree looks much better in person; here is looks so blurry. I plan to try and put detail on with either colored pencils or paint pen. Will try pencils first to be a bit more subtle with it. If it is an improvement, I will post it again.

CART BEFORE THE HORSE GIVEAWAY!!!

I love the work of Jo and her charming husband!! they are celebrating their 200th posting, and are having a give away to celebrate. I so want to win this doll! So if you see this and enter the contest, you take the pattern, and I will take the doll with blue-gray eyes (my eye color---what a coincidence!
http://thecartbeforethehorse.blogspot.com

Iraqi Bundles of Love

I am participating in sending packages of fabric, trim, notions, yarn, etc off to Iraq. There is a son/husband of quilters serving there right now. He and the folks in his unit are gathering these Bundles to give to the Iraqi women who do not have a handy Walmart, Michael 's, Joann's, or whatever quilting store you patronize to go to when they have to get a crafter's fix. I have two boxes so far, and might end up with more. What a wonderful way to clean out your stash! It is a lot easier to give up your unused treasures when you know that it will be appreciated by somebody else. please look at his website, and consider cleaning out a couple of shelves and drawers to help somebody over there.
http://ibol.wordpress.com/about/
and
http://ibol.wordpress.com/what-to-send/

new ladies pt three

I am having all sorts of problems getting the photos without the glare today.
This is a painting of my niece, Rita, commemorating the tie-dying of her hair. (hard to paint tie-dyed hair!)It didn't last too long; her mother wisked her off to the hair salon to get it neutralized and recolored her natural blond. But she managed to take one really sexy photo of herself with the new do, and if her father ever sees it, he will never let her out of the house again.
Rita really liked this painting. Her eyes are that color blue, and almost that large....

new ladies pt two

I have to get the hang of this---I realize now all of these will be in reverse order and I didnt want to put all the ladies on one post because they tend to settle on one side like sand in a bucket.
This was taken from a very dramatic model photo in a Brides' Magazine. Good place to find fancy hair, makeup and lighting for painting.

Introducing some new lady friends......

We have been having all sorts of computer problems (viral downloads, etc) so I haven't been able to post my latest stuff. I really need to get past the first lesson in Jane's painting class, but it is so much fun to paint like this with the dark background. Good thing too, because I havent been able to download the other lessons yet with the wonky computer. Up above is a painting taken from an old photograph from the 1920's. My dad had bought the photo and gave it to me because he thought it looked a lot like me. I made the hair a bit more interesting than the flapper bobb, but she had on the popular white linen dress (just about like our 'little black dresses' nowadays.)

Summer Reading is Over!!!!!

It's all over but the stats now!!! We had over 800 (rough estimate) children sign up for summer reading at our library this summer! It was great, but very exhausting! I hope to get the chance to do more painting and to settle down and go through Jane's faces class a bit more carefully!
Last weekly program was today: kids talent show! This was the 5th year that we have done it, and it was amazing as usual. Such a range of talents! Highlights this year was a girl who played the nose flute, a balloon artist, saxaphone player, and a tap dancer doing her competition routine for us. We gave all the kids who attended and participated a free meal coupon for a local restaurant and all left happy.