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!

The Beauty Salon

In our quest to look beautiful and my quest to fend off the grey, Jennifer and I went to get our hair done. It is the one place that everyone publically admits that they are not satisfied with what they have! Our salon now has a plastic surgeon who is doing botox injections in the back room where they also do massages. The call it a day spa now. It a one stop beauty shop. Jenn and I are both fighting our roots, hers are brown and mine are grey, but either way we want them gone. It amazes me as I look around, the lengths we will go to stay beautiful! They have girls doing nails, hair, permanents, curlers, waxing eyebrows, bikini lines, upper lips, the botox, restilane for plumping your lips, massages to help the stress we must feel about having to do all this to look good. Last year, or was it the year before, Jennifer cut off all of her long blonde hair and donated it to locks of love, this year she hasn't decided to part with it yet.

So thankful for......

I am also doing an ATC exchange. It is called "So thankful for......". I did an oil pastel (my first) of my coffee cup. Thankful for my husbands loving hands that bring me coffee in bed every morning. The cup is pink and was given to me by a friend. It is a Longenberger cup signifying breast cancer awareness. I have painted it before because I have a friend going through radiation after her lumpectomy. I pray for her when I see my cup in the morning. This holiday season my sister told me that they found a lump. She is now going in for a biopsy on Feb. 7th, we are waiting to see. I pray for her now too, all the time. I am now thankful for the huge survival rate when detected early. Lets take better care of ourselves and have our mammograms!

Dinner with Friends

I invited Marta and Rudy over for dinner last night. The weather was getting quite blustery and waited to hear if Marta had to work or not. They arrived about 6ish and she brought me a beautiful colander from the cooking store, filled with lemons and blood oranges from her tree. We had a wonderful dinner. Randy braved the elements to barbecue our steaks and I made rice pilaf and a salad. We sat and talked about their trip to Europe over some wine and dinner. It was such a wonderful relaxing evening, dreaming about all those exotic places that they got to see. Cheers! I am so excited to get two more pieces of fruit for my fruit series! Thanks Marta and Rudy! Here is the sketch of my gift with fruit, done in my handmade watercolor sketch book!

Second in my fruit series

Today the sun is shining and it is a beautiful day! It is the calm before the storm according to the weather casters. Another big storm is expected tonight through Sunday. I love that we are getting this rain, it cleans everything and makes it seem new and fresh. We put in drain lines throughout our backyard so we are not getting any flooding, that also helps me to relax and enjoy the bad weather! I love a day or two of gloomy but I am sorry for those who live with months of grey skies, pouring rain that never stops and extreme cold. They say it leads to depression when you don't get enough sun, I know it would for me. I love that its cold enough that I can light the fire and have a cup of hot chocolate at night. Then the next day the sun is usually out and warming the air. We live in an irrigated desert! Ok, enough about the weather, don't you talk about the weather when you have nothing else to say?

This is my second piece of fruit in my series, the banana. The banana is often called a tree but in fact it is not. It produces a psuedostem which grows quite high and then produces bunches of either green, yellow or red bananas. After producing its bananas the stem dies and then it send up another psuedostem and the cycle repeats. Grown mostly in the subtropics and tropics since they cannot tolerate freezing temperatures. The yellow banana is often called the dessert banana while the plantain is considered the cooking banana. And thats our lesson on bananas! Did anyone noticed that I ate the banana first then painted it? Sometimes its just too tempting.

My first series!!

I decided to do a series for the postcard exchange that I am doing. I don't usually do series because I easily get bored. I decided I needed to work on discipline so I will do 25 pieces of fruit, there has to be that many, right? I also am looking them up and learning more about them, and sending the information I find. It is an effort to learn something new everyday, my brain is turning to oatmeal these days. I don't have enough (intellectual) stimulation, a common problems of young, stay at home moms that are dealing with little kids. I am determined to try and make myself exercise my brain too! My challenge will be to see if I can retain any of the information as I add it to my blog! Here is my first postcard, tangerine. Citrus riticulata, good source of vitamin C. Main growers are China, the US isn't even on the top ten list. Clementines,mandarins are also in the same class, just different varieties. They are ripe now, during our winter and I love that they bring a ray of sunshine into the kitchen when its dreary outside.

