Susquehanna River Art Exhibit Extended

The Susquehanna River Art Exhibit has been going well, from what I hear. The owners of West Shore Gallery have decided to extend the exhibit through April 2nd. So if you happen to be in the area and want to see some fantastic river art, head on down to the gallery!

Quote for the Day

Inspiration is for amateurs--the rest of us just show up and get to work.~Chuck Close

My Other Baby's Birthday

Yes it is true, my children's birthdays are within 2 days of each other. What is really weird is that they both had the same due date while I was pregnant, they looked identical as babies, and they were both born at the same time in the evening. They are exactly 1 year, 363 days apart in age.

My little girl turned three yesterday. She has been so excited for her birthday to arrive that she has been counting down the days until she could say that she was three years old. We are having a princess party for her and her friends this weekend. She is such a mellow and sweet little girl. I know many a parent that would turn green with envy if they knew how mild and good natured my daughter is! I am so blessed to have such a wonderful little person in my life and in my home. She is always a delight to be with and a joy to have around. She means the world to me!

My Baby's First Year

My sweet little baby turned one year old yesterday. I can't believe how fast this past year has gone! It has been crazy and busy and wonderfully exciting at the same time. I am so lucky to have her sweet presence in my life. She gives me so much inspiration and she brings so much joy to our entire family.

Babies grow up so fast, it's hard to remember all the precious moments that I swore I would never forget. Luckily, I am trigger happy with the camera, and I have a lot of fun pictures of my little sweetheart.

The Beginning is the End

Sometimes a painting simply doesn't work out. I started my Joseph Smith painting. I had my drawing all done and it was exactly how I wanted it. I transferred it to the canvas, finally had all of my reference material put together, and started painting. it started out well, so I was optimistic, but the longer I painted, the worse it got. My painting is at the point now that I want to...well...burn it. So I have decided to put it away for a couple of days, and try again later. I am not finished with this painting, it WILL be tackled and it WILL be painted to my liking. But for the moment, the beginning of this painting has now met its end. However, I did want to post a few images of the painting in progress so you can see a bit of my process.

This is my drawing. It took many days and many tears to get this drawing to look the way I wanted it too. When I create portraits or paintings that require very accurate drawing, I will draw it first in charcoal and then transfer the drawing to the canvas that I will paint on.

This is the beginning of the painting. It's not too bad and at this point, I honestly thought it was going to work out. But it was shortly after this point that things went downhill (fast!) and I lost my controlled, accurate brushwork.

This is an extremely difficult project for me to do. I don't have Joseph Smith (he died almost 200 years ago) to sit down in front of me. So I have used several different forms of reference material to collect all the information that I need in order to paint this properly. I am fairly confident that I know where I went wrong with this painting, so I should be able to start over again with much better results. In the meantime, I am working on a few other projects as well, and I will be posting more on those as I get into them.

Art Project, powered by Google

All I can say is WOW! Google is constantly coming up with amazing new innovations for sharing information. I saw their Art Project when I logged in this morning and was completely blown away. It is an amazing project that enables you to virtually visit incredible art museums around the world and look at the artwork up close, in high resolution. Now, any ordinary person with an internet connection can visit world renowned art museums that they might never have the opportunity to visit otherwise.

I have always been a fan of Google, but now I am a full blown Google fanatic! Google has brought history and art together and shared it with the world. If you haven't already, I would really encourage you to check out the Google Art Project. You'll be glad you did!

http://www.googleartproject.com/