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...what life is supposed to be without our mother. She requested graveside services only for herself and we went along with her wishes. The services were poignant, sad, beautiful, meaningful, lonely (even with so many surrounding us), but we all survived it. The celebration of her life which followed was all of the above but with some funny stories, as well. My mother's pastor passed around a microphone for anyone who wanted to say anything about my mom and, surprisingly many did have something to say. This was all recorded and will be copied onto CD's for my sister, brother and I. There were some sweet and inspirational things said, as well as funny stories, so it will be a treasure for us to keep.

Onward and upward....

My mother...

...has passed from this life to be with her Heavenly Father last night. By Saturday night, following her Friday surgery, it appeared that her kidneys were failing and  her condition began to decline. Sunday and yesterday had us seeing her go into and out of consciousness, she seemed to have one foot here in this world and one in the after-life. My sister, brother and I made the difficult decision to remove the meds that were only artificially maintaining her blood pressure in the afternoon and she passed away last night at 11:30. We feel her fast passing validated our decision to not keep her with us artificially as that would not have been her wish. 

As I figure out how to go through the rest of my life as an orphan, I remain thankful for the family I had and that we got to have my mom with us for almost 92 years, and that she was independent and mostly healthy up until the end.

God is good.....Susan

All is Well...

...although it was another blip on our family's medical radar. My mother, pictured below on Thanksgiving Day, fell and broke her hip Thursday afternoon. Late yesterday she had a total hip replacement, so we had a late night at the hospital. She is doing very well for a 91-year-old, as she says "I am a tough Norwegian"!

Thursday afternoon I started a full sheet painting of Canyon de Chelly. I covered the entire sheet with watercolor, but am considering what I have done so far as the underpainting as I am not so pleased with it. I am considering using either gouache or acrylic paint for the detailing and highlighting. Might be fun, anyway, to try something different along with the watercolor. As soon as I take a photo of what I have done so far, I will post it. But, it is to be considered a work in progress!

Four Generations

My hope for you all is that you had as nice a Thanksgiving as I did! Here you see my mother, my son, me and The Precious Two..Aubrey and Zane. After the rough beginning Zane had it was a true blessing to have him here and hold him as the joyful little person he is today.

Aubrey and Zane's "other" grandparents were here from Oklahoma and we had such a wonderful family day. Lots of good food, fun and fellowship...it doesn't get any better than that!

Five-year Blogoversary!

Yup, I just realized that I past my fifth year blogoversary without noting it happening! I was reading Rhonda Carpenter's blog where she mentioned that today is her fifth year anniversary, and I went to the archives to see just exactly when I submitted my first tentative blog entry. Yup, it was on October 11, 2006! This blog, as well as the others I follow almost daily, have become an important part of my personal culture...art-wise, soul-wise and every-other-wise I can think of! I just love following along on the artistic journeys of others as well as getting a peek into their thoughts and lives as we grow together.

Thanks to Google for making this an easy-to-do and important part of our lives!

Chinle Color

Canyon de Chelly is part of the Navajo town of Chinle. In the town itself, all of the cottonwoods were at their peak, as opposed to those at the bottom of the canyon, which were just approaching that phase. These old cottonwoods sure know how to put on a display, there were groves of them around Chinle that seemed to turn the whole atmosphere golden while driving through.

Another Pano

This is yet another pano I have stitched together of Canyon de Chelly last week. It was from a series of seven photos, the color that day was just magnificent.

Beautiful Deer

While driving around the rim of Canyon de Chelly, we turned into a long drive into an overlook. This deer was crossing the road ahead of us, Tom slowed down as it disappeared into the brush. But, when we got to where we had last seen it, she was just standing there waiting for us. He rolled down his window and I shot this through the open window.

While I am hardly a wildlife painter, this one is calling to me because of the lovely light and dark contrasts, plus this is a beautiful animal.

Canyon de Chelly Panorama 1

We took a six-day trip to the Gallup, NM area and just got back yesterday afternoon. I still have lots to unpack from the motorhome, but I just couldn't wait to stitch together one of the panorama shots I took. This one is a ten-photo pano and shows the beauty of the canyon floor and walls. We have been there a few times before, but never in the Fall, and I am so happy we got to see the cottonwood trees at their peak. I have lots of single photos of the most colorful trees and will add those as soon as I get unpacked. We were there on a perfect weather day and enjoyed our day a lot.

PS...As usual, to view this in a larger format, please click on the photo. Saving a file that has ten high resolution photos makes such a huge file that I had to keep making the stitched photo smaller so it would save properly.

