My family!

My wonderful husband, Rick.

My lively, fun, smart, and independent 14 year old daughter, Molly.

My quiet, serious, artistic daughter, Samantha, who will be five in January.

Teddy

My 4 year old daughter, Samantha, drew this today. She has been watching way too much SpongeBob lately! I have to admit, I'm partial to him myself. My favorite episode is when him and Patrick are accidently saying swear words and they are dolphin sounds! It is hysterical! Om... it sounds worse than what it is! The moral of the story is to not say naughty words. ;o)

Our little teddybear (shih tzu / maltese mix) got a bath today. :) Her name is Teddy. I know, it's a boy name. She's a tomboy, so it fits.

Nutty Magnet Day

I'm very prone to doing things at the wrong time and also spending way too much time on those things that I'm doing at the wrong time. Like today. I had it in my head that I was going to make these little marble magnets that I saw on notmartha.org. Of course, like everyone else, I have tons of stuff to do before Christmas and making these little numbers today was not the greatest choice I could make, but OH WELL! My 13 yr old daughter, Molly and I made them and we had a BLAST! These really are addicting. I could not stop - I tried several times. So here it is after midnight, my house is a mess, my laundry is piled high, gifts aren't all wrapped, etc... but hey, my fridge has some rockin' magnets on it! It's the little things! We ended up with 60 or so of them. My daughter took 5 with her when she went to a friend's house as a little gift... isn't that cute?? See! 13 isn't so horrible! They sometimes do little dumb stuff, just like you want them too! My daughter wasn't looking forward to making the magnets with me, but she was really into it in no time and suggested we make enough to cover the entire fridge. Here are the little beauties:



These were so addicting, I might just make them on occasion and put them in my etsy shop.

It's way too late again and I am really getting tired of myself! I have no self control when it comes to going to bed! Tomorrow I will be an ole' grouch again in the morning til I pump my body with coffee. :P

Blessings!
Liz

EXHAUSTED

Ugh, I don't know what is happening, but every time I upload a picture it turns up at the TOP of my post. I don't recall that happening before, so I must be doing something wrong.

Below is a close-up of the bunny in the larger painting shown below. What inspired me to do this painting was my intense desire to get my daughter this white bunny with one ear for Christmas! I saw him online and seriously thought about him for days after. I knew though that my husband would not want him (wahhhhhhh!). He's right I suppose... no room and we don't need another pet, but I still couldn't stop thinking about him. So I ended up putting a couple bunnies in this piece, but put two ears on each one. I'm not that risky in my paintings to do a one eared bunny! It would bother me too much. Not that the bunny had one ear, but that the painting was not balanced, LOL. Anyway, by the time I went back to look at the real one-eared white bunny, it was gone. Someone had taken my bunny home! WAHHHH!

My husband (Rick) and I got out today to do some shopping. We needed some caffeine so we went to Barnes & Noble to get some coffee and maybe look around a bit before we hit the mall. Well, a "bit" turned out to be 2 hours after I got a hold of some art books. I feel so guilty when I do stuff like that!

I LOVE the look of wax on paintings and have been experimenting with it. Here's one of my paintings that I did recently that I used wax on. This one I sold on etsy.

OK, about the exhaustion thing: I know, I know... who ISN'T exhausted right now? This is just a weird type of exhaustion, though. Normally no matter how tired I am I still paint if I can. But lately I'm snoozin' on the couch by 10:00!

I did manage to paint this week during the day before my laziness hit too hard. I am having a blast with this old hymnal book I found at the Salvation Army thrift store. I LOVE the texture of the paper and the notes are so pretty. The old books have such beautiful fonts, especially the religious books.

Here's a little bird painting on wood that I did with a hymnal page as the background. It for sale on etsy.

ACEOs

Of course Christmas is always so hectic, so normally when I'm spread too thin I paint an aceo or two. Aceos are like a comfort food to me! I love creating them! For me, the smaller pieces come more naturally. I remember in high school I wrote my friend's names on pieces of rice, LOL!

Here's my latest aceo. I love her facial expression. And of course I had to put a flying cat in there with her!





















I have a four-year-old daughter (Samantha) who is seriously obsessed with art! If she gets an idea, she NEEDS to go in her room immediately and get it on paper. Every night I try to read to her, but she begs me to let her do just *one* more drawing. I have a big table in there for her
with lots of paper and supplies. :) It's so fun to see your kids love what you love. Although sometimes being an artist can be a curse! Strange, but it really does overtake you sometimes! Here is her latest drawing. Thanks for stopping by and hope you have a blessed day! Liz

Tagged by Jenn

Jenn (Polka Dot Jenn, as I call her in my head sometimes) has tagged me. Jenn is just too sweet to say no to, so here goes... I'm not good at talking about myself.... but at least I don't have to actually SAY the stuff out LOUD.

1) I have a great husband and two awesome daughters, 13 & 4. I've always said if a person can live through the 4 yr old year, then the rest is downhill. The teen years are nothing compared to four! :P

2) I love to PAINT and DRAW and COLOR and CUT STUFF and READ ART BOOKS and do basically anything art related... it is sometimes an obsession and perhaps even more of a "craving". I consider the need to CREATE a blessing and a curse. It really does take over your whole being sometimes, and although I love it, at times I think it would be easier to just be "normal". Whatever that may be. I can't imagine being one of those really organized routine-driven people. But when I'm painting and I'm in a groove, there really is nothing like it!!!

3) I adore animals. I cannot kill a spider or any other bug most days.

4) I am a hopeless night owl. LITERALLY every single morning when I drag myself out of bed, I *promise* myself I am going to bed at 10:00 that night. Night after night it just doesn't happen. I am so weak in this area! The main reason is that I absolutely need DAILY alone time.

5) I'm a computer addict. I could sit on here and search and read and blahblahblah for hours on end. I am trying very hard to cut back on that! After the new year I'm moving my computer into the basement! :D

Do I tag someone now??

Liz

p r i n t s !!!

This is my first entry on my new blog! :)

I'm excited about my new venture into art prints! I put my first two up on etsy. Took me a bit of time to get the colors just right, but finally did it! Lots of trips to the printer. :) You can see my new prints at etsy. I happen to love this one:

I also have some new aceo prints listed on ebay.

My dad is an artist and once in a while I do a search on ebay for "Jauquet" and see what people are selling of his. People sell originals on occasion, but mostly it's his reproductions (he had a giftware line a while back). I checked this morning and someone is selling one of his arks! Check it out: Noah's Ark.

Tonight I am going to try hard to get some serious painting done. I'm in the mood to try something different. Maybe a floral? Florals have always been a challenge for me. Or maybe a sort of "quilt" with different themes in each square. I love quilts so thought this would be fun. On the other hand, maybe I'll make supper and clean my house! :)

Liz