The Purse

I bought myself a new purse at Christmas, I then wrapped it up and allowed my husband to give it to me as a gift. This way I wouldn't feel bad that I was shopping for myself when I was supposed to be shopping for everyone else. I have to confess that this was truly an impulse buy. I know I don't like two strap because one is always fighting to fall off my shoulder yet I bought it anyway. I knew that I liked to have some pockets on the side to hold my cell phone, but I bought it anyway. It was cute, and soft and had leather from Italy! So I bought it, against that small voice that was screaming at me "NO". I was good though and wrapped it up and put it under the tree for Christmas morning. I couldn't wait to get rid of my old purse and move over to the new one! Two days after Christmas I cleaned out my old purse, choosing only the best lipsticks and items to make the transfer. I went through the tons of receipts that manage to make their way into my wallet and purse. I placed everything inside carefully, using the cute side pouch for my lipstick and pen. One side was for my wallet, the other for my checkbook, sketchbook and phone. Officially, I have been using my new purse for almost a month and I HATE it!!! Everything gets lost in the sack part and there are only a few pocket which open too wide and things just fall out. The cute magnetic closure doesnt stay shut so it looks like a gapping hole, the black hole. Thats what I am calling it, the black hole. I have to pull everything out of it to find my keys, a pen, my glasses. Maybe if I use it long enough the bottom will fill with receipts and bring everything up higher where I can get to it. As I sat for an hour yesterday at the doctors with Jennifer I drew the black hole which took up the seat next to me. Its so soft it doesn't have any shape, it just lays there! Its hard to make out since I didn't finish it but I hope you get the idea of the blob purse I now will own for some time! Maybe I will do a purse series, one a week, it seems to be a love/hate relationship for most of us. Has anyone found the perfect purse??? Let me know.

My mom arrived home safely the other day and she called to tell me so. Then she said I can't wait to throw this purse away and get something else, I just hate it!! SEE....

So Thankful for.....

I am doing a ATC exchange at Wet Canvas. I love to do these cuz they are fast and fun and I enjoy getting surprises in the mail! Marta and I have our own exchange, its an TATC, which is travel ATC. We paint something from places we have been and send to each other. We started last year and to be honest, Marta has owed me one for sometime and she goes to all the good places!!!!! I received this beautiful ATC from her a few days ago. It is just beautiful and she wrote a little story of when she was in Paris with Rudy and how its her favorite city. We artists have this wonderful gift where we can freeze a moment in time and then share with others. I love sharing her travel adventures with her, I hope that this year we will have lots more to share. This is Notre Dame Cathedral. It also came in a great little envelope that she had done at Moo.com. On one side she wrote me a note and the other side was one of her tomatoe paintings. It was almost like two gifts.

Sinuses AHHH

My body is still trying to conquer this yucky thing. I got some antibiotics finally but they are just now starting to kick in. I am one of those people that hate to take medications. I hate to even take asprin,I don't know why. But I had to cry uncle and ask the doctor for help. I think today I may have rounded the corner on my way to recovery. I am so sick of trying to carry on a conversation with people while my nose is running amuck. There is one thing about being sick, it reminds me how good it feels to be well!

Check out my Slide Show!

Life Drawing and then the Quilt Show

Last night Dawn and I and Marta got together for Tapas and Sangria to celebrate Marta's birthday! We had a great time just trying to catch up after all the holiday business. Afterwards we went to the museum for Life drawing classes. It has been so long since I have drawn or painted I didn't know how I would do. The first few were pretty bad but then I got into the groove a bit. Still under the weather from this stupid sinus infection I pooped out pretty quick. Between the sangria and the medication and my runny nose, I fought to stay focused on the model. We had drawn her before, she is a robust black women, the last time she was our model I did a watercolor of her. Her hair was curly and she was a bit thinner. The unfortunate thing about painting someone is that you study their body and notice all changes. LOL I think she was a bit too overweight for modeling. I like a heavier model but too heavy and I think its harder to know if my porportions are right.

Tomorrow I have an all day class at Road to California, the quilt show. I have a quilt hanging there and am anxious to see it. I love to shop all the hand dyed fabrics and look for different things to incorporate into my quilts. I hope I feel better and can do this all day class. It should be great fun, its all about embellishment and creating different textures with fabric.

Christmas and New Years

Happy New Year!!! I have been so neglectful as far as blogging and I have had many wonderful comments. Thanks you for all the nice emails and comments you have left over the holiday season. I have been so caught up in all the holiday activities and with my mom still here I find my normal schedule is anything but. She doesn't do computers and can't even fathom the idea of a blog. I don't get alot of time with her so it has been so nice to have coffee together in the morning and dream over gardening catalogs. We have managed to buy some plants for my new backyard and even got them planted before the rains hit. Moms are so special, I love our time together. She has severe rhuemetoid arthritis and is on infusions every month. The risks to her overall health are so steep but she can not function unless she has them. I know our time together is never guarranteed so I cherish this time together. I miss everyone and hope to paint soon too!

