Hearts and Jewels ~ I've been painting some little ones lately and this one is acrylics on unstretched canvas and it's 4 x 4 inches.

We had a pretty strong storm move through last night and the electricity went off at 7:30 p.m. (darnit missed Survivor). It didn't come back on until 6 this morning! The power was off all over the area and I counted 11 of the power company trucks on my way home from work today. Those guys had probably worked around the clock getting everyones electricity back on. I would like to salute those workers and say "Thanks for turning the lights back on!"

Candelabra ~ I'm still doing digi manips of that last big painting I did in acrylics. I still can't figure out if that painting needs something more and I'm experimenting with it in photoshop in the meantime and getting some good manips.

I stand corrected! ~ About the bees commonly known as Japanese hornets re the post below. I just read every page in the website which I linked to in the post below and it seems (I had no idea!!) that these are actually 'good' bugs! It is even illegal to kill them in Germany. It seems these bees have a very bad reputation because of their size and the extremely scary look of them. They are peaceful and non-aggresive unless their nest is messed with, and beneficial because they kill massive amounts of flies and bad bugs. They do have a painful sting (I could image that as I watched it violently stinging my kitchen curtains today) but no more toxic than a regular bee. I wondered why there seemed to be so many less pesky flies and bugs this summer and now I have my answer. These large bees have been hunting them on a huge scale and taking them to their nest which must be somewhere nearby, probably out at the back of the yard where we have 2 old apple trees. I don't want to kill one now but OMG please don't let another one get inside my house LOL! :D My husband got back tonight so I'll let him herd the next one outside without harming it.

Hornets: Gentle Giants! ~ eeeek yea right! Well anyways that's what the website link below says about them. There are some good (scary!) photos of them in this site.

This morning I got up, made my coffee and had just poured a cup when I happened to look up above the window by the kitchen sink and saw one of these monstrosities crawling along the ceiling. After almost fainting, I grabbed my trusty can of Raid flying insect killer and I swear I don't like killing anything but this humongous striped black and yellow killer was in MY HOUSE! So I creeped up (gritting my teeth and being brave) and sprayed up at him and ran like the hounds of Hell were after me to the safety of the room where I paint, shoving a towel under the door to make sure he couldn't get in under the crack and get me for revenge. I was the only one at home since my husband was out of town at the NHRA race event up in Pennsylvania. Whew I could have used him for this mission.

Well at least I got some painting done while the Raid was doing it's job (I thought) so I came out about a half hour later and the giant carcass was NOWHERE to be found. I looked through every nook and cranny in the kitchen for about 2 hours and finally gave up, thinking he had croaked somewhere and I was in for a nasty surprise later. I was googling hornets about 2 hours later when I heard an ominous loud zzzzzz over to the right of me. Well after searching for another hour my cat finally helped me find him. He had fallen down into my potted mother-in-law's tongue plant and was wedged under one of the plants. All I could see was his huge yellow face and one spastic black leg moving. WHEW OK so I carefully drug the whole plant stand outside. because he was still alive when it was getting dark this evening and he had somehow unwedged himself and I never did see if he was still down in the tangled mess at the bottom or got away to go terrorize someone else. I guess that plant will be spending the winter outside cause it's sure not coming back in here!!

http://www.vespa-crabro.de/hornets.htm

"Candle Works" ~ A digital work...

Well my good friend Cyn tagged me in her blog this week so I have to share 8 facts about myself then pick someone else to tag! OK here goes:

1. I was born in Dearborn, Michigan.

2. I served 4 years in the U.S.A.F. back in '76 - '80 and worked on the Minuteman missiles out in Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. (Wow still can't belive I did that LOL!)

3. For 16 years I pasted up newspaper pages and was a journeyman printer.

4. Cats are my favorite animals but I love dogs too.

5. I've always been fascinated with drawing and art. I could get lost in drawing something abstracted.

6. I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and lived about 1 mile from where the Ky. Derby run of the roses is.

