Hi Everyone! Here is a progressive slide show of my latest painting. I have been wanting to try to do this, though I finally had to have my sisters help me. Two of them came over to swim today, you could only stand to be outside if you were in the water. It was 95 degrees but the humidity made it feel much warmer! I look forward to Autumn with bittersweet feelings. I love the season, but with it comes "back to school"--for me too--and all of hustle and bustle and hurrying here and there. Also, I will be packing my oldest up to move away for the first time. She went to community college here for two years and now she will continue her education in Psychology at Missouri State University (go Mizzou Tigers). I am excited for her but at the same time I will miss her a great deal. We are very close. My middle daughter will be starting at a community college as an art major. We are both excited to go shopping for all her new art supplies soon! Fun, fun, fun! My youngest, a son, will be a junior in high school. All he has done this summer is eat, sleep, eat, eat, eat, sleep, eat eat eat some more---and he is still so skinny! Those were the days, huh?

Musician Paintings

Happy Friday! I just finished a set of three musician paintings. This is one of them. My 16 year old son has played the piano since he was 7 years old and I can relate to the nervous look on this little girl's face. Only he was never very nervous. It was me who was always nervous before his performances. Jordan also plays the drums, guitar, and whatever else he can get his hands on! This painting will be listed on Ebay this afternoon along with a violin player and a trumpet player. Check them out!

Here is my Yoga Cats painting. If you have cats, you know how it is whenever you try to do something on the floor, they are all over you! My cat usually just tries to make eye contact with me and then he runs to his food bowl.

It was 99 degrees here yesterday, and about the same expected today. Yuk! I guess I will stay inside today. I am going to have my son drive me to the post office today. He has his learner's permit, and it is SO SCARY! Driving comes much more naturally to him than it did to my daughters. But it scares me when he drives up to the speed limit instead of much slower like they did. When I gasped for the umteenth time, he tried to reassure me by saying, "Mom, I know what I'm doing, I've been driving remote control cars all my life!" That was no reassurance at all! Pray for me!

Ah, the lazy days of summer. The swinging bench under the pergola is my favorite place to read and sketch. I can see everything from there, on "my mountain". ha ha I finished a couple of paintings last night that I hope to post on Ebay later. One of them is a girl trying to do yoga with a few affectionate cats around her. They are probably breaking her concentration. I have never tried yoga, but I have a friend who swears by it. Maybe it is something I should try!

Octopus Dance

OCTOPUS DANCE!

This is my most recent painting I am posting on Ebay tonight. I like the way the colors turned out on this one. Mermaids seems to be a popular subject for folk art. I remember my daughters being obsessed with them when they were little. The martini gives this painting a more adult twist!

My Sister Frida

Ok, so I invited my sisters over for a margarita by the pool, and this is how Jennifer Hot Tamale Art Studio showed up! Those of you in the folk art community know who Frida Kahlo is! Anyway, it got a good laugh out of me. As you can see from the first picture, Jen had a very hard time keeping a straight face for the photo! She had to wash off the unibrow pretty quickly because her 4 year old did NOT like it one bit! Well, we had a good afternoon, I hope you all did!

Brilliant Weblog Award

Thank you to my silly little sister for nominating me for this Brilliant Blog Award! As you know, my sister Jennifer is J. Pease of
Hot Tamale Art Studio She sells wonderfully creative folk art paintings on Ebay. I love her style. I don't have time to keep up with many blogs, but I do enjoy reading another blog, Wonders of Whimsy Her name is also Jenny and she makes some very beautiful dolls. I can't believe how fast she can create such detailed works of art. I used to sew dresses for my daughters when they were little and I ended up spending more time cursing the sewing machine! I do like to look at all the paintings of the other folk artists on ebay. It's funny how you get to know their work and can recognize who painted them before you read the text, like Tascha and Danita. I admire artists with a distinct style. I love when I scroll down the Ebay gallery and notice a new painting of my sister's. You can hear an audible "awwww" from my computer room.

Well, summer is in full swing! It is going by too fast, it won't be long before I will be moving my oldest daughter who is transferring to an out of town university. Boo Hoo! I will miss her alot, she is my buddy. My middle daughter will begin at a local college (an art major!), and my son is still in high school. Lots of changes this fall. I am frantically painting because once school starts (for me too) I won't have as much time. I am trying to savor every flower and tomato this summer. Tomorrow we are going to have a picnic at a local winery where my sister's husband's band will entertain. I have three sisters, one of them is J. Pease (Hot Tamale Art). We are all very close and have so much fun together. We have 10 children between us and it is a great noisy blast when we all get together, everyone talking at once! Tomorrow will be fun! I hope our picnic doesn't turn out like THIS painting! I have a few more paintings to post as soon as I photograph them. One is of a mermaid dancing with an octopus which I think is pretty cute.