Watercolor Turned Into Mixed Media and Books

August continues to fly past and soon it will be September and three of my four grandgirls will be in school. It is almost inconceivable that the two older girls are already going into third grade and my Little Miss 3, who will be 4 in mid-September will be going to pre-school. In some ways it will be nice to settle into a more scheduled life - ballet classes will begin soon for Miss 8 and Miss soon to be 4 and the girls will be busy with school and friends and homework and all that entails. I already have an overnight scheduled with Miss 8 and Miss 3 and am hoping I can get Miss 7 (who will be 8 next weekend) to come over and join in the fun.


I didn't get my signatures sewn yesterday; I read two books instead. The Dry Grasses of August was a pretty good read and the other, 13 Rue Therese, was not so good. It was an easy read, but pretty insubstantial in story line. I am finding myself reading more these days - fiction rather than art "how-to" books. I recently read a couple of books by Francine Rivers. The first, "Her Mother's Hope" I really liked and the follow-up, "Her Daughter's Dream", was a good read as well, but not quite as complex and enjoyable as the first.


I appreciate your comments regarding my watercolor of St. Mary's Church and have decided that I am going to play with it with watersoluble oil pastels (Caran d'Ache Neocolor II) and see what it becomes. Here is what I've done so far.

There is still much to be done. The shadows on the church need to be resolved. The facing part of the tower is too dark and the front of the building should share the shadow. The strip of yellow behind the hedges (which I like better now that I've added some lighter colors to its top) needs some variation, and I would like to enhance the sky a bit.

I'd like more input if you don't mind. I find you to be an invaluable resource when I can't trust my own eye. One thing I notice is that I like it much better when I get up and move across the room (more like how the hanging picture would be viewed).

We had a wonderful light show accompanying the thunderstorm last evening. The hubster and I sat in the screened porch on the swing and watched until the rain began to come through the screen. I really love a good thunder boomer if it isn't too extreme and doesn't do damage.

As an aside: I went to the post office to send the watercolor book that Cathy Holtom won (by the way I saw a book at the library yesterday whose author was Cathy Holton) and tried to send it media rate, but apparently there isn't one available to Italy. Needless to say, the postage cost more than the book did. Now I understand why many bloggers limit their giveaways to the US. 

I hope you are having a wonderful day today. The weather here is supposed to be cooler and pleasant for the rest of the week. The hubster and I are taking a little trip to Mason to the Maple Street Mall to take his wishing well up to try to sell it.

I am within 1/2 pound of my goal of 155 and am feeling like a million bucks! Now the trick is to stay there.

What is with blogger today. Before I even got the first paragraph written, there was a warning in red at the top of the post saying, "Autosave stopped because this post has been published." And sure enough when I went to my blog there was today's post with just half a paragraph. HUH???!!! I deleted it and hope to get this in its place.

xoxo