Half Way, Hats, and Sun Conures.

Just another day in Chemo.

Six chemo treatments down, six to go! Whooo Hoooo…halfway through the war. One battle at a time. Here is a picture of my husband, George, who has been there every step of the way. He is modeling the chemo treatment chair. They give us a pillow, a warm blanket and life saving drugs.(Even though you feel crappy or sleep for the next week, LOL.) They are warm, caring, helpful, and good listeners. I am so Thankful for my medical team!

Gypsy Scarf

Ok, you asked for it, you got it, I am posting some photos of the chemo hats. At least I still have some bangs, but the rest of the hair is getting VERY thin. The guys are waiting on pins and

Beret

needles to see if they are going to have to shave their heads. Maybe I can glue the bangs on my head……wait…..maybe I should save all the hair when it falls out, and I can attach it to one of the hats, LOL! Ok this is enough of the hats, I will post some more of them next time.

Now to the newest art project! This one is exciting for me, since I have not worked with colored pencils for a long time. Being on a roll with the black paper, I decided to do a

very colorful parrot on black. SO of course, my own little Sunny is modeling for this one. With black paper, I have to do a grissaille first to allow color to develop. The marks in the border are tests to see how the different white pencils act, and

Sunny

how the color shows on the white. Colored pencil work is very time consuming and must not be rushed. It takes many layers to fully cover the paper and give it a finished look. Caution, these are not your mama’s colored pencils, LOL!

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WIP – Triple Time Blues

Triple Time Blues

So, here is the first painting update! There is one fuzzy little parrot but………the rest is coming. BTW, we have some new faces here watching, so I will try hard not to splash paint on the newbies. Just remember next time to bring your raincoats or ponchos, plenty of snacks, and your sense of humor. There are five parrots, four cats and maybe a clown or two, and a cartoon character or two in the building. Yes, we have to endure, feathers, cat hair, and splashing water, but this is watercolor WIP, so what do you expect?!?!?!?!? Also, we could run out of chairs, so if you have a comfy chair you want to bring, please feel free to bring it. Cell phones are allowed as long as you put them on silence and just stick with texting and posting on Facebook or twitter. A couple of my friends would not come if they cannot bring their cell phones. Yeah….you know who you are! No food fights, the food might hit the painting, no rotten tomatoes allowed in the building! Other than that, relax, sit back, and enjoy!

Advertisement: I made that bold for those of you who would like to skip over it. Please check out my Kickstarter project, Watercolor Parrot Art, at :

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1030315317/watercolor-parrot-art

Meanwhile back to our regularly scheduled program: See you in a few days with a new update!!!

And The Winner is…..

Step away from the painting!

Nothing like the Oscars to see how the “Rich and Famous” live… The gowns were gorgeous and it looked to me like plastic surgery gone amok! Wonder how far the skin can stretch – check out the aging Hollywood stars….. Hey, not me, I earned every gray hair and wrinkle, LOL! It is hard to imagine not being able to laugh and smile because your skin might pop. AND those are character lines NOT wrinkles! Signs of a life lived to the full! Loki, my Blue and Gold Macaw slavedriver, thinks everyone should have white wrinkled skin on their faces, among Macaws, it is a sign of beauty! Charlie the Hahn’s Macaw agrees, but now the conures are not up with that…they prefer white wrinkled skin around the eyes. A lovely eye ring is a sign of beauty to them. Tinkerbelle the parrotlet, says “the color Blue” is beautiful to her.

AND the winner is….YOU….. my dear blog reader, you get to see the finished painting! Hang on Loki, I am finishing up my blog, you want what……OK Charlie, I am coming….yes Sunny….Ok Tink……Um just a minute Birdie…..

Half a Bubble Off

WIP#2

Today, I was lost in thought……. must be related to the forgetfulness thing, LOL! Anyway, just started thinking about the saying “he is a half a bubble off”, and suddenly realized…I are one. Yup, like when you are young, you feel young, and don’t get it when old people say they are a young person trapped in an old body…. Then one day, you wake up old, and get it…  you are one. Well, I woke up today and realized that I am a half a bubble off from the rest of the world and finally realized it…. but I have to say it is a good thing when you are here. The rest of the world just doesn’t quite get you, BUT….hey it is OK. It means you are creative, march to the tune of your own drummer, and pretty much don’t get a lot of what is going on in the world. And that can be a really good thing. It allows you to have a sense of humor about yourself and be OK with being different. But not too different…just a half a bubble off, LOL! It is nice when you find things that allow you to be like the rest of the world too! I finally found a Starbucks drink that I like since I don’t drink coffee…. now I can meet my friends at Starbucks, have a drink that doesn’t have a thousand calories. Of course that would not be possible without Starbucks cooperation in finally coming up with a drink which uses stevia to offset those high fructose sugar calories! SO there must be someone else out there who doesn’t like coffee and can’t drink a truckload of sugar, LOL! That is what keeps me from being a whole bubble off.