Next Victim (er...I mean Painting)

This is a photo I took years ago while visiting Sabino Canyon near Tucson, AZ. I chose to paint this photo on a full sheet of paper because:

• I want to get the perspective correct of this canyon
• I want to get better at painting boulders and rocks
• I love the sunlight hitting all the elements coming from the right and want that contrast to show
• I am a glutton for punishment

I have painted this one much earlier in my painting life and it was not a success since I couldn't do any of the above (well, except for the last bulleted item), so it will be a fun challenge to see if I can do any better at this point. I am wondering where this flop of my first painting is, if I can pull this one off I will post the first one so we can see if there is any improvement! Otherwise, neither will see the light of day.

Hang with me for some serious hand-holding....

Grandchildren A-Z - Final

I finally have had this critiqued "enough" and have decided this is my final painting of Aubrey and Zane. Not my last one ever, but my last effort with this one!

I want to leave it with the tender softness I achieved and will not go for more defined contrasts, so will stop adding to anything. Poor little Zane's face has been scrubbed out so many times it will not allow me to make any more changes.

From the latest photos I have seen of him he has filled out a lot and doesn't look anything like this rendition anyway, so will chalk it up to Grandma's artistic license! At any rate, this is ready to be framed and go up on my Grandma's Gallery.

PS...For those who saw my earlier post, I deleted it since I had raised the contrast a bit and darkened the photo a bit before sending it along. After I saw it on the blog I decided I had overstepped how this looks in real life. When I look at Aubrey's left cheek in real life, it does NOT look like she has mumps! I am not sure why the camera picked up that look, but it doesn't do justice to the painting. Sigh.

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 5

I am thinking I am crazy for even showing anyone this version. At this point I have so very much to do to make this better that I should be ashamed. But, here is where I stopped yesterday. Poor little Zane is just not right, I misread the reference photo and gave him too skinny of a neck and misplaced his left eye, too high.

Aubrey is doing better, but I still need to sculpt her face better. I notice a lot just by posting a painting on this blog, forces me to look at it from afar and see what my eyes missed in person. Grrrr.

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 4

I worked on this during today's Thursday afternoon watercolor painting session. I still have much to go, but due to spot-on critiques during my efforts I see where I still have to soften some edges, soften some darks, and continue to make Aubrey look more like a 5-year-old instead of older than that. Zane's features  will suffice when I make the hard lines softer and define his little features better, as well as the shadows, but it will all come in time. I have truly loved working on this one and will continue on....either to the scrap pile or to a framed painting!

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 2

I couldn't leave this alone, so did a few more shadow washes here and there and started defining their faces. I now have to force myself to leave it alone for awhile as I am starting to go for too much detail, too soon, and will mess it up if I continue.

That dark shape to the upper right corner of the painting is a shadow from a twig when I took the photo outside. I completely missed seeing that in the photo and am too lazy go out back and retake it. Please just pretend it isn't there?

Grandchildren A-Z WIP 1

This has been  a bad week for creativity for me, so I just got back to this painting this morning.

I have done the initial skin washes for both Aubrey and Zane, and have started laying in some of the shadows. Since the negatively-painted shadows will form the shapes of their bodies, I am trying to remember that shadows are my friend! Right now, I am scared of 'em and just trying to control my values. I will mainly work on painting the GK's and then do the furniture and background since if I flub those, it won't matter what the rest of it looks like. Lots to go on the shadows, though....

Grandchildren A-Z - Drawing

In my Artbuddies group, another artist (sue Drennan) and I have challenged ourselves to paint our grandchildren's portraits from more challenging photos.

The reference photo for this is definitely more challenging since it was shot in the shade and showed little more than fuzzy details of their anatomies in most places. I ended up tracing the outline where I could and drawing in the rest. At best, I can only hope my negative painting and shadows depict Aubrey's hands more like her delicate ones than a cave man's hands! I also hope to make poor little Zane's head look less like ET as it is now. Stick with me on this one, it is going to be a kick/challenge/frustration/joy to paint!

I snapped this photo right after stretching it so the wrinkles should be gone when it is dry. I will take it to art with me tomorrow to start painting (shaking in my booties with both excitement and trepidation here!).

Wordless Memorial

Captain Smith's Cabin - Final?

Well, I could not just leave this alone, so this afternoon I played with it some more, adding some more refined darks here and there as well as lifting more highlights out of the shingles, etc. It feels great to have finished another one, if it is indeed finished.

Capatin Smith's Cabin - WIP 5

 

This is where I finished for today. I made the foreground much more lush than in the reference photo, more like after a rainy Spring? I have some ponderin' to do with this, as I want to refine it a bit more and add some more shadows on the bare ground of the foreground and do a better job with the middle ground sage brush. this is enough for today, anyway. Another fun afternoon painting with my art buds.

Captain Smith's Cabin - WIP 4

I took this to the watercolor group this afternoon and enjoyed working on it some more. Here, I have defined the huge boulder on the side and started adding color to the cabin stones and shingles.

I keep saying I am going to stop using masking fluid as I hate the hard lines it leaves, but then I use it again, anyway. I am running low on it and will resolve to buy no more until I see if I can do better without it.