Busy,busy, busy...

Well, things here are busy, been trading offices with hubby so I have more room for my studio. So far things are a bit awkward, mostly because things are in different places than they were, which leaves me reaching the wrong places...lol. It should be great when I get done.

I have been working on paintings for the watermelon festival. And I spent alot of time with the curator of the local museum picking his brain about local history. He loaned me a number of photographs that I can paint. Did not know this tiny little town of around 3000 souls, used to be the big hub of the Illinois Central RR. and at the turn of the century, we had a population of over 10,000! If you went almost anywhere on the railroad, you came thru' Water Valley, MS...I suppose it is similar to flying thru' Atlanta or Chicago to get to other destinations. I loved the photos of the round house...where they changed the cars and engines on the trains...pretty high tech for the late 1800's. I have so much to paint....and it seems like so little time!

In the last post I showed some of the challenge paintings I did. A challenge I set myself was in doing self portraits. I did quite a few...but won't post them all....lol. Most of them people thought looked too old, or too heavy (well, I am a bit of both, to be honest) but this one everyone agreed was the best of what I did. I wanted to learn to catch the look of a person quickly, and since I was always there...I always had a model...lol.












After that I tried to paint a photo my daughter sent of a cat they had rescued....she would only sleep if their dog would lay with her.

















Then since that turned out fairly well, I thought I would paint our 3 beasties....what a crew they are....with such different personalities!

This is Bobo, his mom was a cocker spaniel, and I would say from his looks, that daddy must have been a black lab. He is a beautiful dog, that looks like a small lab with a bit longer hair. One morning he found 2 puppies and brought them home to me....they got REALLY big...about twice his size and weight.











This is Lucky, who always looks happy, his markings make him look like he is always smiling....


















This is Willie, the serious one, who is a little bit wary of everyone...

















Every once in awhile Bobo looks at them as if to say what happened to those little puppies that were smaller than me?

I will try to catch you up more later. Almost current....with what I am painting now....lol.