Family Traditions

We have lots of family traditions that surround this time of the year. Some are silly and some are more serious but we all love them. I continued things my mom started in an effort to make Christmas special for us when we were young. She was raised on a cotton farm in Alabama with 14 brothers and sisters. Their family was very poor and they didn't have much. It was so important to her to do special things during the holidays that would make them extra special and she always made all our dreams come true. I have added my own things to her list and one of the things I added was a Gingerbread House party. I started it when the girls were young, maybe 11-12. Although it has evolved throughout the years it basically was, I supplied the houses and invited moms and kids to come and decorate a house to take home. They have to bring 2 bags of candy to the party that will be shared by everyone. At the end I hand out ballots to vote for the most original, best candy etc and there are prizes plus they get to take home their decorated house. I loved this party, I always let the girls invite their friends and I invited some of my friends and it was a house full of kids, candy and the wonderful smell of gingerbread. This year, my oldest daughter, Kim had the party at her home. I handed it off to her this year as it seemed more appropriate for her to throw it for her friends who now have their own children old enough to enjoy it. She carefully asked if she could do it this year and I knew it was time. For myself, it was a bittersweet moment. I was so thrilled to see her love it so much she wanted to keep it going yet sad that I would not be hosting it anymore. I passed the baton and she did such a great job. I got to help decorate and make the royal frosting and she got to get all the oooohhh and awes over her home and the party etc. It felt so good to see her shine, its her turn, its her time. I guess that is part of growing older, learning when its time to take a step back and watch as the reflection of ourselves continues. She will make it her own special yearly event and it will evolve her way and I am so excited to watch! Here are some pictures of that day, I was the photographer and I love the faces of the younger kids as they are still full of wonder and amazement in anticipation of Christmas.

The Party

I have been so busy trying to get everything just right for our annual Christmas quilt group party. I have been sewing, cleaning, painting gifts, shopping, and cooking. Then in an effort to not look completely haggard and frantic I had to get my hair colored and cut! Phewwww, made it! We had a great time, well I did for sure, it was so much fun to see everyone again. We haven't met for sometime and the group really missed each other. Unfortunately a few of the women got sice at the last minute and couldn't come, we missed not having them. But for the ones that came it was a great reunion and chance to catch up. We had tons of wonderful food, I love potlucks, a chance to sample everyones recipes! We played games, well some of them did. Others, who's name I won't mention, tried to sabotage the efforts of others! So some listened to M____A and found her much more entertaining than my party games, but they didn't get the gift either! We did our gift exchange and everyone got some lovely things. Dawn brought me a beautiful ornament that I will treasure every year as I pull it out to decorate my tree. Shelly gave me a wonderful angel candle holder, oh I love the decorations, I could never have too many! And just think, those were just my hostess gifts! What a great night, visiting with friends and eating!! How much better can life get?

I've been under the weather

I have been a bit sick, not the flu but more of a cold, sore throat, headache sickness. Then it seems like the medicine I take for it makes me even more sleepy! I think that might be how it works, it just keeps you sedated through the worst of it. I haven't had time to draw, I have been just resting with my drawing pad, doodling. Lots of nothingness but helped to pass the time. Maybe the apple signifies and apple a day. Santa's north pole, my longing for the wonder of Christmas. I miss my art so much now I am taking it to bed with me. It bad when your husband comes home to find you curled up with a sketch pad, a box of kleenex and the remote! Can you tell I have an exciting life? I wonder if their is a profession that analyzes the real meaning behind our artwork doodles?

Marta, Dawn and I are scheduled for some spa time on the 13th, I am so excited. It will be wonderful to have a little pampering during this stressful and busy time. I have been busy decorating since I have a party on the 7th. Lots of preparation and things to get done. The pool will just be a big hole still but hopefully it will get done before summer!

My last Card for the year

With my house full of boxes of decorations waiting to be put in their place I realized that this would have to be my last Christmas Card painting. Its just to close to Christmas to do anymore cards! I am doing an original watercolor painting Christmas card exchange. No prints or photocopies, just originals. So instead of sending one of the ones I had already painted I decided to do another. I like it and I am mounting it onto a metalic wine colored card stock. I need to send it by the first of December so I am glad its done. The other cards that I had printed arrived today so I can begin the yearly project of addressing cards. But I love it, there isn't much about the holidays I don't just love!!

Our New Family for Thankgiving Dinner

My last ATC, Yippee

Well I think I have finished all the ATC's I needed to do. I have to go over my list now and double check to make sure I covered everyone. I saved this last person til the last since I wanted to do a few things for her since she was so kind to Jennifer during our exchange. I want to paint her a few things. This is her ATC, it is of her dog. Graphite

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

My family ditched us this year, I started out with a house full and ended up with no one. My kids decided to go to Glamis early and beat the rush. They want to celebrate on Sunday instead. My mom and sister and brother spend it together up north so it left us a day to tile. We were getting ready to start our day when my girlfriend called and invited us to go to brunch with them at the Mission Inn and celebrate with their family! We had such a great time and the food was just wonderful, things like Salmon wellington, pumpkin pasta with a sage cream sauce. They had both breakfast items as well as the traditional turkey dinner. We ate outside in the courtyard and it was a glorious day, the weather was perfect. Thank you for including us!! I will post pictures later.

