Well I struggled for 30 minutes trying to read a page and a half because of all the “mom” “Hey mom”,  ”can I”, “come see”, “where is” – seriously how inept are my kids! Whew – I take a breath and mentally say ‘Screw it, I’m not going to get what I want so might as well try and have some fun with it.’ And here is what we came up with.

Lilman found 5 rollie pollies; one mommy, one daddy and three babies.  Apparently, today he is a child so he’s a bug hunter.  When he grows up he is going to be a lizard hunter.

This is pretty cool!  And will be a subject of an upcoming painting.

A tinie, tiny spider in front of some honey suckle.

Another flower – look at the little red dots on the rock – those are chiggers.  I taught him about chiggers this morning

Kids and what I learned this morning: If you can’t beat them, join them, teach them.  Because of this I’m putting together a drawing lesson on how to draw a Rollie Pollie.  More to come…

Even before all this technology, it was an awesome feeling to receive an invitation to something - in the actual mailbox; a birthday party, dinner party, wedding.  The feel of the paper, the sentiment in the written word, an actual signature! Well with all the technology that we have today, frankly it would feel even better! Check out this all inspiring website: minted.com.  I got lost on minted.com for several hours one night thinking about the parties I should have, looking through all the gorgeous inspiration boards and trying my hand at designing my own board – and their blog, mint.com/julep is a new website that I’ll frequent to pin ideas!  Seriously, how cute is this!! I pinned it.

Washcloth bunnies from Minted.com/julep

{Sigh} nostalgia – For my wedding, our colors were Peridot – (August Birthstone).  It was an outside wedding, in a dry county of Kentucky, had I had this technology back then, this would have been my inspiration.

But you know what….there are soooo many more special events coming up in our lives.   I have a colleague that is approaching her 30th birthday and she’s a bit freaked out.  For what I’m not sure, that birthday I didn’t freak out – my mom and her mom told her/me, “30 is when you finally figure out what you are about”. And it is so true!  My 30s have been fun, hard, fulfilling, and still I’m hesitant of what the next decade - oh God, decade…. – will call for.  So instead of dwelling on the age, I’m going to plan the party!

So, friends and family look in the mail for a save the date…Ben’s going to be 40 first ..this inspiration board is simple and stated…perhaps that’s what the 40s will be about…

What Birthday freaked you out the most?

Or

What pearls of wisdom do you know now that you didn’t know before you turned that age?

The book has instructional tips, interesting exercises where you can learn a little more about how your child sees the world, or, rather, has been taught to see the world, followed by 3 different nautical inspired drawings.

My current email subscribers have already received their free copy and if you follow me through other means, facebook, twitter, pinterest, you too can get your free copy by subscribing to receive updates in your email.

Why should I subscribed to your email list?
As you might have realized, I love email subscribers. The fact that you have subscribed to my list means a lot to me and in order to make it worth your while I occasionally share patterns, drawings and ideas with my email list that I DO NOT share on the blog. My goal is to help you do more with less impact to your wallet so staying subscribed to the list is a smart thing to do.

Join the club – be a daisy picker and grin like an idiot.

Now here is the funny thing; the logical side of my brain says – you paid $800 for a 4 day painting class (that included housing on the beach and food – by the way) to paint a tree…a very nice tree, but a tree…and so I ended up having a conversation in my head justifying the trip to paint a tree and here is what I came up with (Note: when I talked to myself in my head, it’s like a two way conversation)

Well, I walked away with a painting of a tree, that was tangible, but I learned a ton!  Like the different types of materials I can paint on, how to properly gesso the materials.  I now know I can go to Home Depot or Lowes and buy a 4ft by 8ft tempered masonite board, have them cut it and then I can gesso it – very cheap painting surfaces for Em.  I know the value of a good sable hair brush and when to use those versus the cheaper synthetic or hog hair brushes, I can make every shade of green imaginable, I can use tools to paint with besides a brush,  and I know what brand of paint is worth splurging on for what colors.  These are the things I learned that can become tangible.

There is more though, that isn’t tangible.  I learned that I need to shift the way that I think about painting.  Since Em and LilMan were born, my time has been severely limited; so much so that my thinking shifted to ‘I need to get as much possible done in the shortest amount of time’, and I’d take pride in saying ‘I did this in an hour’.  Which that sort of thinking made painting difficult, because when I paint, and I’m really into the painting, time seems to stand still, but in reality it is flying.  I need to relax and enjoy the process, enjoy the mixing of the paints, think about what mediums I’m going to mix and why, do I want to make this object recede into the background or pull it forward, where is the light coming from, don’t rush the process, build up the painting, let each layer grow the dynamic feeling of the painting.

