"My Beth"

Yesterday turned out to be pretty eventful. Olivia (who is feeling much better now) had stayed overnight Friday night with her grandmother, Mamaw so Kelly and I had a lot of Saturday to ourselves. (and the mommy in me just has to add-----I do miss her all the while she is gone-I don't mean to make it sound as if my day was great because she wasn't with me!) Along with time we also had a 20 dollar gift certificate for the movies. I was excited, like a little kid kind of excited when he pulled those out of his pocket Saturday morning. He had won them at a realtor luncheon. See, Kelly and I just don't go to the movies. We are the stay-at-home get the DVD from the library thrifty type so these tickets were a big deal. This was our third movie ever as a couple in our 9 years together! So we went to see "Pan's Labrynth"-he let me chose. he's such a sweet man! I did enjoy the movie but it was much different than I thought it would be, less fairy tale and more World War II stuff, less fairies and more blood. Some of the images were so disturbing I had to look away! I definitely won't forget this movie though.
After the movie we picked Olivia up and came home. Olivia and I played with art stuff. I painted on wood, she painted on watercolor paper.


This is what I ended up with after hours and hours of playing around. I am new to the painting and it was frustrating at times not being able to put what was in my head onto the wood. Her face was especially hard. I ended up with a nose that was too small but I was afraid to fix it because I wasn't sure how so I just left it. This morning I painted the sides and back of the wood and added the little metal feet. The nose was still bugging me when I looked at it this morning so I scanned her into Photoshop (her name is Beth---from the Little Women passage adhered to the bottom right) and fixed her nose--it took all of a minute---thank goodness for my background in photo restoration-that sure is coming in handy these days!) I am happier with her.
I have a new resolution and that is to take time to study some books on painting technique. I am feeling a pulling in my heart to head in that direction. Does anyone have any advice on a good book to start with?

I also want to add a happy birthday wish to one of my bestest friends in the whole world----Kim! Happy Birthday Girlfriend!