Yea !!!!!!!!!!!!

Indulge me once again in writing about my dear ol' dad. Today would have been his 80th birthday. This photo was on his 65th I believe. He was doing a lot of woodwork in his shop at the time so I made a cake and put tools on them with icing, using brown sugar for sawdust.
My brain is trying hard to focus on the wonderful birthdays we celebrated with him, but my stubborn heart marches to it's own beat - of course - and it feels soggy and heavy.
On an upbeat note.....

I finished another 'maytagarama'! For those of you unfamiliar with that term...I am painting 2 x 3 foot canvas' in acrylic of old washing machines for a friend's two businesses. There are to be a total of fourteen, a set of seven for each place. I will not have them exactly alike, though they could be, I choose not too. I dubbed them 'maytagaramas' after the Maytag brand washerss. Finding time has been difficult and they are taking longer than predicted. Keep in mind, I have painted less than 20 'real' paintings since I graduated from college so I am improving, getting faster and more confident. BigBoy says that my latest ones are better than the first ones.....probably so......due to my experience but also to the different types. Some lend themselves to become a more interesting, pleasing eye experience than others. I will post them all soon. I have more to do......

Gotta go sketch out the next one AND be ready to go to Target with family when they return from the gym. Hope to catch up with your sites soon!

Ferocious Feline and Sound of Music

Dudley, our Ragdoll cat, appears as if he is yelling at me...he was at the very top of the back stairs as I started up so I snapped a few with my camera phone. Merely caught him during mid-yawn or he was showing off.

Cue the Hallelujah Chorus cause 'moi' completed another 'Maytagarama' last night!!!!! Already began another this morning. They are 24 x 36 in acrylic. I'll show you my progress....

The Zoo became busier today since we are getting a new roof and workers began this morning. The knocking and pounding doesn't bother me. Anxious to see it when it's finished, had to go with a different color. Almost every house around here has got a new roof.....remember the hail we had?

Muddling through "Maytagaramas"

This is the present state of one of the "maytagaramas" I have been forcing myself to work on. There, I said it. May I add, there is a lack of joy in creating these large acrylic paintings of old washing machines- but they must be done. They are for a friend of mine that owns two laundramats (I don't think I spelled that correctly, referring to the place where you take clothes and wash them). It's the straight lines I mostly detest and sometimes tire of the lack of color. Hopefully it will help me to pick up my pace and not be so picky, my gosh, it's not like someone will be seeing these old machines very often to compare them to...but, I need to do a good job. It doesn't help that I want to be painting and drawing other things and try to when there is not enough time to work on these. It has been more difficult finding adequate time than I thought, how could I forget how slow I am? Probably the same manner I forget most everything else. For the record, the background looks sky blue here but it is actually a green, I have tried to mix up the background colors as much as possible. There will be a total of 14 when I am finished, then I will be framing them. Today so far has been filled with using a modern washing machine, cooking, cleaning some, you know, those tasks I live for (ahem!). VolleyGirl would love for me to get them finished as part of the money is going to pay for her braces..........I'm trying! Bless her heart, her makeover depends on her mother's painting ability.

What I've Been Up To Lately

This is some of the playing around I was doing late last night. People/portraits are not a strong point of mine. However, I love doing eyes and those are found in the margins of my notes, papers in a meeting, on the paper tablecloths with crayons in restaurants...whatever. I would like to improve my "people skills" of the drawing kind, I don't have any issues of the socializing type, thank you very much! The bottom one are some from photographs of VolleyGirl, but not all of them.

I spent a couple of hours cleaning out and totally reorganizing the drawers and cabinets in the rec room where my painting space is. I am sooooooo proud of getting that done even though I paid the price in the back for the rest of the afternoon and next day.

Next up, trying watercolor for the first time in too many years...then back to my acrylic "Maytagarama" paintings I must complete. Yes, I procrastinate those things I do not enjoy.