I could see broken glass and dresses all over the floor here.


They worked all night boarding up the broken windows.



There were cars stacked on top of each other here yesterday!



We didn't even see these workmen on the roof when we drove by!



Mr. Wayne Covil, our local newsman at work. Rob knows him from the racetrack and we waved as we drove by. The local news people did a great job reporting the latest news and sharing pictures of the tornado damage!

The tornado hit the Target Store shopping mall, then skipped over and hit this pool store and carpet business, doing even more damage. It ripped off most of the roof here!

Tornadoes!!! ~ Three of them hit Virginia yesterday evening and one was way too close for comfort! Colonial Heights is our nearby town and we have relatives living there. Rob and I drove in today and got these photos. Thank goodness, nobody was killed but about 200 people had cuts and scrapes. We just had heavy downpour here at the house with black skies and didn't even know the tornado was hitting in town!

This tornado was bad enough but nothing like the F-4 one that hit our area back in '93. I actually heard the sound it made that day since it was hitting the old town area 2 blocks from where I was working that day! Wow, I'll never forget that sound even though I heard it from a distance...like a combination wind tunnel and truck. I remember asking someone else if they could hear the weird sounding truck out there. A couple of minutes before, like dummies, we were all looking outside the 2nd floor window oohing and ahhing and looking at the street signs flipping back and forth, having no idea or warning that a tornado was 2 blocks away! I found an old Youtube video that someone had made of the destruction from that day in '93. You may want to turn your speakers down if you don't like loud rock music, but the photos are incredible.

http://video.aol.com/video-detail/tornado-1993-virginia/1967926416?icid=acvsv4

It tore through the Wal-mart killing 4 people that day! Sigh, Mother Nature can sure wallop us sometimes!!

Thoughts and prayers going out to the people down in Suffolk, VA. They got hit a whole lot worse than we did yesterday! :( I think I'm still feeling a little 'shellshocked' today, this brought back memories from '93!

'Tiny Pastoral'

and

'Warm Horizon'~

I've been fiddling with these two ACEO size ones this week and finally got them finished today. Somtimes I just can't get in the mood to paint and have to let things 'stew' in my mind for a few days. Anyways, these 2 little ones are acrylics on watercolor paper and I even put what is supposed to be teeny tiny cows in the first painting.

I want to thank my good friend Kim from Creating Space for awarding me the 'Excellent Blogger' Award. Kim, thank you so very much!! Now I'm to pass on the award and it's just too hard to pick from so many excellent bloggers, but to recieve the Excellent Blogger award, I picked:

1. Babs and her Off the Wall Art blog, she is a truly amazing artist and dear friend.

2. Mother of Invention and her Spilling Out blog. Check out her wonderful photos and Friday poetry.

3. Angela from Angela's Art Diary. She's a very dedicated and talented young artist.

4. T.L. West and her Epiphany Art blog. She is a very talented artist with lovely works showcased in her blog.

I believe you can pick 10 people to pass this award on to so I'll have to think of more to pick in the next few days.

Two New ACEOs ~ 'Stop the Snakes' (above) and 'Fairy Skirt' (bottom 2 photos showing the effect of the pearl iridescent paint) I painted both of these in acrylics on 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 140 lb. watercolor paper. These 2 are available in Ebay.

It has done nothing but rain here in Virginia the last couple days and we may have to build an ark if it keeps up much longer! I'm really thankful though that our house isn't that close to the lake although there are flash flood warnings in the area. I hope everyone had a great weekend! Soggy here!

Teddy Bear Teaparty with...flower seeds that look like teeny tiny oreo cookies!! My dear friend and talented artist Babs from Off the Wall Art has the most wonderful plant seeds that she has been sharing. They come up and bloom all summer long and produce 'magic' been pods later on. She mailed me some and mentioned that they look like tiny oreo cookies and they really do! They are the cutest seeds, so of course I had to set 'em up with my minerature teddybear teapot set for a photo shoot!!! :) I am going to plant them just as soon as the weather stays warm and share photos of them as they are growing. Thanks Babs!!

WHAT AN EXCITING WEEK! ~ Kim, a very talented artist, has been doing a series of interviews with other artists and I had the honor of being interviewed by her this week! You can visit her blog and see the interview in her blog at Creating Space Thank you Kim!!

Old Knarly Apple Trees ~ I took these pictures several years ago and they're just bursting into full bloom again at the back of our yard!

They say that laughter is good medicine so here's a dose for today. Check out this walking banana, this is a short clip but soo funny!

When Good Bananas Go Bad

I feel VERY honored and excited because a dear friend and amazing artist, Babs from OFF THE WALL ART has awarded me the ARTE y Pico Blog Award!! Thank you Babs!!! :)

The following 5 rules are attached to this award:

1. You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and that also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his/her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her/him the award itself.

4. The Award winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte Y Pico" blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5. To show these rules.

I have selected the following five deserving bloggers:

A Planet Named Janet
Check our Janet's 'Innocent Spam' art and wonderful Gocco prints!

Jafabrit's Art
You'll find stunning and fascinating artworks in Jafabrits blog!

Art166
Wendy J. St Christopher showcases some gorgeous art in her blog!

Colorado Art Studio
Cynthia makes the most exquisite ceramic work in her studio!

The Itinerant Artist
Check out the very talented artist Diane Cutter and her stunning art!

detail

Web of Innocence ~ I just finished this one and it's 9 x 12 inches on 140 lb watercolor paper. I'm still using that tube of pearl iridescent acrylics, I love the silvery reflectiveness of it! It seems to dry a lot faster than the regular acrylics so I have a wet cloth handy just in case I don't like how something looks. You have to rush to wipe it off quickly or it's dry! We have had almost a week of leaden gray skys, rain, thunderstorms, drizzle, cool temps etc. and more of the same tomorrow. I think we've had enough April showers, I'm ready for the May flowers and some sunshine now!

I always wondered what an 'Etsy Mini' was and discovered it was easy to set up in my blog in the sidebar! The only tricky part is changing the code in your blog template to insert the Etsy code. All that tiny print made me wish my eyes were the way they used to be!

Playing with Light ~ 'Tree of Lights' and 'Bridge of Lights' As long as I can remember, I've been fascinated with 'sparkly' objects such as prisms and crystals. I even have a collection of them hanging in the kitchen window where they reflect the sunlight and make little dancing rainbows. I guess that's why I've been experimenting lately with my acrylic paintings. I've been picking out little fake gemstones from old jewelry, using the reflective pearl acrylic paints and even using gloss medium to glue in crystal glitter in some paintings. It's lots of fun! The two paintings above are both 8 x 10 inches painted in acrylics on stretched canvas. On the tree I glued in some crystal glitter up in the leaf area and some tiny gemstones near the bottom, so it's all sparkly now! I had posted the tree a while back but always felt like I wanted to work on it some more. On the bridge I used an old strip of gemstones that I had taken off of a pair of old canvas flipflop sandals. I always knew I would use those in a painting someday!