A Portrait Drawing and a Painting of Spring

Well I had yet another unexpected day off today. (a result of our tourist season being over with here) I'm sad to not be earning as much money, but grateful for the time to work on my artwork.
Today I worked on a portrait that I have been commissioned to do of a woman's grandson. She just wanted a simple drawing.
I must confess, I haven't done a portrait like this in a very long time. ( or a basic pencil drawing for that matter! )  It felt sort of weird at first, but then ( just as with all of my art) I felt the momentum growing and the interest in the piece as well. I still have a little bit more defining to do, but I'm pretty happy with him at this point.

                                     Something about his eyes hints at the mischievous don't they?

Once I got this far with him, I took the time to work on my painting of Spring for my four seasons series. ( to see Summer, go here) I still have about 2 hours worth of work to do on her, but she's also at a point that I'm pretty happy with. I've been enjoying the challenge of painting flowers like this. Next will be Autumn, where the challenge will be painting leaves. Fun!

      This particular photo was taken with my phone, so I apologize for the crappy photo quality! 
Hoping to have time to write another blog post tomorrow. Until then, have a wonderful night!

My Summer Painting is Finished!

                                                                Acrylic on Panel
Just like the title says, my newest painting, Summer, is complete! She's the first in my Four Seasons series. I'm really looking forward to working on Autumn, Winter and Spring! The orchids in my painting are all ones from my garden and the poppies are some that I saw in Monet's garden when I was in France this summer. I love incorporating things that I've seen in real life with the things that I see in my head.

                                                                       detail

Often when I paint, I'm either painting the things in the world around me, or I'm painting the things in the world inside my head. Typically I don't want the two worlds to meet too much, but it IS nice to be able to use things from the outside world to enhance my imaginary worlds.

                                                                     detail

I love how the colors pop in this piece! She will especially make a nice statement when hung next to the other three. I think that I'll begin work on Spring next. I really enjoyed painting the flowers and don't want to stop. :)

                                                                            detail

In other news, my appointment with the rheumatologist is this Tuesday. I've been killing myself with "what ifs" despite my best efforts to avoid doing that. Oh well. It will be nice to get it over with. I'll be sure to let everyone know what's going on as soon as I know.

Until then, have a blessed and creative day!! 

Keeping a Positive Attitude

Lately I have been having some soreness in my hands and joints and recently had some blood work done. My doctor has sent me to see a rheumatologist and I am, of course, pretty nervous about what the end results might be. It just hasn't been a good year, health wise for me! I can't stand the thought of there being anything wrong with me that might affect my hands. I'm trying to stay positive and have been making a lot of jokes about having to go to an old person's doctor. The new patient paperwork asked questions like "Can you get dressed by yourself (including doing buttons)? Can you go up 5 steps? Can you feed yourself? Do you use a specialty device to help you do any of these? etc... It's not really funny because as you get older, you definitely begin to have problems with these things; but at my age without any sort of accident to have caused it, it's just laughable.I keep joking with my mom about her 70 yr old daughter and such. I suppose that there is nothing else that one can do but find ways to laugh when faced with something like this.

I have to admit that this has sort of stunted my ability to create, but I am still pushing myself to do things. I'm working on finishing up another video as well as a couple of new paintings, including my Four Season series. I have only begun work on Summer at the moment, but will begin work on the other three very soon. Here is a work in progress photo of Summer so far.

There is some really beautiful work that I have been coming across. The FAE Team (Fantasy Artists of Etsy) has just released a new exhibition called Siren Song. It has quite a lot of really beautiful pieces and I recommend you taking a look.

Thank you for following my blog and for always supporting my endeavors and for supporting handmade! ♥