My Clever Daughter

My clever daughter! Besides being a terrific Mom to her four little ones (my gorgeous and always well-behaved grandkids, LOL), she has managed to start, grow and develop a quite successful home based business. Her products are all natural and she makes them in her kitchen, sells them at the local farmer's market on Saturdays, and totes them to local fairs as well. I really must brag on her here, now that her web site is a little less under construction than last time I checked. Check it out at: http://lotionsbymieke.com/ and you'll be just as impressed as I am. Oh, and since I get a really good Mom discount (read free), I can vouch that the stuff she makes is really good, and smells great, especially Ocean Rain and Lavender, my two favorites.

Notecards

From the paintings of food and drink, I made some sets of five notecards to sell at a small "Girl-friend's Afternoon Out" thingy I participated in with a bunch of ladies who represent and sell for different companies...you know, Mary Kay, Southern Living, jewelry, purses, etc. Anyway, the cards sold pretty well, but I have some left over. If anyone is interested, I'd be glad to sell them. Let me know through my email address, NelVanL@aol.com, please, if you're interested, and we can go through Paypal. It's a double set of ten cards, 2 of each image, for 15.00 (1.25 each, plus 2.50 to package and send them.) The cards are 4" x 5" in plastic sleeves, with deckle edged envelopes. I printed them at home on the Epson printer, and trimmed and folded them, so they are entirely handmade. You've seen the paintings already here, but here's a photo of the cards. Thanks for looking.

Cherry Pie

In the style of Karin Jurick, who does gorgeous paintings, here's a small cherry pie slice done in oils on masonite. It's only 6" by 8", so I'd consider it a quickie painting, but it's one of my best so far, I think. The nice thing about working so small is that you can have your model right in front of you, and lay the masonite right on the drafting table in front of the model. So close you can smell the cherries, and really stick your nose in the colors and shadows. I will definitely do more of these small, quick studies.

EDM Challenge 79 Ear

Waiting for a nice homemade peach cobbler to bake, I was able to get my friend Robert to sit still long enough to draw his ear. This is done with carbon pencils in the Moleskine. Seems the paper in the Moleskine is particularly happy with carbon pencil, and I'll have to take advantage. There are other media which aren't as pleased with the paper, so here's a tip for everyone who uses a Moley and hasn't been happy with the watercolor or graphite work. Use carbon pencils! (Ink and marker are also good, so we adapt.) Thanks for looking. 

Coffee Cup Embroidered Napkin

What was meant to be a quick and easy oil painting took a bit longer than I had anticipated, with all it's details. But it was fun to do, trying to look, look again, study, squint, what color IS that shadow anyway, and see as many colors as i could. I did it in pencil on the canvas first, and spray fixed the drawing to avoid the graphite smudges, which worked well. I'm not sure about the bright background; I might still change that, maybe something duller? Any ideas? Thanks for stopping by.