No, I have not retired from blogging nor the blogosphere! I just have too much going on and too many projects to mind at the moment! However, all is well in my world. I appreciate all the emails I've received lately to make sure that I'm still alive and that no woe has befallen me!

I want to take a moment to introduce a new bloggin' buddy to y'all! I hope you'll stop by and say hello to Martha of Marthann's Musings! Martha has recently retired from teaching elementary school and is quite the accomplished quilter and artist! She live in Liberty, Missouri and is in the process of creating her new life, exploring new avenues and different art forms, and having quite the adventure! I do hope you'll stop by and say hello!

Chris and I slipped away to spend a few hours at the beach yesterday, hoping the winds would blow away some of the dust and cobwebs from our too busy lives......


We watched the Brown Pelican dive several more times, but he was too far away for any of the photos to come out clearly. It was a beautiful day - the first warm one in over two weeks. A very welcome change. The clouds you see in the top photos are a front that was moving in late yesterday afternoon - to bring us more rain. I was able to get in a little bit of sketching, but the day was mostly about enjoying time away and time together.

To those of you who paint with such freedom and abandon, with paint drips, splatters, mingling and backruns, you are my heroes!

This watercolor postcard was painted from life. I decided I wanted to just paint - no lead, no drawing, just me and my brush and the paint. I let the colors run. I let the water fall. I let it run and mingle.

Not sure this is a successful sketch, but it is a success in that I managed to stay out of the way and let the paint be the boss.

Maybe after a few 100 tries, I'll have a more successful end product. Until then, I think I'll just enjoy the process.

COMPUTERY: PAGES - A NEW BLOGGER WIDGET

Woohoo!! Finally! Christmas has finally been packed away and safely deposited back into the attic for the next 10 months. Yes, I know it's February. We had a running debate for several weeks about just leaving it up as fast as January flew through here!

It never fails, though, that something, an ornament, a pillow, or a piece of greenery, will hide out in the wide open until we get everything put away, and then say "hey, what about me?!"

So a few years back, I decided I would keep one ornament out. I would deliberately not put something away in an effort to stop this nonsense. It hasn't worked. Instead of one, I just have two things out. But that's okay 'cause he's cute, he's happy, he doesn't ask for anything, and he doesn't give me a hard time about anything. (Secretly, I think he's just delighted not to be stuffed back in a box for 11 months!)

Below is an image of my “stealth” sketching kit. This is what travels with me wherever I may go. I have found that when I least expect it, I either have time or exciting subject matter to paint, and you know what they say about not planning and planning to fail! Gotta be prepared!!

If you look at the lower left corner of the image, you'll see my business card. That will give you a sense of scale for everything else in the photo. It all fits into the teal green bag. The palette is a lip gloss/make-up palette about the size of a credit card. It's approximately 3/16" thick.

Once empty, I cleaned the lipstick residue out with a Q-Tip and a LOT of soap and very hot water. I also had to use a degreaser. After it dried, I taped the top edges with masking tape and sprayed the top with white enamel gloss paint. Several coats later, I had a white mixing area where the mirror used to be. (Note: I did not remove the mirror. I painted it and the surrounding frame.)

I then put the colors that I use most frequently into the palette: azo yellow, indian yellow, scarlet pyrrol, quin. red, magenta, dioxazine purple, ultramarine blue, raw sienna, burnt umber, and sap green. These pigments are all from M. Graham. There is an eleventh color in the lower left corner. That is shadow violet by Daniel Smith. The small sketchbook is a moleskine. It will be my last as the paper is NOT my favorite to work on and life is waaaaaay too short to paint on lousy paper.

If you are inclined to make a palette similar to this one, check out your own make up drawer or the local dollar store. They often have lip and eye shadow palettes that are perfect for this type of retrofit. If you can, use or purchase a powdered eye shadow palette vs. the lipstick palette. The eye shadow is much easier to remove than the lipstick/gloss, and the lip palettes are a bear to get clean! You really want to make sure you get that glass out as it has oils and/or petroleum in it.

Make sure to use gloss enamel paint and use several coats. If your palette becomes stained or scratched, just repaint it. I have found that the size of the palette and sketchbook lend themselves nicely to painting people in food courts or mass transit systems without others being aware of what you're doing. So, toss the stealth palette, a sketchbook and a waterbrush in your pocket and you go sketch!

The call went out and you've responded in a HUGE way - we have finished up with