Somewhere in Kentucky with beautiful sky and bluegrass

Scenic view in Virginia near the Blue Ridge Pkwy

Me (left), my cousin, and little sister

above, sunset views driving through Charleston, West Virginia and traveling through the WV mountains on the interstate

The special old rocking chair which my Grandfather made before I was born. Lots of love in that old chair and the woodgrain is showing through on the seat because so many of us have sat in it through the years. I feel close to my Mom, Dad, and Papaw just sitting in it! It brings back so many memories.

Twinkle toes taking a top 'o the dryer nap ~ Well her feet are the biggest on any cat I've ever owned and she loves to nap on top of the dryer sometimes. Puddin' (my cat's real name) is a big old fat girl who stays up late with me at night and sometimes helps me with my painting.

It was so good to get back home from our trip to Kentucky and I have some photos which I'll post later. It was great to see my sister Betsy and we visited the cemetary to place flowers on Mom and Dad's resting place. I brought back some things things that Mom had owned including the big old rocking chair that Mom's Father made before I was born. I can sit in that old chair and just feel the ones who sat in her so many times...my Dad with his stacks of Progressive Farmer magazines and chewing tobacco spitcan (ick), my Mom who sat in it for so many years holding us in her lap, even my Papaw who passed away long ago. he would take out his little tobacco pouch with a slice of apple in it, rolling his own cigarettes. Sometimes something handed down generation after generation takes on a little piece of the soul and spirit of the family who owned it. That's how I feel about that old chair.

NEW PAINTINGS ~ This is two in acrylics I've been working on this week. Kim, looking at the awesome black/white pen doodles which you recently shared in your blog got me to thinking about the pen doodle I did last year. I did something different with it the other day. I printed it out on 140 lb. watercolor paper and then painted the colors in with acrylics. It was lots of fun, almost like a coloring book. :) The bottom painting is on a stretched canvas and still a WIP. I haven't titled it yet but I think the title will come to me as I do some more work on it when we get back from our trip.

WE ARE HEADING FOR KENTUCKY tomorrow morning and we will be back sometimes Tuesday evening. It's been kind of hectic with packing, washing clothes and getting ready for the trip. I plan on taking lots of photos traveling through those beautiful mountains. I'll miss youall and see ya when we get back!

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!

'Tall Trees' ~ This is two ACEOs I finished today. I've been really getting the urge to paint something larger but I need to buy some stretched canvas at Michaels first. I got a sales paper this weekend and they have a sale on all the art supplies!

What kind of fools would get married on April Fool's Day?! Well, my husband and I did 22 years ago and we're celebrating our anniversary tomorrow! :) We'll probably go out and eat at Outback for a special occasion. When we got married so long ago, we had fun with it because our friends thought that we were playing an April Fool's joke on them when we told them we went and got married!

Candyland scapes 1 & 2 ~ These are both acrylics on watercolor paper, ACEO size. I've been busy the last few days! I did some painting of a different sort the day before yesterday. I painted the exterior of all nine of the windows in our house and was climbing up and down a ladder most of the day. My husband was inside fixing the latches on the windows at the same time. He would probably laugh (or kill me for telling on him LOL) but at one point, I heard him tapping on the window inside and looked to see he was mooning me. Yep, he has a weird sense of humor and it's too bad that someone wasn't walking by when he did that! :) :) I'd never let him live it down LOL!

Yesterday we had a whole new heating system/AC installed since our old one almost caught the house on fire the other day! The new one feels great, aaahhh!! I hope everyone has a great spring weekend!!

2 New ACEOs ~ 'Glow Moon' (left) and 'Silver Pearl Night' (on right). I love it when the moon is full and glowing so wonderfully up in the sky! It kicks my creative urges into high gear and I just have to paint something! Here's 2 little ones, acrylics on watercolor paper. I used gel medium to put crystal glitter on the moon in 'Glow Moon' and I painted both moons with pearl iridescent acrylics. I'll be putting these in my Etsy store tonight.

Spirit Woods ~ This is acrylics on a 6 x 6 inch stretched canvas.

Rob (dh) and I had a real scare very early Wednesday morning! Around 5 a.m., we were both awakened from deep sleep by a steady high pitched beeping. We were groggy and confused and we had no idea what the irritating sound was until we both stumbled, half asleep into the hallway. After I realized it was the smoke detecter going off, I thought it was malfunctioning and felt like throwing the thing out the window till we both started smelling acrid smoke or something burning! Rob realized that it was coming through the heating vents and I was panicking and getting ready to call the fire department. It seems our old central air/electric heat unit had overheated and almost caught on fire and it probably would have if the smoke detector hadn't woke us up! I shudder to think what would have happened if that smoke detector wasn't recently installed on the ceiling in the hallway and I'm ashamed to say that I let the battery go dead for over a year before fixing the thing recently. I know that I'll test that battery weekly from now on, it may have saved our lives!!

Remember the Wind ~ I'm really happy with the way this one finally turned out. I had been working on it on and off the last week or so and sometimes I take a while to nitpick on one I'm painting. This is acrylics on a 9 x 12 inch piece of 140 lb. watercolor paper. I used the pearl iridescent paint on the swirls in the sky, blossoms and where the highlights in the grass is. I took two pictures of it with the light hitting it differently to show how the iridescent paint looks.

Blue Reflections ~ I just edited my post to add this one too. This one started as a big mess but it looks lots better (I hope) after I worked on it some more. This is 8 x 11 inches, acrylics on watercolor paper. It's going to rain all night here but at least the winds are not too bad, thank goodness!

Old photos and treasures found! ~ I was doing some spring cleaning and found some old pics of my daughter when she was little. I remember the day she had put on her 'dress up' play skirt, little black dress shoes and tied a kite to her back. She was running in circles and pretending she could fly! I love those memories and old photos! Also, one day she brought home this big funny face made out of construction paper that she had colored and made in school. I always loved that big face that I nicknamed it 'Mr. Funny Face' and had him decorating the fridge for years!

I want to congratulate my friend Babs, who is a very talented artist! She has gone and opened up her brand new Etsy shop!!! Woohoo Babs, way to go and I know your store will be a great success!!! You can visit her store here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=96818

Cities of Destruction ~ This is acrylics and 11 x 14 x 1 1/2 inches on a stretched canvas. I love painting themes in a 'darker' mood sometimes and this one sure is different than the ones I've been doing lately! I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Cherry Blossoms and Pearls ~ I did finally finish the 3 ACEOs and I listed this one in Ebay tonight. The other 2 photos were blurry so I'm retaking them tomorrow. I may list one of these in Etsy too.

Hot Ice and Spice ~ I know, what a weird title! I couldn't think of a good title for this so I guess I'll stick with it unless I can think of something better. I was getting tired of painting pink trees and just grabbed this piece of 7 x 9 inch, 140 lb. watercolor paper and painted this one fairly fast last night. You'll probably laugh when I tell how I made the outlines of the 'ice cubes'. I took the top off of an old tube of lipstick and dipped it in paint to stamp them on. Then today I made a wash of the pearl iridescent paint and painted the inside of the cubes! Fun, fun!

Pink Spring Trees ~ I was in the mood to paint the feeling of spring so all the trees are pink! :) They sort of remind me of cotton candy! The large one on the right is mostly finished but the others still need more work. We had an awful wind and rain storm last night and I thought it was going to blow in the kitchen windows a couple of times, yikes! The wind did pick up my heavy rocking chair, which I had wrapped in plastic, and turned it over and blew it clear across the deck! My cat Puddin' didn't like the sound of the wind whistling and 'wooooing'. She kept looking at the windows with the weirdest look on her face. I think March is coming in like a lion this year!