I haven't got any painting done this weekend, but I did find time to frame my Rushing Stream in the "amazing deal frame" that I picked up last week.  I matted it with a dark green mat which I already had and must say I like the look against the gold frame.

I do have a picture on my easel at the moment, but it's going quite slowly.

Thankfully, I didn't get picked to serve on the jury - but I did get as far as the courtroom and it was interesting to see the process of selecting the jury.

Only got a little painting done today, just the sky - because there have been tree men here most of the day taking down two trees.  But after they had gone I went out to the local second-hand store looking for picture frames.  Nothing took my eye, but I did go back to the local arts and crafts store and pick up a frame I had seen there on clearance.  Even better....when I got to the checkout, she took an additional 50% off the already reduced price.  I brought it home, sprayed it gold and now it looks awesome.  I just have to produce a painting now that will do it justice.

Haven't got anything on the easel at the moment, but I did spend some time today going through old photographs looking for inspiration.  I think I've settled on a picture taken during a visit to a park when we lived in Buffalo.  I've sketched it out in charcoal on my sketch pad and I think I'm ready to get started on it.  However, tomorrow I have to report for Jury Service so most of the day will be spent at the courthouse.

This picture is one I did a few weeks ago, from a photo reference I found on Wet Canvas in the reference image library.  I have no idea where it is, but I wanted to practice doing water.

I've spent a lot of time at my easel over the last couple of days and my Rushing Stream picture is now finished.  This was very challenging for me...running water is very difficult to capture (for me at least).  I'll be looking for a somewhat easier subject for my next project.  My husband has put his stamp of approval on this one and thinks I should frame it.  I don't frame all of my work but I think I will do this time as I put so much blood sweat and tears into it.

Well, the Rocky Canyon is now framed and hanging on the wall in our hallway.  I was going to frame it without a mat, but didn't like the look, so it ended up in a different frame with a mat.

I have begun another one in the February challenge on Wet Canvas.  This is a stream running over rocks with lots of trees.  Very difficult!  So far I don't like it at all, but I'm going to persevere.  Often the mid point of a painting looks terrible and then it magically all comes together.  I hope that will happen with this one.

I spent most of the day today in my studio working on this picture.  I tried something new on this one - did a rough hard pastel sketch, just blocking in the main color areas, then washed the whole thing with alcohol.  This dried very quickly and then I did my pastel painting as usual on top of the underpainting.  I love this method, and plan to do it again.  I think I may have to be careful about the type of paper I use though, some paper might buckle. 

This was part of the February challenge that I posted about earlier.  I'm interested to see if other people have chosen this particular picture to paint and how they have interpreted it.  It was fun to do.

Well, over the weekend I downloaded the lighthouse picture onto Wet Canvas and got a variety of opinions on it's merits.  I asked for helpful criticism and got it!  The general concensus was that the cloud on the left was competing with the lighthouse and that the picture would be better without it.  So today I removed it, and played with the other two clouds a bit.  I think they were right - it does look better.  I'm not going to repost the picture though.

Now I have started another project.  I'm taking part in the February Landscape challenge in the Landscape section of Wet Canvas- so I've got all month to finish.  There were three reference photographs to choose from and I have chosen to do a rocky canyon picture.  It'll be interesting to see how my picture compares to the same picture done by other people.