Monday, February 14, 2011

Tale of the Koala Princess... part three

I just have to share. ;-) This was drawn by my niece, for whom the The Tale of the Koala Princess was made.
Love!

You can see part two here.

The Orchard in February

I haven't painted in oils in awhile, due to frigid temperatures that made the idea of opening a window for ventilation unappealing. But the past few days have been so beautiful and spring-like, and I coudn't wait to squirt some paint!

Instead of just opening a window, I decided to get out into the gorgeous sunshine and do some painting en plein air. So today I did my first plein air painting of 2011, and it was also the first one I've done in winter.
As I said before, it's been spring-like; but although I actually walked in mud and on dry grass in places on my way, the snow was still a couple of feet deep out in the orchard, where I'd decided to paint.
See that little tiny-tipped brush? I found out today that it is more or less useless. :-P So sadly my painting didn't get the detail it should have had.

This is an 8"x10" cotton canvas.
A couple of hours later it looked like this:
I would have loved to keep working on it, but the lack of a good small brush was a problem, and my toes and fingers were reminding me that it IS still February.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Groundhog's Day Cake

How to explain...

For one reason or another, Groundhog's Day has gained significance in our house. Years ago my dad asked me to make a groundhog card, and every year when we fail to get all our Christmas cards and letters written or sent someone will say, "Well, we can always send a Groundhog's Day card.... or a belated Groundhog's Day card..." (Yeah, we're not great at keeping up correspondence.) Anyway, it's become a running joke- with Groundhog's Day Eve and everything- and this year my little brother T. and I decided to celebrate with a cake.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Book Progress

My eyes are red from staring at a computer screen for too long! :-P But I think, I hope, I'm nearing the end. I'm still working on the editing and formatting of my book, including the cover.
While it would have been nice to be done sooner, the longer I'm taking with this, the better it's getting. Little extras have been added, fonts tweaked, scans improved, and ideas developed. I've still got a mountain of work to do, but real progress has been made, and that feels so good.
This is what the title page looks like at the moment: