'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!

Sepia Dreams ~ This is acrylics on watercolor paper, 5 x 7 inches. I sketched the arch shape in on this one a couple of weeks ago when I painted the 2 Southwest ACEOs with arches (a couple of posts down). The other night I was trying to get inspiration for another painting and grabbed this one and just started painting to see where it would go. It's funny that this one has a totally different feeling from the other two I painted! That red oxide on top isn't this bright in the actual painting. Do you ever just start painting/creating and let it go where it will without a real plan? It's a good creativity boost for me! I hope everyone has a really great weekend!

Misty Blue Morn ~ This painting is 9 x 12 inches, acrylics on Canson 140 lb. watercolor paper. I don't know why I painted a 'fall tree' near the end of winter but it just sort of flowed out that way! I hope youall got to enjoy the beauty of the full eclipse of the moon tonight...I did in between the clouds and it was glorious looking!!

Blue Moon Night and Twining Tree ~ I just painted this one but I think I'm going to do more to it before I call it finished. I've painted several in the blue moon series and really enjoy doing them...plus the twist on lid on my phthalo blue cracked the other day so I need to used up that blue anyways! This one is 11 x 14 on a stretched canvas and done in acrylics.

Tales from the warm, sunny southwest ~ Well, actually I must be dreaming/wishing I was really there! I haven't been out there in over 20 years but I remember the beauty of the landscape and would love to visit again! These are the ACEO size paintings in acrylics I just finished and I was pleasantly surprised with them. I had no idea how they were going to turn out but the more I worked on them, the 'sunnier' they started to get and the more I was happy with the way they turned out!

I hope everyone has a

Very Happy Valentine's Day!

New ACEOs ~ I just finished these four ACEOs and they're acrylics on 140 lb. watercolor paper. The titles for the top 2 are 'Rainbow Dancer' and 'Washday'. I used a new technique for these two. I watered down the acrylics to use like watercolors and let the pools of color spread out and dry. Then I looked at the shapes and used my imagination to 'see' the pictures that were formed in the dried paint. The bottom two and top one are more fantasy trees but I haven't thought of a title for them yet.

Some New Small Ones ~ I've been painting some ACEO size ones this week. These are acrylics on watercolor paper.

Did you ever wonder what it would feel like to ride in one of the Navy's Blue Angel jets?! I was visiting my family website today and found this awesome link which made me very sure I would never, ever want to ride in one. The reporter that has the camera on him passed out three times! eeek, let me out of this thing. I actually got dizzy just watching the video! The link is below:

blue angels

Red Wave Blue Bubbles and a Blue Vintage Mustang ~ I painted another larger one and it's acrylics on 11 x 14 x 1 1/2 inches deep stretched canvas. I see kind of a glare on this so I'm going to try taking it outside to get a better picture tomorrow. Today, me and my camera were 'employed' by my husband to get lots of pictures of his 'baby'. He is really into the classic cars, especially ones with 'hemis' or 'mopars' and I still don't know what that means LOL except they are loud, fast, and look neat!! He restored this Mustang and we took it up the road to the lake today so I could get some photos of it. He is into fast cars and I'm into art so that's a great combination! :) I liked the way the colors in my painting and his car looked together!

Hoo Me? ~ The other day I was up in the attic rummaging around for something and found an old art kit I had given my daughter many years ago. I found some oil pastels in there, and having no idea of how to actually use them, I started drawing on a piece of watercolor paper with them. They are almost like regular crayons which you can smear around with your fingers! I made a little owl which is 3 x 5 inches and hey I'm kind of attached to him now hehe! I'm finally starting to feel human again after being run over by the flu. I think next year I may try the flu shot!

'Dreamcatcher', the painting pictured below is now gone. A friend of my daughter's boyfriend saw some of my paintings at their house and wanted a 'weird' one...so I was happy to sell that one to him! I think I may try one similiar to it in blue!

FLU SEASON! ~ Yuck, both my husband, Rob and I have been soo clobbered by the flu this past week. I have to say it felt sort of like being run over by a mac truck for about two days! High fever, chills and I won't go into the rest of the gory details! We are both feeling sort of human now and I have really missed painting. I did paint this in acrylics but it's only the beginning of something and has a long way to go. I just noticed how washed out the photo is because I took it inside with a flash. It has been raining most of the day so I couldn't get a decent pic of it outside.

Inside Photo

Outside photo

Pink and Silver ~ Well I haven't named these yet but I finished these 3 new ACEO trees today and I did them in acrylics and used the iridescent pearl again (I love that stuff!). I took some photos of them inside with the flash going off and then took some outside on the deck, which was in the shade with bright light and no flash. Now I have to decide which pics turned out best and can't decide, grr!

I hope everyone is having a great day! I think we're going to go out to eat tonight so that'll be fun. Nothing fancy, but yummy!

Dreamcatcher ~ This is 11 x 14 inches on a stretched canvas. I got up my nerve to try another abstract on a large canvas and before I knew it, I had a 'mud' painting, arrgh! While it was all still wet, I grabbed a pointy toothpick and pallette knife and started scratching, swirling and scraping the paint and finally ended up with this one after applying some of the crimson acrylics. I think I may keep it hanging on the bedroom wall to 'catch' bad dreams hehe!