Happy Easter!

I hope everyone is having a joyful Easter Sunday!  I've finished my lesson plans.  It was so nice having a break, but now I'm ready to go back to school.  One thing I really enjoyed about being on vacation is that there was no rushing around.  We still got up early (4:20 a.m.), but we did everything at a leisurely pace.  I didn't get everything that I had planned done.  (The dogs didn't get baths.  Rosie said to Briscoe, "Phew, we escaped the bathtub.  Hooray for us!")  Little does she know that I'm getting fired up for next weekend:)

I had fun reading a lot of blogs and looking at fabulous art.  You are amazing!  I had fun doing exercises from my Birgit O'Connor book.  I've got my paper on my board for a new painting from a photo that Jim took.  The weather is perfect.  Life is very, very good.

What Is It They Say About Vanity?

Oh, my!  Today I bought 3 bags of cat litter at Petsmart.  After I checked out, the cashier (who is a very nice lady) asked me if I needed help out to my car.  Yikes!  The bags were only 20 pounds each!  Obviously, I need to pump iron.  Then I stopped at the beauty supply store.  The girl at the cash register asked me if I had a discount card.  I said no and asked what I had to do to get one.  "It will cost you money at first, but you'll save money.  They cost $5.00 and they're $2.50 if you're over 55."  Aaaaaaaah!  I thought I looked 5 years younger than my age.  Now I find that look my age and maybe even older!!!!   Waaaaaah!   Waaaaah!

Maybe it's only temporary.  Maybe I look older because Jim and I have been painting at Mom's this week and I'm tired:)  Waaaaah!  Maybe I'm a big old baby.

Here's the finished playhouse and part of the fence.  We painted them light gray and used charcoal gray on the trim.

Here is my WIP.  I'm going to set it aside and work on the desert scene for awhile, but I wanted to show you where I am now.

Happy Easter!  I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

My Big Spring Break Project

Here is the other painting I'm working on.  Actually, Jim and I are working on this one together.  It's my mom's backyard fence, playhouse and the back of her house.  Pretty big canvas, isn't it?  We think we'll finish tomorrow, so I'll post the final outcome then.


 

Playhouse and Fence Before

Playhouse and Fence with Primer



 

A Little More Progress

I am the queen of scrubbing out watercolor mistakes.  I had to scrub out part of this and then added a little more.  Because this seemed complex to me, I thought I would try painting it in sections, but now I don't think that was a very good idea.  It's hard to tie it all together.  I'm going to finish this floral because I'm learning.  I'm posting what I've done so far.  I've got another painting on deck - a desert mountain scene.

 

WIP

This is going very slooooooooowly.  This is the bottom 1/4 of the painting.  I started it last weekend.

 

WIP - Not Yet Identifiable

I'm doing another lesson from the Birgit O'Connor book.  This one is 22"x20".  I was just going to take a photo for you, but Jim's camera didn't turn on when I opened it and I don't know anything about it, so I have to wait.  I was so proud of myself last weekend because I finally mastered getting the photos off the camera and onto the computer.  Jim used to do that for me, but I finally felt guilty enough to ask him to teach me how to do it myself.  I am a scanning queen, but  the painting is too big to scan.  I just wanted to let you know that I'm sticking with my lessons even if I don't have photographic proof.  At this point, you can't really tell what it is anyway:) 

I hope you had a fabulous weekend.  The weather here is perfect today.  The mockingbirds were singing all day.  The trees are budding, flowers are blooming and my mom brought over a freshly baked loaf of banana nut bread.  Does it get any better than that?

A Pansy!

I just completed my second painting with an imaginary Birgit O'Connor.  This is on 1/4 sheet 140 lb. Arches cold pressed paper.  It was a lot of fun.  I'm going to look through some of my books to see what lesson to do next weekend.