7. I actually like brussel sprouts and broccoli.

8. I'm a U.K. Ky Wildcats fan and love watching the NCAA when they are winning.

OK now I have to tag someone to share 8 facts about theirself in their blog and I pick:
W.J. ! LOL gotcha! Check out her amazing beautiful art in her blog: http://art166.blogspot.com/

...and a little photoshop magic to see how I would like my painting to look when it's done!

"Puddin's toes" ~ I did a pencil sketch on unstretched canvas of the photo I got of my cat lying on top of the clothes dryer with her big back toes stretched out (digital photos of her below). Tonight I got out my acrylic paints did some work on it. I just had to get those cute big pink toes painted first but the rest will be worked on in the next few days. She just swished by my feet heading to her catfood. She's a sweetie and I don't know yet if I'll be able to put this one up for sale unless I do another of her to keep!

Bridge of Sighs ~ I did more work on this one and I think it's mostly finished now. I think I am going to paint some more aceos this weekend. An update on my Mom - she is still in the hospital and we are going to have to put her in a nursing home which breaks our hearts. She's not able to live alone anymore and I'm hoping that it will be good for her to be around some people her own age. My sister has her on a waiting list for one in the country that her husband's grandmother is living at so hopefully it won't be as hard on my Mom since there are people living there that she knows. It's a horribly hard decision. The doctor recommended an Alzheimer's floor (locked floor) but we're hoping we can avoid that.

Pile 'o Pumpkins


Mr. Evil Pumpkin


Butterfly Fantasy

ACEOs are so fun to paint! I did three more of them tonight and I'm feeling in the fall season/Halloween mood. These are all done in acrylics on medium weight canvas and they are each 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches. I'll be putting them up for auction at www.artbyus.com. A link to my auctions is down in the sidebar under my profile in the 'myartbyus' link. I guess I should mention that when I'm going to put them up for auction. One of these days I'm going to try the big E auction site.

Where the Road Ends ~ WIP (an update) - I'm still working on this painting and I hope it's almost finished now. I think I'm going to try and put more contrast in the sky and get rid of some of the white dots in the water spout/tree weird thing. I'm still not sure what that thing is. I just started painting this purely from my imagination with no kind of reference and sometimes I find I am surprised at what comes out.
This has been a sad and tough week. First the death of Steve Irwin (OMG so sad! we loved that guy!) and then I found out my Mom is in the early stages of Alzheimer's Disease. She is getting ready to turn 80 years old in a couple of weeks and she has had a good life with loving family. She is having confusion about dates and remembering things right now.

The many faces of Puddin' the cat ~
1. The evil look. When are you going to quit taking pictures of that boring fruit and pay attention to me?! (maybe if I stare at you long enough with this mean look...)
2. Athlete or mountain climber look. eek what's that noisy monster doing down there and when's it going back to it's lair?! (vacuum cleaner, notice cobwebs)
3. You can detour around me look. So what if I'm stretched out in the main path in the middle of the kitchen floor?! (My husband loves this one)
4. Grumpy Scholar. Her thoughtful but tired and annoyed look. Why is all that junk up there when I'm ready for my nap?!





Well since I've been posting pictures of my cat Puddin' I may as well share some other funny ones I've taken of her the last couple of years. She's a ham for the camera! Then I am going to get off here and do some painting! A huge thanks to Janvangogh (her very cool blog link: http://aplanetnamedjanet.blogspot.com/) for sharing the link to a very talented and funny author Dav Pilkey, who wrote the book Kat Kong. I've just got to read this book! LOL on his 'special notes' in this link:http://www.pilkey.com/bookview.php?id=14, which inspired me share these other photos. I hope you enjoy them!

Puddintoes ~ Puddin' is the name of my cat and here she is all comfy cozy with her big toes all stretched out laying on top of the clothes dryer. She was enjoying watching me while I was on the computer and having a catnap. When we first adopted her a couple of years ago I thought she had too many toes because her feet seemed to look abnornally large but I found out that she just has really big claws! I soon discovered not to play wiggle footsie under the blanket with her (like I used to do with my last cat) after she stuck her claws through about 3 layers of blankets into my feet! But she's the sweetest, gentle, most intelligent cat I've probably ever had. Sadly, I lost my last kitty to leukemia before we adopted Puddin'.