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Oh my gosh, my internet died and I haven’t been able to get online since Thursday!!  It was awful!!  I’m so happy to be back   The good news is thatwithout being able to get online, I did a lot of art.   One of the things I did was doodling.  I’ve tried this before with sharpies and with Twinkling H2O’s but this time I just used pencil.

If you haven’t tried this, please do!  It is so fun.  And it helps you learn a lot of techniques like shading and perspective.

I’ve seen artists that do large black and white drawings similar to this.  Theirs have much more detail.  I can’t find any of the sites right now but if you go to Deviantart.com you might could search for black and white drawings and find some.

If you do any doodles, I hope you’ll share them with me.  It’s my newest passion!

But I did some work on canvas, too.  Here’s a painting I did.  The dots were made with gloss liquid gel medium.

It’s a chunky canvas so I painted the sides.  Here’s a picture of the side.  The lines aren’t very straight so I’m going to try and clean them up some.

I should take an internet vacation more often.  Nahhhh…I didn’t like it 

Here are some pictures of the current progress on my new studio.

This area was a closet.  We removed the short walls on the ends of this area to open up more space.  We are going to build shelves on this wall.   Don’t you love that little door?  I’m going to paint Alice on there

This is the opposite wall that was painted a salmon color.  I’m painting it with Kilz so it won’t take as many coats of the yellow that I”m going to use.

The pictures don’t seem very impressive but Mister and I are both verrry sore today so we definitely did a lot of work in there yesterday.

Today I’m going to spackle holes and cracks then continue painting with the Kilz.

With the line of the roof, it’s hard to get a perspective in these pictures.  If it helps, that ladder is 6 feet tall.

I’m all about the really bright, funky colors recently.  This is one I’m currently working on.

The picture isn’t very clear because I moved when I snapped it, but you can get the idea.    I’m also working on two other projects that I hope to finish up and get pictures of tomorrow.

I found some websites of local artists today.  Most of them participate in local art/craft shows.   I’m thinking of finding out more about that. Do any of you do these kind of shows?  Is it worth the time and money?  Any tips for me?

It has been a mild winter here, but it’s not what I call mild.  It has been cold and we just had an ice storm that closed the schools for 3 days.  I long for the sun and the nice rainy days of spring.  I can hardly remember what the trees look like with leaves.

My friend, Paula, just moved from AZ to TX and is setting up her new place.  I wanted to paint something for her so I decided to choose a sunshine.  That gave me a couple of days of bright, shiny sun!  And it works out nicely because the sun is her symbol.   We lived near each other and raised our kids together.  You know that friend that will tell you to bring your kid over and leave him on those days that you just can’t take it any more?  That’s what we were for each other, as well as sharing shoulders to cry on; partners in mischief; marriage counselors and shopping buddies.  So after our kids were almost grown and we were moving away from each other, we got “best friend” tattoos.  We both got a small tattoo on our foot.  Hers is a gold sun with a purple spiral in the center, on her right foot.  Mine is a gold star with a purple swirl in the center on my left foot.   [Why are images of Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton coming to mind?]  So, I knew she’d like the painting if it was a sunshine.

I don’t draw well, but this particular sun is one I’ve sketched and played with for years.  I love the swirly rays.  I love swirls of any kind.  I’m working on a sketch of an angel with stripey socks and swirly hair!

Shhhh… don’t tell Paula.  It’s a surprise

I had a great day at the thrift store last week. One of the things I got was this denim jacket for $2. I am painting it with colorful hearts and words. Here’s a shot of what I’ve done so far. The yoke is painted solid white (front and back) now but will be black and white checks when I’m done.

I’m tempted to add some bling to it, but will wait til I’m done with the painting to decide if that’s what I want to do or not.

In other news – I watched my son on tv tonight riding in the Championship Bull Riding World Finals in Las Vegas. It was so exciting! He did so great! When they interviewed him after his ride I was surprised that he was very humble and cooperative with the interviewer. He normally does something comical or bizarre

One year at the college rodeo finals, they had all the kids fill out questionnaires about their interests and accomplishments, so that the announcer would have interesting things to say about each rider as they got ready to ride. About most of the boys, the announcer would say things like “He has a 3.0 average, is majoring in agriculture and enjoys fishing and hunting.” When Laddan came up to ride, I shrunk in my seat as I heard him say, “He enjoys collecting copper kettles and woolen mittens.” lol