In addition to changing the way that I think when I paint, I also rediscovered the value in painting with others, especially experienced painters.  I had forgotten how much I can learn from others;  I need to find a class in Huntsville. I need to find a class so that I can get a weekly reminder of there is more to life, there is more to me than just being a mom, a project manager, a wife.   I have a something that is all mine  and I want to develop it, share it, learn from others and have a weekly time set aside for me.

So while I walked away with a tree, I gained so much more.  It was worth it….

And now the tree…

Day 1 and 2 is on the first row – we blocked in the colors, in dark, medium, light.  Cool colors were used for the background and warm colors for the foreground.  We used the Plein air technique, which allowed for each thin layer to dry quickly.  The mediums I used to mix my paints were Liquin and Odorless Mineral Spirits.  The reason why you’ll see the sky change a bit is we painted the sky 3 times – with each layer the sky becomes more interesting.

Day 2 and 3 were spent mostly on the tree – adding in more dimension to the foliage: constantly thinking light, medium, dark and blending the colors so the foliage would take shape.  Day 3 and 4 we spent a lot of time on the tree, the field, limbs and glazing.

All of the above were day 4, the last day.

The very last picture is the final painting that I photographed with proper lighting and a tripod, so it is truer to the actual painting.

I have so much to share from this 7 days away from my life.  So look for upcoming posts on:

• How to photograph a painting
• How to gesso a tempered masonite board
• Some of the china painters work – you’ll be shocked what these folks can paint on china!
• Mother-Daughter Shopping in Savannah, GA

I’m sure I’ll think of more

Start with a picture.

Then using the crop tool, crop it to the same dimensions as the canvas you’ll want to paint it.

Then using the line tool in a color of your choice, draw a diagonal line from corner to corner. Making an X.

Then keep drawing lines until you get the enough lines where you’ll feel that you can draw it out. When I do portraits I have a bunch of triangles (if an eye is off by even a centimeter the person won’t look right).

Then I merged all line layers by selecting the line layers, right click and select the “Merge Layers”.

Then I converted the single layer to a Smart Object, by right clicking on the line layer and clicking “Convert to Smart Objects”.

Now that I’ve created my grid, I can export the contents of the Smart Object and reuse it anytime (transform it to fit any picture/canvas size).

Now that I have a grid drawn on my picture, I use a yard stick to draw the same grid on my canvas.  Then begin drawing out what will become a detailed painting.

Our LilMan, I’ll be honest, I have no idea what he is going to excel at – he has a HUGE imagination, he’s talkative, he negotiates like nobodies business, his reading and comprehension is pretty good, he’s sporty, bossy, and very thoughtful, sore loser, competitive and constantly pushes boundaries – he’s  6.   Em, also has a HUGE imagination, talkative, pretty bossy and also very thoughtful, competitive and focused and very artsy (you’ve seen some of the artwork she’s done and decorating).

Well over their Christmas break Grandma and I had Em doing quite a few art projects, at her request, the result lead us to try and get Em into an art class before she is 4 (she turns 4 this month).  Here are the two pieces that she did that lead us to this decision.  Note: Grandma drew the poppies with a pencil, Em colored them in and she wanted to “use all the colors” and I drew Rudolph.

(Picture taken with my iphone, so it’s not the best picture)  This is the one where Grandma drew the poppies with a Pencil onto material and let Em have at it.  What’s impressive about this is that Em focused for almost 2 hours on coloring this in, she also used many colors and started trying to use her finger to blend the colors (like what you do with pastels – I think she’s seen me do that), and she outlined some of the petals with her black marker to set some structure to the drawing.  But what really got our attention was her approach: she actually paused and hovered her colored marker over the canvas and scanned with the drawing with the color to figure out where she was going to touch it next…she was purposeful.  That still gives me chills…

The next week I asked her if she wanted to paint Rudolph and she said “Sure!”.  So I drew Rudolph and put down some acrylic paints, paint brushes and water and she did this all-by-herself…

It was because of these two pieces that I decided to reach out to some local artists to see if she can start getting some instruction, because frankly I don’t know what to do for someone this young – she’s 3 going on 4 – that wouldn’t get her frustrated.  I’m so glad I did!