SO what do bubbles and Red Vented Cockatoos have in common? I don’t know, but needed something to get back to the subject of the “Work in Progress”.  Am loving working on the negative painting. Also love finding the color in a white bird. The joy and challenge of painting.

Here is the latest! Enjoy!

Anyone else out there getting old?!??!?!?

Sketch

Or is it just me? Sometimes it feels like it, but there are so many sayings about getting older, that I have to have SOME company out there. I would show you what I am working on ….IF I could find it! Seems like I spend half of my life looking for stuff I have “LOST”. The other half of the time, I am trying to remember what I came into the room to do. By the time I backtrack all of my steps and do all of the stuff that I forget to do before getting there, I have even forgotten that I forgot……….hmmmmm……yup…..Ok, what am I forgetting???? Oh yes, I just found my drawing. A GREAT BIG and I mean BIG “Thank you” goes out to Dr. Todd Driggers. He let it casually drop that he had a Red Vented Cockatoo in his office… Of course as much as I love to paint endangered species, I started jumping up and down, saying, can I come see it, pretty please, pretty please? His office staff graciously accommodated us(well I HAD to take a friend, after all how many times do you get to see a Red Vented Cockatoo?) and let us go crazy taking photos. Now that I am caught up from Kickstarter and my commissions, thought I would take the time to try this little beauty. Oh, almost forgot to put the photo in!

Now if I could just figure out which side is left, and which side is right, we would be in business. Oh well, I would just probably forget anyway!

Footnotes

While we are waiting for the Special Guest Blog, thought I would post the beginning of two WIPs! Yes you read that right TWO WIPs! The first one is the watercolor painting of Mingus, a very special conure at the Oasis Bird Sanctuary. This painting will be auctioned off to help raise money for the Oasis. This painting inspired the name of the blog today. Anyone who is familiar with Mingus may already recognize him from the feet in the painting. In case you aren’t familiar with him, more of his features will reveal themselves in the coming days.

The second work is a colored pencil drawing of Red Fronted Macaws. This piece is one for a six week class I am taking with Elliott Everson. See you are never too young to go to school!

Eye, Eye, Sir!

Or is that Aye, aye, Sir. At any rate, it is time to step away from the painting and see if there are some areas that need more work.  So aye will leave this piece sitting on the easel for a couple of days and if everything still looks good, will sign it. Wishing all of you and your flocks a very HAPPY New Year filled with lots of fun stuff!

Time Marches On!

The background is in! Time is marching on so fast, it is REALLY hard to believe this year is almost over and soon we will be welcoming the new year in! Happy New year to all of you. Wishing you all of the best for the year to come.

Since the Holidays are still here, you get another WIP photo today. On this one, the red feathers have been painted in. Not long now, just get the eyes in and Candy will be telling me to Step away from the painting. Hey Amber, are you seeing these updates while you are on vacation? If not, you will have a surprise when you get back!

It is such a blessing that Chulla did not have to come to my house to pose. My flock would have told her to stop working for peanuts, and would have given Chulla Ripley’s(the African Grey Lawyer) phone number, and we would have had a strike on our hands and would probably end up paying for modeling with pistachio nuts. Hopefully the word doesn’t get out until after this painting is done!

Wishing all of you a HAPPY New Year!!!!

 

 

 

 

Marching Along….

LOL, couldn’t resist. Since Amber is sitting on pins and needles waiting for this update, thought I would go ahead and post two updates before the holidays get here and there is too much celebrating to get any painting done! SO Amber………these two are for you! Chulla is just starting to pop out of the paper. Hope all of you have wonderful holidays, eat lots of good food, get some great presents, and spend some wonderful time with all of your loved ones! Human, feathered, furred, and scaled friends….wishing all of you a Happy, Joyful New Year!  March, March, March, March…….. the parrots go marching one by one……hurrah………