Chloe

 

I painted the picture above for my sons Girlfriend.  It was for  her birthday.  I have found out an amazing fact--when you paint a picture, take a photo of it.  The photo of the painting will show you things about the painting that the eye won't pick up--strange!  Anyway, Sunday we celebrated my son and his girlfriends birthday.  Below is a picture of Chloe and "Chloe".  Melodi was pleased with the painting which made me very pleased.  This was my first "portrait".  Usually I just paint from my head and whatever I get-I get.  I drew out the picture first, but wasn't happy with the results.Then I pulled out Lee Hammond's  book --She says to use a grid system and that helped tremendously.  I redrew it on a grid and was much happier with the results. I painted it Saturday--took a picture of it, didn't like it and proceeded to white out her hair, her body and half her face out and then started over!  It took two more times of whiting out one eye before I was happy with the painting.  But the camera trick really works.  For some reason it shows up the little details that the eye misses.

 Chloe and "Chloe"

I have been doing a little jewelry making this summer--a little but not alot.  Seems like it is hard to get anything done in the summer months.  We stay so busy just keeping up with the place.  I did manage to get some pendants done and I have about 20 more to pour with resin.  I still need to make the chains for them.  That I will start working on this week. A friend of mine brought me a gallon sized bag of old watches!  I was ecstatic!! I have been using the parts and pieces of them on some of my jewelry

And, of course, no blog post would be complete without at least one of Gods creatures.  These two spiders were on a job that we just finished.  I think that they are the most beautiful spiders.

Have a great day!! F.