I did want to post my second to last ATC for an exchange I was involved in most of the year. I am so glad it is ending by Christmas. I found I started well but ended up getting bored and stopped working on them and now I just need to finish. This is a graphite and colored pencil cat, the scans never do graphite justice.

More Christmas card ideas

These are quick watercolor paintings without a prelim sketch, very loose, fun, and fast. Jean Haines did a wonderful video demo at the Watercolor Haven on loose Santa's and I just had to play! Her work is very loose and fluid. This style is meant to leave some areas for us to figure out. I love this style and since I am working on loosening up this is a wonderful exercise. I love the fact that by creating disappearing edges and leaving out most of the details we allow our minds to explore the picture and fill in the blanks. I think it makes for a much more interesting picture sometimes than spelling everything out. But, after I have said that, I also think there is a fine line between too loose and to much detail so I am trying to find that place where I feel it looks like a finished piece. I think these turned out well, it was hard trying to for see where the beard would actually be so I didn't paint there. I want to try and capture the feeling of Santa, happy,warm, inviting, I think the third does that the best. Number one looks a bit grumpy! I can't wait to do some more.

Life Drawing

Marta and I went to life drawing last night at the museum. It was the first time I have seen her since her trip. She showed up with olive oil and some oil pastels from her European vacation!!! These oil pastels are the same formula made for Picasso, so I am in good company but the pressure to create a masterpiece looms over these little crayons. I realized how much I missed her and our visits. We went to the mexican resuarant at the Mission Inn and had a lite dinner then walked to the museum. Since our model had not shown up someone there stepped in and posed for us! Wow, talk about throwing yourself into your job! Marta and I both agreed that she had to be pretty brave to pose for life drawing and then work there too. Then we left, I had to get home for my survivor night and she wanted to see CSI. I don't watch much tv at night but I love Survivor and I have a friend that comes over to watch it with us. This has been going on for years and the tradition continues. Here are my sketches from last night, not great but I haven't been in months and I am a bit rusty. She was quite lovely and I think she looks scarey here! My apologies to the model!!!

Another pict of the worker!

Pictures of the tilers!

The Pool

We are landscaping our backyard and we have put in a pool. This has been a long project since we began it back in March/April. We basically designed it and then we subcontracted most everything out and did a lot of the work ourselves. In an effort to save another 5-7,000$ we decided to tile the pool ourselves. We have done a lot of tile in our previous houses and felt we could handle this. Well this has really been a challenge, I appreciate the price quoted by the tile layers now much more. I don't think I would have laid it for that! The fact that the surface we are laying the tile on is vertical and you start at the bottom row of the water line, so basically the tile is floating and you have to create the bottom edge with bender board or something similar to support your tile. Then to make it harder we are using a patterned tile at the waterline so if it isn't laid just perfect all the way around it will show when the water, which is self leveling, is at different areas on the patterned tile. This introduced us to a new tool for us called a water level. This is basically a piece of clear tubing that you fill with water. You put the water line in the tube at the level you want and where the water line is in the other side of the tube is means its level. Its hard to explain but it works great, I love it. Then we have all these curves, and square flat tiles don't round corners well! Add to that the fact that half of the pool is above our heads so its out of our reach and so we have had to have ladders and boards, home made scaffolding, for working in the deep end. We also raised our pool out of the ground to prevent Jennifer from accidentally falling in with her wheelchair. This created another outside surface for us to tile. My mom just doesn't understand why when she calls we are still tiling! I mean you only had to lay tile at the water line after all! Thank you God for my husbands endless patience and the fact that he loves doing tile!

The reception

The reception was just wonderful and they had a really good turn out too. For me personally, I had the best turn out, all my kids came and most of their spouses and my DH family came to help me celebrate the opening. Marta also came with us and Dawn and her husband met us down at the museum. We all were really dressed up and most everyone else showed up under dressed. So we all looked great! There was champagne and hors d'oeuver for everyone. It was such a great night. I had an opportunity to meet some art quilt collectors and some of the other artists that were represented there last night. After a few hours there we decided to go into ole town San Diego and have dinner. There was lots of normal family memory talk, remember when you did this, etc etc. The kids haven't seen Randy's family in awhile so its always fun to reminisce about old times. Marta fit right into the family and was a fun part of the group. We didn't get out of the restaurant until after 10 and didn't get home until 11:30. I called to make sure everyone made it home safely before I went to bed. Thanks everyone for sharing this special day with me, having everyone there made it more even more special.