Girl in a Red Swimsuit - Completed

I decided against darkening her skin. The colors are darker when you see the actual painting than they are in the photos. So, this is it. I painted the things that attach the oars to the boat (I don't know what they're called), added a little more yellow to the inside of the boat and put a little more shadow around the perimeter of the boat.

Girl in a Red Swimsuit

This is almost done. It's a
10-1/2"x7" watercolor that I'm painting for Karin Jurick's Different Strokes From Different Folks challenge. I'm going to play with it a little more. I may darken her skin a little to make her stand out more. I thought about darkening the water around her, but I like the water the way it is. Decisions, decisions.
It's only a piece of paper. It's only a piece of paper...

Playing with the Camera

I'm having so much fun blogging. I love dropping by people's blogs, finding out about their lives and getting a chance to see such beautiful art. I also love the challenges (like DSFDF). This all started a couple of months ago for me. I was looking for some information on the Internet on Cheng-Khee Chee and I came across Rhonda Carpenter's blog. I was hooked. In a matter of seconds, I can look at what artists all over the world are doing. Amazing. An added benefit is that people are so nice!

Today I went out to trim the bloomed out roses. (Some critters are eating them. I'll have to investigate further.) The roses are pretty much done for the season. I decided to play with the camera a little. I took some photos of a couple of oil paintings that I did that Jim hung in his "shed gallery". He hung them inside the shed door. When he works in the yard,
he likes to leave the shed open so he can see the paintings. (What a good husband! He likes my paintings!) Here's a still life. Watercolor is my favorite, but it was fun to play with oil. The cool thing about it is that you can paint over anything you don't like.:) This is probably old hat you, but I built my own canvas. This painting is 24"x32".

The dogs were helping me in the yard. Here are a couple of pictures of Rosie and Briscoe. Rosie is the Lab and Briscoe is the terrier.

Tucson

Our trip to Tucson turned out a little different from what we had planned. Jim's dad went into the hospital on Wednesday, but we didn't find out until Friday afternoon. (I think he was trying to keep from telling us in hopes that he'd be out before we got there.) He was having irregular heartbeats. We spent the day with him in the hospital. He kept apologizing to us for that. We told him it was great to visit with him no matter where we were. Everything seems ok now. He looks and sounds great. He's moving around pretty quickly, too. I predict that we'll go on one of his famous 4 mile hikes on our next trip to Tucson.

We rented a cute little red convertible in Tucson. Jim's dad got to ride home from the hospital in style - with the top down and the wind blowing through his hair!

Is this Las Vegas or San Diego?

We have had the most fabulous weather for the last three weeks. The nights have been cool (in the sixties) and the days have been perfect (seventies and eighties). The reason I'm commenting on this is that it's usually in the nineties and even a hundred by now. It's been so nice in the mornings when we walk Briscoe and Rosie. I feel like I could walk forever.

We're going to Tucson this weekend. I'll be taking some pictures. I love the desert around Tucson. I love it here, too, but the vegetation in Tucson is different. It'll be fun to get some photos of the cacti there.

Sunday

In spite of my good intentions of preparing early, I found myself doing lesson plans this afternoon. We're doing two sessions of summer school. My plan was to do lesson plans on Friday afternoons so I'd have the weekend free. So much for that.:)

I've painted on and off for a long time. It seems like I reach a certain level and stop for awhile. When I start again, it's like starting right at the beginning. I paint for awhile and then I don't get beyond that plateau. Reading artists' blogs is helping me figure things out. Artists work on their art between loads of laundry, after their full-time jobs and after the kids go to bed. Some are fortunate enough to have art as a career, but it's not easy for them either. For better or worse, I'm going to paint, paint, paint and blow past that plateau.

I will post most of my paintings (except for the really, really bad ones:)). Thank you for visiting my blog. Please comment anytime!

One More Thing About Sam Butera

I thought it was nice that they ended Sam Butera's obituary by quoting the words he used to end his shows, "It's nice to be important, but it's important to be nice...stay well."

You say tomato...

I did the latest Karin Jurick/DSFDF challenge. I'm not going to submit it. I will post a photo here, though. The background is actually white, but in the photo, it has a blue tint. I'll have to play with the camera until I can get it right. This challenge is a great idea. It's fun to see what all the artists do with Karin's photos.

Late last night I heard the screen door slam...

Here is my first attempt at a DSFDF challenge. I spent some time thinking about painting it and by the time I decided to try it, the challenge was over. I'd never painted cars before. Trying something new makes me nervous, but I did it. I can see some things that I should have done differently, but I actually like one of the taxis and I used some of my favorite colors, so it's not all bad!

My Discovery of Dermott

I have just discovered Dermott, an Old English Sheepdog from Australia, who now lives in Italy. He is incredibly handsome. I find him absolutely hilarious, even though I don't understand half of what he says with the "Australian/American communication gap". Our Labrador Rosie has fallen in love with him, too. Our terrier Briscoe says that if Dermott ever comes to Las Vegas on holiday, they can get together for a game of tiggy-touchwood. (Briscoe is picking up on Australian English very quickly. I have to have him translate for me.)

Sam Butera

I was very sorry to hear of the death of Sam Butera. He died yesterday at a hospital here in Las Vegas. I never got to see him perform with Louis Prima, but my mom and her friends caught the lounge act Louis and Sam did with Keely Smith and they loved them. Years later (after Louis Prima had passed away), I got to see Sam Butera and Keely Smith perform. They were wonderful - swinging music and lots of laughs. In case you aren't familiar with their music, it's a New Orleans jazz sound. Do you remember the David Lee Roth version of "Just a Gigolo/I Ain't Got Nobody"? That was done earlier by Prima and Butera. In fact, Sam Butera wrote that arrangement. He performed all over the world and was very popular in Europe. We're going to miss him terribly.