Bears, Brooms and Lighthouses

It's been a long time since I've posted anything. I've been very busy with friends, family, Thanksgiving and now Christmas is right around the corner. We had 13 family members here for Thanksgiving and we all had a great time. After the boys got out of the Jacuzzi, we had our prayer circle and then sat down to a huge meal. We decided to each say one thing that we were thankful for as we went around the circle. I think this should become a tradition because we have all been so blessed. God is good!We had the adult table set in the dining roomand the children's table which was in the kitchen. The little boys can do what they want to when they have a table to themselves and I think they enjoy that at this stage of their life (then again, we'd ALL like to do what we want to at ANY stage of life!) and of course, our traditional silliness that the big boys have fun with. It's always great to see what cute little things they will come up with to teach the younger ones. I had no idea that napkin rings could be so versatile.After the "feast", the boys went to the Cowboy game and I decided to paint. I haven't painted in watercolor in so long that I was afraid that I might have forgotten how.

Let me back up. A dear friend is printing my book on China for me, so in return, I decided to do a painting for her guest house, "Bearadise".

I have clients who came to get a commimssioned painting. While they were here they bought two more of my paintings. They had always liked "The Wine Connoisseurs" so when I said that I would sell it, they decided to take that one for their bar in their home in Dallas. She had asked me right after I painted it if it was for sale and I had said no, but she really liked it and it will look great in their bar. It's the painting that was on our Christmas card in 2005. I also gave them the Bar Bill since she thought it was great fun.

Well, one thing led to another, and she wanted to know if I could paint something for their lake house. I told her to send me a photograph that she liked and we could work from there. To make a long story longer, Frank showed her one of his favorite paintings and she said that it was perfect for the lake, so she bought it as well!

I started thinking about selling his favorite painting out from under him, and kept thinking about it all night, so the next day I decided to drag out the watercolors and see if I could come up with something similar. I worked on this for a couple of days and he loves it! That's when I got the watercolor bug again (it's contagious) and painted these brooms that I photographed in the Houtongs in Beijing. Now I'm searching for something else to paint in watercolor. I'll probably do something else from China or New Mexico as I have many photographs from both places. I'm donating a large black and white image of these brooms to the fund raiser at the Arlington Museum of Art. It's called a Black and White Gala this year, so I thought that would be appropriate. Since the Houtongs are heated with lumps of coal like the ones in the photograph, things that were once white turn black, so this seemed like a good idea!

Guess I'd better get busy to do my household chores and running around. We'll be going to a movie this afternoon and I have a lot to do before time to go. I love Fridays since the new movies are always out on that day. I'll keep blogging if you keep reading.

Pcasso