Jingle Bell Hop

The season is upon us and approaching quickly! I have some decorations up.........the tree looks great! Of course, when you get a grandchild to help, it always looks better. Today was the annual downtown celebration of Santa Claus coming to town, arriving on a fire truck. This year, the committee decided to include artists at participating businesses.

I chose to be at the Old Barn Downtown, since I used to be a cake decorator, years ago, at the main restaurant. They were offering free cookie decorating for the kids. I was demonstrating oil painting and chose a chocolate filled stick as my subject. Of course, I had to take a couple of bites out of it, to make it more interesting........but then I had to finish the painting before I could finish eating it!!! It was rather interesting as there were a number of children that chose to engage in conversation, which made the day more enjoyable. Luckily, they recognized what I was painting right away. (thank goodness) Here is the finished product........just in time, as a snow storm had already started to ice up the roads and I did a fair amount of skating on wheels on my way home!

Portrait commission complete

Yeah! The commission is complete and I was very happy with it. The client was elated and said it was the best gift ever. Sure makes the struggle all worthwhile when a client is happy. We had our Visual Arts Network meeting tonight and did we have a ton to share! Members brought some awesome work! Especially our whiz.............Doug Eblen. He can really whip the paintings out. Then Lavonne had a beautiful watercolor of a white poinsettia and also made it into a greeting card. Sue Nocerra brought several of her little gems! We solved her problem of glare in her photos of her collages from reflective scrap used, just by shifting the angle a little, since she didn't have a polarizer filter.

We had two guests from the local photo club and they shared great info, too. It was a fun, informative meeting and I can hardly wait for our Christmas meeting.

In the meantime, I have another commission that is patiently waiting for me in the studio, so in the morning, I get back to work.

Missing the fall colors already! They were so vibrant in a number of Ohio areas and I was lucky enough to capture a few.

Guess I should be glad for the turn to cold weather. I can now more easily concentrate on a commission that needs to be done by next week. It is chilly in the studio, but considering it is about 17 outside, I should count myself as warm!

As soon as I finish this one, I am going to dust off my carharts and other cold weather gear to be ready to paint outdoors for the next few months....... I have been able to do a number of plein air paintings with the fall color, so now I am looking forward to doing several with snow!