Hello Stranger

Oh my gosh!  It has been so long since I have been here!  Did you even miss me?.  Maybe a little bit???  All I know is that this summer is flying by So fast.  I don't even know what to tell you at this point .  The wedding plotting and planning is now all in the past .  The photos  promised aren't here yet , I will be sure to share a few of my favorites when they are available. 
  My husband and I are now officially empty nesters.  I am having, well, we are having a little bit of a time adjusting to our new titles.  I have cried a few buckets of silent tears and find myself a little out of the loop,  somewhere out in left field.   So... I have been burring myself in  art to keep my mind occupied and my  hubby of 32 years has been working alot . 
 I just found out this week I am going to have a little surgery done the first week of August.   I am looking forward to getting myself taken care of so I can get on with life and have some fun!  It should be a pretty fast recovery time. Please think happy thoughts.  
I have been working on or in art projects daily, from dawn to dusk!   I am involved in quit a few on-line classed simultaneously!  Let me just say , I have been occupied in that department!  I continue to learn something new daily.  I think  I have figured out my what direction my art journey will be from now on.  I am sure I have already mentioned classes that  I am involved in previous posts.  I am enjoying them immensely!  I did start a new class this week that I want to share,  Sharon Thomlinson " A Diary of Faces".  Oh my goodness it is so fun!  Sharon is the first teacher that I had taken any painting from, so I feel quit at home in her classroom.  I think it will be two years ago this coming October when I started painting.  Oh! I will show you a then and now photo so you can see how much I have progressed.  It's so fun, I can't believe I can paint!  LOL
Okay...this was one of  my very first attempts at painting in a class of Sharon's, " Faces in Technicolor".  The class  is still available by the way.

The picture below is day one of my new class  "A Diary of Faces".  This is my painting of  Georgette Chen's self portrait. This is the same painting that Sharon has as her beginning lesson week # one. Sharon suggested we use an old book for our diaries.  So mine is an old high school biology book.  I find myself stopping to read what's going on before laying on the gesso. Ha!  Maybe I will learn something besides painting! 

The next one is a child's portrait , I was so nervous about attempting this one but I bit the bullet and I am so happy with my results.  See the little pocket on the left.  I am  going to be putting in the info of the artist and the painting that I have working on in there.  Sharon's pockets are big enough to put a postcard in.  I am thinking I will do ATC size cards and some postcards in mine depending on the layout of my page. These there are all my copies of  Georgette Chen paintings.  They are old enough to not worry about copyright issues.

The last one below I started last night before bed, got up at 3:OO A.M. and finished up this afternoon.  I only slept 3 hours last night.  I have a pinched nerve in my hip and I got some medication yesterday that kept me from sleeping.  It also made my face look sun burned today so doc said to stop taking it. Whew!  Hope I sleep tonight!

Anyway...that's about it for now. Hope you are all having a wonderful summer, I will be back as soon as I can!