Your award

Margaret presented me with this award and had some very nice things to say about me and my blog, I think everyone should go read them! In turn I am supposed to present this award to 5 people that inspire me and who's blogs I love to go and read so here goes.....

Marta- As most of you know, Marta and I are great friends and have lots of fun together. Although we live close we don't get to see each other too often since we are both pretty busy. I love to just jump over to her blog and check up on her and see what she is up too. You never know what you will find on her blog, pictures of a trip, sketches, recipes. Its a wonderful feast for the eyes and heart as she sometimes shares very touching insights she has from working with kids who have cancer.

Wendee- I have know Wendee for a few years now, we met on a sketchcrawl in LA. She is also a quilter and we have many things in common. I love her blog and her sense of humor. In her blog she often shares her witty sense of humor on just everyday life. You will often learn something about a new place to visit or she will inspire you to sketch. Her sketches are lovely as are her photos.

Andrea- I have just recently found Andrea's blog. I can just get lost in her drawings! The details are amazing and she can take a boring, everyday object that we see all the time and turn it into a piece of art! I love the way she stacks things and draws them. My eyes love to go over and over her drawings, the buttons, the tapes, the notes on a bulletin board. Just go and see if you can look at just one!

Ronell- Her blog is full of wonderful pieces of artwork and lots of food references. Living in france she has wonderful places to paint and eat, I would love to go and meet her! One of the things I love the most is her wonderful sense of humor and her inspirational stories. I can read, and read her blog and never get bored. Between the words and the paintings it is a full course meal!

Laura- full of beautiful artwork and always traveling. It is like taking a trip with her all the time. I love her work to the point of wanting to buy some of her sketches. I still love this dress she painted in a shop window! Its not often we remember art sketches in a blog from some time ago. Hers are very memorable, and her use of color just captures your interests and keeps you wanting to see more.

I have so many others that I love, I am sorry I can't mention them all, next time I will share more blogs I love.
I hope you all know how much I enjoy your blogs and the inspiration you give to me everytime I visit. Here's the award for you.

The participation rules are simple:
1. If you get tagged (and want to play along) write a post with links to blogs that you love, too.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme, created by Emilia.

Its been over a week!

I can't believe I haven't posted in over a week. So many things going on and I just didn't know what to post. I have gone to the Getty Villa and saw some incredible artwork, had an awesome Valentines Spa celebration with my handsome hubby, and I had a wonderful few days with my youngest grandson, Nathan.

At the Getty Villa they have on display wonderful antiquities, many of which are now caught up in a scandal of how they were acquired and if they will be returned. Some of which have already been returned. Its really quite the story of secret deals and acquisitions, kidnappings and infidelity. The Hollywood writers couldn't come up with a more elaborate story. On the three + hour drive home I looked up and read many articles about it to Randy and Jennifer from my wi-fi on my iphone! It is so cool. I took some awesome pictures and would love anyone who is interested in painting them to feel free and grab them. Just share your paintings with me, I would love to see.

Friday night Randy and I spent the night together at the spa. We had a wonderful couples massage and then went and had dinner in the courtyard of the Mission Inn restaurant, it was very romantic and we toasted many times! NO Pictures! LOL

My daughter needed to be with her husbands family for a family matter. They felt it was just too hard with Nathan, so I got the honor of watching him for two days. He is so cute and he is just loaded with personality. (I am his Nana!) At night he gave me lots of kisses and said Nana, I just want you to hold me! OHHHHH I am added a picture of him in our spa tub taking a huge bubblebath. We giggled through the whole bath.

Tonight Marta and I went to figure drawing at the museum, yes its that time again. That 3rd Thursday event. I wish they could get some new models, this guy we have done several times and he doesn't stand still, so the lighting along with the pose continues to change while you draw. It makes it even more challenging. We did have tortilla soup and chips with salsa and margaritas before making our way to he museum. The rain was just starting as we were leaving our night of drawing so the timing was perfect all day! I might post some of my sketches tomorrow, if I can find any I like well enough

Now you can concider yourself caught up on my week, what exciting things have been happening to everyone else this week??

OUCH!!! EDM #10

EDM draw your hand, well its my finger.

We worked outside all weekend, I love being out in the yard with Randy. We planted roses and cleaned up some of the neglected areas. We decided to call in the tile layers to finish our pool tile. We just can't seem to make time right now and I would love to use the pool this summer. The last thing Sunday we moved the tile to the pool area for the tile layers. One of the big boxes of tile crushed my finger against one of the stairs in the pool. OUCH!!! Oh my, that finger turned blue then purple within minutes. I thought the nail was going to shoot off right then. The throbbing didn't stop till the next day and now the nail just feel loose. Yuck, but I where it proudly, my first black finger nail, I sure held out, not many 50 year old women with those kinds of nails! My journal entry was a painting of the actual nail then a painting of how the nail actually feels. They say, oh suck it up its far from your heart. But I beg to differ, you see my heart has now moved into my little finger. My husband keeps apologizing since he thinks he did it when he pushed the tile towards me, I think I will get a good run with this one!

