Thank You

I recently won a few giveaways and I think that some sincere thanks you's are in order. I really don't know how I happened to win 3 so close together, or any for that matter. I'm the girl that always enters and never wins. These were really great! What made these so special is that they were all hand made items, made by the blogger's themselves. So I wanted to say 'thank you' to the 3 lovely ladies that hosted the giveaways.

• The first giveaway won was from Kate, she was giving away some maple syrup! yum... Her and her husband collected, cooked and bottled the good stuff. I've been meaning to take pictures of it on pancakes and document the happy faces that are chowing down on it, but it's kinda hard to take a picture when you, also, are stuffing your face. I made some very good pancakes the recipe can be found here. (I would recommend only adding 1 tsp of baking soda, not the 1 tbs. that is in the recipe.) Thank you Kate, it has been a long time since I've had maple syrup, it has been wonderful.

• Next, I won a beautiful plate from Pam, she makes beautiful pottery and is also a home school mom. She also just happens to be the mother of Kate, who made the syrup. Thank you, Pam, for the beautiful plate. I'm contemplating giving it as a gift to a very dear friend of mine for her birthday.... but I really like it... Pam, do you have an online store that I am unaware of?
  

• My daughter and I won some wonderful goatsmilk soap from Pricilla. You'll remember her, I painted her kid. Her goats milk soap is rich with a smooth lather and a squeaky clean finish. But what really won me over is her shaving bar. My legs haven't had that nice of a close shave in a long time. Talk about smooth! I also love the scent 'breath easy', if that scent and the massage bar were to get together, I might have to buy it by the batch. Thank you Patty and your milk giving gals.

An Over Worked Kid....loosy goatsy.... a messy kid....

Take your pick of titles for the painting at the end of this post. The point is: I painted! I broke through that invisible barrier and painted. It is an overworked piece, but over worked is better than no work.

So how did I break through it? Well, there were a couple factors. It came to me as I was dozing off after beating myself up about not painting. I decided that I needed to work on paper that was going to be super forgiving. I also needed to just get the feel of things again, slop some paint around, keep it loose and just play. But I was having trouble finding a subject worthy of my interest, something fun and enjoyable. Then, when I thought I was done searching and was just going to give it up for the night, I came across this good looking kid, and I had to paint him.

So to start with I got out some Yupo paper

Yupo is a synthetic paper, it's actually water resistant and your paint doesn't soak into it like it would with cotton paper. It sits on top of the paper and you can get some really cool marbling effects. The other cool thing is you can also completely lift or wash off the paint (unless it's a staining pigment like some of the yellows). It takes the stress off of ruining nice paper. But if you are a 'tight' painter it may cause you more stress.

So I did a quick, light sketch of Kevin with watercolor pencil. (sorry the lighting is bad this late at night)
Then I started laying in color, things were off to a good start.

I was having fun.



This is where I left it for the night. I was happy with it, I was pleased that things were turning out so well.



Then...... it turned out I was the only one in the house that new what I had painted. My husband came home from work and thought I had painted some kind of Rorshach test. He couldn't see the goat. Fine, he was tired, it was late... whatever. But, I was sure my girl who loves goats, reads this blog daily would certainly see it when she got up in the morning.

Nope...... She thought it was some mermaids or something....

enter some frustration, and the desire to make them see what was there; I proceeded to work the painting to death. I'll agree that the above painting needed a little more work, but I went too far, I think. But I am my worst critique.... or maybe my family is...


Now, I could wipe off what I don't like and try again. But I'm not going to do that, I like to see what it was that I didn't like so that I don't do it again..... because I won't remember unless it is staring me in the face.

I want to try this one again, chill out on all the background stuff and get the focus on that adorable kid.

In any case, I did have a lot of fun (maybe a little too much with all that swirly paint) and it's just the first step of many stepping stones. I am so glad that I am moving forward again!

Pricilla and her publicist have a lot more super cute pictures of Kevin hopping all over the place and just being plain adorable, go check it out. Oh, and I shouldn't forget Abby, she is also a very pretty goat that had an adorable kid of her own.