I spoke on the phone with a teacher at Southerland Station (an awesome toy and art store in Huntsville), she told me that generally they won’t take anyone under the age of 6 but there are always exceptions to the rule, and asked me to bring her in and she’ll evaluate her.  We took in the above two pieces and, I’ll be honest, my hopes were that I wasn’t that mom that thought her daughter was gifted when she isn’t…so when the instructor gasped at the pieces and said “she’s following form…how long has she been doing this?!”  then the instructor questioned my mom on whether she helped her or not, and mom and I never touch others paintings/drawings once they get started.  Sometimes Em will tell  “I can’t” my response is always “can’t never could, just try” and I’ll show her on my own drawing and she tries…it’s no wonder why she’ll tell me “I’ll do it!”

I hadn’t brought any art supplies with me, because I didn’t think the instructor would consider working with Em.  But to my surprise she did and I had to buy some supplies in the store: the instructor told me to get a 6B Graphite Pencil, a Blender, eraser and a sketch pad.   So, while we waited in the hallway, for an hour and a half Em tried her hand at drawing an apple and banana from real-life (I’ve never worked with her on that), then the instructor drew the outline of a face.

This is when the instructor came out to us to say “she understands planes!”  Now my mom and I understand a bit about art but we didn’t understand what the instructor meant by “she understands planes” so we asked and the instructor explained to us that “she sees the nose, chin and cheekbones as planes, it’s the start of drawing 3 dimensional!”  Then she left to go back into the class and came out with an amazing drawing that another person did and said – “she is going to be doing this in 2 years, I look forward to working with your daughter.  The last 4 year old I worked with is now a successful artist who owns a 3 story condo in California and can’t keep up with the commissions!”

Em drew for an hour and a half before she started getting tired.  So the instructor came back out and said that she’s getting tired, when young ones get tired they start to just move the pencil up and down with their wrist.

I was frankly stunned and without the instructor pointing these things out I wouldn’t have noticed the thoughtfulness that Em was putting into her drawings and paintings.

The instructor told me to setup a station at home that Em can use anytime she’d like and don’t make a big deal about it to her and don’t criticize, she has something let her do it… so, I took apart my sewing station and made it into her workstation so she can draw and paint without me having to set it up.  The top drawer has watercolors, paint brushes, water in a tub and paper towel.  The second drawer has paper, colored pencils, graphite pencils, erasers, pastel pencils and a pencil sharpener.  On the desk I have a sketch pad, and an easel – I need to make the desk a bit bigger (I’ll grab some wood and screw it to the top of the table).

It was funny, on the car ride home from her first art class I was all teary eyed thinking back to how this got started.  I was painting a mural in the kids playroom and Em kept trying to get into my paint so I set her up a piece of paper on the wall and let her have at it.  This was in August of 2010 – she was around 18 months old.

We used the kids acrylics, good thing too cause she took a sip of the water that she cleaned the brushes in.

The wall wasn’t the only thing she painted – look at those legs! (that took two baths to get ride of ).

Eventually, I set her up an easel in my office/craftroom – almost every weekend she’d ask “can I paint?” It was hard to say no, even though I knew the cleanup would be super annoying.  I used cheesecloth and inexpensive material for her to paint on and continued to use the kids paints (she still hasn’t mastered staying clean when painting:) ).

This one she is working on I had framed; she did this one in September of 2011…

This her again on August 2012 (my birthday, she and I had a paint day).

She’ll do this for hours…My hope is, if this is her passion that I can help her follow her passion so she’ll have a job/career that fulfills her. I know she’s only 3, almost 4, but I am a Mom and I just want to do whatever I can to help her be successful and happy.   So, stay tuned as I start doing a lot more paintings, painting tutorials and share Em’s progress!!! 

Here is an after picture (man that picture looks like a bad high school yearbook picture). I dyed my hair and cut off about 2 1/2 inches all by myself! I watched these two YouTube videos and followed their instructions.

This video uses Clairol Nice’n Easy Foaming Hair Color; I used Medium Brown on my hair.  The awesome part, it took 25 minutes to set (although it definitely didn’t have the pleasant smell of an Aveda salon).   Instead of sitting around and doing nothing in a chair and waiting an unbelievable amount of time – waiting/”relaxing” while I have 15000 things to do is simply not relaxing, this only took 25 minutes to set.  So, while I waited for my hair to process, I straightened up the house in 18 minutes and had 6 minutes and change to send a couple of emails.   After 30 minutes I felt accomplished and my hair looked fantastic and soft!

I followed this video on how to cut my hair in layers on my iPad.   I cut my hair up until about minute 12 on the video and would pause the video when needed.  Note: If I had short hair I would have never tried to cut my hair myself, fortunately with long hair there is more room for error, but frankly with her direction my hair turned out really good and I believe she did it the exact way my hairdresser would cut my hair.

