I know, I know. It has been ages since I last updated. I really have no excuse, except that there was nothing for me to update about. I would rather post less often with more interesting things, than many meaningless posts.

With all that said, I finished a painting this week. I had been working on it for close to two months in my painting class during Summer school.

I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I learned so many things from my last painting instructor. I feel like my paintings have improved and are going to continue improving very, very quickly.

It seems like this painting took me forever to finish, but I did it. Part of the reason it has taken me so long is that I have got several paintings going at the same time, and my painting time has been divided. The others are all in much earlier stages, but I am so excited about all three of them!

If you remember, this painting is inspired by that photograph of the boy in the mirror.

Today was such a wonderful today. I ate lots of tacos at my dad’s house, hit up several thrift stores, bought four new (used) books, got a new summer dress, and bought six new wine glasses at the dollar store because our collection has severely diminished over the past few months.

The majority of the day however I spent over at my sisters new place painting with her. I hadn’t planned on painting, but when I got there we both really wanted to. She gave me all the supplies I needed; a 12×16 sheet of canvas, lots of brushes, and acrylic paints. I used to paint only in acrylics, but about eight months ago switched over to oils. I can not even begin to tell you how tough a time I had today working with the acrylics! I think I am going to complete the painting with oils. I seem to work much faster in them now.

This painting is from a photo of a young girl by the name of Maria White, taken in 1864. It was taken by Charles Dodgson, and is one of my very favorite of his photographs.

Hello my dears! What a week this has been for me. I have been struggling to keep myself motivated since school ended. It is so hard to go from a regular schedule to a bunch of time off, and I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am to start school next Tuesday. As I do at the beginning of every semester I have already rearranged my schedule twice. I was originally going to take a math and English class. I decided this morning though that it would be a bit too much for an eight week semester. I dropped the English class, and added painting to my schedule. At least I can have some fun at school this Summer!

I started a new painting this afternoon. My sister stopped by and we painted for a few hours together. Not much done, but you can have a sneak peak at what I am working on.

I am already really anxious to finish this because I am sick of looking at the back of it. It is one of those hideous paintings from the dumpster. It will look a thousand times better once it is on the wall….at least I hope it does!

You may notice that I moved my little painting station. I had been painting in my front room, but so often I get disturbed by my cousin or neighbors when they see me painting in the window. My easel is now in the kitchen/living room area. It is so much easier to focus and get a lot done.

So sorry for the lack of updates over the past few days. I have been working my tail off to finish this painting, and to get everything in my house cleaned up before I leave for San Francisco, (I am updating from the airport waiting to board my plane!).

I am really happy with how this painting turned out. I didn’t get a chance to take a nice photo of it, I will have to do that next week when I return to San Diego.

The text on this painting reads:

You can really have no notion how delightful it will be,
When they take us, and throw us up like lobsters out to sea.

This painting was due last week in my class. I had to put a few last finishing touches on it this morning before I could photograph it.

Our assignment was to go take a photograph at the beach and paint it with something added in. I was pretty intimidated by this assignment, because I have never painted a scenary before. It was a ton of work, and I had to expirement and make up my own new techniques…but I am quite pleased with how it turned out. I think it may even be my favorite painting I have done thus far!

I finished this painting up a few weeks ago, but had to present it to my painting class for critique just this past Wednesday.

The subject matter was to be ‘the street where I live’, from there we can do whatever our little minds come up with. Well this is the street where I live. Obviously not in real life, but perhaps a bit in my head. I was playing with the idea of putting a little girl under the ground for a few weeks, and then once we heard the subject matter, it was easily transformed into what you see below.

This is not one of the two paintings I had due in my class yesterday. It is actually one I did earlier in the semester, and am just now getting around to photographing!

It is a portrait of my Aunt Minta. She lives next door, and we rent from her. We do a lot of cooking together, and she especially loves to make baked goods. The dress she is wearing was her wedding dress.