Easter cards

I am hosting an Easter card exchange on Wet Canvas and Watercolor Haven. I have set it up so we only have to send one card out, so it makes it doable. I needed a picture to post for the exchange and painted this easter scene. I coincidentally happened to pick up some plastic ducks for 84 cents a piece and the nursery a few weeks prior. I thought my grandson would love to float them in his bath or in the fountain for Easter. I picked up about 6 of them. They were perfect for my models for this painting, I don't think they look plastic!

Avocados 4 for $1

Another fruit in the series for a Wet Canvas exchange. I like the way these turned out, the colors, shadow just worked on this one. I love avocados, we had huge trees of them where I used to live, they produced lots of avocados each year. They all seemed to be ready to pick at the same time which was late Nov. to Dec. It was great extra money as people would stop and get 4 for a dollar. We often couldn't reach the ones at the top of the tree so when the wind blew it sounded like bombs hitting the house. They would hit the roof and then roll all the way down till, pluck, right onto the cement. The dogs looked at this event with much anticipation, since to them it was manna from the Gods!

EDM #1 My shoe

I have this pair of tennis shoes that have never really played tennis, so does that disqualify them? My kids ordered them through Nike.com. You can pick the style, the color, size, then they will add your name and custom make them. From the minute I first put them on they fit perfectly. I have worn them to death and this last year from my birthday my kids ordered me a new pair. They no longer made the ones I had so they ordered me a new design. Ouch. I am trying to wear them but they aren't the same. Now to make matters worse, the older pair are all worn in and even more comfortable. Kinda reminds me of having to start over in a new relationship, trying so hard to make it work! Yuck. It just takes so long to break them in and I love it when they are worn in and so comfortable!

Super Tuesday!!

Ok, its Super Tuesday, the day when we all vote for our candidates for President. I did a contour drawing of each, I don't feel like I really know any of them well enough to cast a vote. As in drawing contour,I felt like I just placed my pen on the ballet and started marking, not really having any insight to what I was doing. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate my right to vote, I just wish I felt like their was someone worth voting for. Lets look at them.....
Democrates:
Obama-people thought he was muslim (he's not) for along time, very clean cut, almost looks like he scrubs with brillo every morning. No ones skin should be that perfect especially a mans! What about experience?
Clinton-I think a lot of people admired her for dealing with Bill's little indiscretions so bravely or was it maybe passively. The thought keeps crossing my mind though, if she were elected who would really be running the country? I don't know if I liked the whole crying thing during her campaign, I mean we never saw her cry when her husband was sleeping around!
Edwards- Nice guy, cute and devoted to his wife. But I guess he's out so I don't need to go on.
Republicans:
Romney- Nice looking guy for 60, even for 50! Millionaire, businessman from Utah. Conservative Mormon that is really giving the conservative born again Christians a voting dilemma. Does he represent the conservative christian's beliefs better than McCain? I think he has only one wife though.
McCain- I have really hated the way he has been campaigning against Romney, all that silly fighting . The polls say the people think he looks old, because he is old! Why does he always look like he is storing nuts in his cheeks for the winter? He might be telling us something about the economy here!
Huckabee-I don't know how I feel about a baptist preacher for a president. It seems to me that the whole meaning of "president" goes against his biblical beliefs. I think most of our past presidents have been womanizing fence walkers, unable to keep a promise to the people or their families. They seem to be easily swayed by lobbists, money and oil. Huckabee, save yourself, pull out now!

Yesterday the phone must have rang off the hook, as it did this morning. All the calls from my parties two front runners, calling to hopefully sway my vote to their side. It ended up just irritating me so much I was going to jump the the other party completely. Oh man, am I becoming a realist or just cynical!?

EDM 91 and my another in my fruit series

I think this is number 6 in the series. I first painted a red delicious apple that I have peeled half way down. I hated the results, it browned so fast I had to keep adding color to the exposed part of the apple. The peel didn't hang right either, if that is possible. I then tried a granny smith and a gala cut in half. The colors were much softer and I worked on loosing some edges. I am happier with this one. The latest news out on apples is that they reduce your risk of some cancers, so an apple a day may keep the doctor away.

I ended up going to the local open air market Saturday. I thought it might get me out of my funk and Jennifer was sick of being cooped up in the house too. Randy had to work so we set out early so we could beat the approaching storm. When we arrived they had closed the streets down and they were having a Charles Dickens Feastival! Everyone there was dressed in period costumes and everyone spoke with a bad english accent! I am so glad I brought my camera because I took tons of wonderful pictures that I can't wait to paint. I will post a few, you are welcome to paint them also!

EDM 125 and my weekend challenge at Wet Canvas

We are given 16 photos on Friday and we have 30 min to choose and then two hours to paint or draw. This week there are several I would like to both paint or draw. Here is the first, done in mechanical pencil as I watched the 11:00 news last night. I think I might like to finish this one or do a watercolor of it and add the last bird then call it "The Watercooler".

EDM #24 and #124 more in my fruit series

I am still painting fruit. I am really starting to enjoy it, gives me an excuse to eat while I paint! Did I need an excuse, well, just in case. I did the lemons that Marta brought me and the blood oranges. I haven't used the lemons yet, too cold for lemonaid and I haven't been in the mood to bake sooo, they sit, waiting. The sun has been out and warming everything up again but now I see clouds coming in and the wind is starting to blow. I was having such a good time too, painting outside!