I was so proud of what I was able to accomplish in a full hour I, shortly after I sent Ben an email, called my mom, let people at work know – it’s awesome!  And I saved so much time and money that I had to share!

So this year, it’s a little less about organizing and fixing the house (thankfully much of that is done because we are selling the house).  So this year, the focus is more on me.  This is going to be much much harder.
So here is this year’s list:

Ok – step one is done: I’ve put it in writing…I’ve made it loud and clear…I’ve made a commitment. Whew – I’ve put writing this down off for 4 days, so here it is…

Now the plan:

• To reduce my waist size from a 27 to 24, which is what I was in college, is going to take exercise and diet. 
  As a result, I’ve create weekly menus that focus on 50% protein (minimum of 40% protein), 20% fat and 30% carbs using myrecipes.com.   So far I’m really impressed with myrecipes.com!  I’ve been able to search for “High Protein” meals and it gave me a nice list, from which I could save the recipes to my account, then create a Menu, and it would generate a shopping list for me.  Pretty Awesome!  I created 3 weeks of menus in about an hour and a half.
  Here are the menus :

• Week 1

  Rice Pudding

  Pan-Grilled Salmon with Pineapple Salsa

  Flank Steak with Hot Peanut Sauce

  Fish Tacos with Lime-Cilantro Crema

  Crustless Broccoli and Cheese Quiche

• Week 2

  Burger With Mushrooms and RadicchioSesame Shrimp Salad

  Whispery Eggs with Crabmeat and Herbs

  Orange Halibut with Quinoa

  Ham and Cheese Breakfast Sandwich with Mango Chutney

  Sautéed Turkey Cutlets with Orange-Cranberry Pan Sauce

   

• Week 3

  Stir-Fried Shrimp with Spicy Orange Sauce
  Bistro-Style Sirloin with New PotatoesCola- Marinated Flank Steak

  Southwestern Omelet

  Chicken Breast Fillets with Red and Yellow Peppers

As I create menus I’ll add them to my Pinterest Board “New Years Resolution Tools” feel free to follow.

• Exercise: Since my role at work has changed significantly i have very very little time for myself (work-life-balance is completely out of whack) and I haven’t been to the gym since August.  So I canceled my gym membership (might as well save $30) this month and I’m switching it up to working out at home.  Here are some sources I’m using:
  • Jillian Michaels – 30 Day Shred: So far I like it!  It takes 20 minutes and you go all out for 20 minutes.
  • Pop Pilates videos that are available online by www.blogilates.com
  • Zumba for fun – which I have the DVDs for that and was an instructor

•  No Alcohol until 2/14 -  this ties in with the waist goal.  I find that when I drink, I snack and I can’t have just one glass of wine, one leads to another.  So, I’m simply going to stop until 2/14 when Ben and I go to the Melting Pot for Valentines Day.  This sounds pretty simple right?  In theory, it is simple, but in reality it isn’t.  To me having a glass of wine is something I did when I watched TV or read a book…which is my down time and helped me relax.  Now I have to completely redo my habits to find another means to relax. So I’ve taken a couple of steps:
  •  I bought “Tension Tamer” tea to drink instead to help relax.
  • Change to where I watch TV:   I’m watching it in our bedroom instead of the living room – for some reason when I watch TV in the living room I want to have a glass of wine, but I don’t have the same urge in our bedroom…weird…
    I think I may also have to stop watching Cougar Town, they drink wine and I want to have a glass too…
  • I’m switching to reading magazines for a while and then re-introduce books.
  • Another thing I’m going to start doing on my stressful work days, where I either get mad or want to celebrate, I’m going to play games with the family.  We started with Twister – that is such a fun game, kids loved it, Ben and my muscles were screaming with the awkward yoga-like poses. It really put all of us in a great mood!

So that’s the plan.  So far I’m on Day 4 and all of the above is working for me and I feel great!  Now the trick is to keep it up….wish me luck!

What New Years Resolution did you make?

That’s what our Elf, Lily, did…he (yes, he) jumped into Em’s sparkily pink ball and sat and stared himself into a stupor until he got caught.  The neat thing about this position: the kids were able to pick him up and carry him around without actually touching him (LilMan had breakfast with Lily).

He’s lucky he’s cute or I’d boot his butt back to the North Pole!    The kids got a kick out of mom being so dramatic about these yummy treats we got from Costco. Seriously – MINE – back-off!!