I'll Try to Catch Up - Really I Will

I'm behind. I'm behind thanking people for the lovely Valentines greetings and cards that they sent in cyber and physical manner. I'm behind on wishing Happy Birthday greetings to several of my on-line f-list friends (SO SORRY), and I'm behind on sleep, but that's just me being me. As we enter this final week of the Olympic Games, I'm really grateful that the end is in sight because I need my routine to get back to "normal" once again.

On Sunday night the torch of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games will be snuffed
and the world will come together again in 2016 in Rio de Janero, Brazil for
the Summer Games and in PyeongChang, Korea in 2018 for the next Winter Games.

Of course that won't really happen because Chickie will be on vacation for the last week of February and beginning of March and I'll have to work for her, but stopping by to feed her cat and working a six-day week is suddenly sounding OK, compared to being glued to the TV too late in the evenings, and waking up to watch curling instead of turning on the news. But I do love the Games and I'll be sad to see the closing ceremonies on Sunday night.

For some strange reason, Chickie's cat seems to
want to be fed daily. But Sasha and I have an understanding.
I take care of her food and clean her litter box and she
doesn't hiss at me. If she does, I hiss back. 

My Sunday yesterday was spent with my artwork. I knew we'd have the games on for the day between his hockey and my figure skating, so rather than work on fiction, it was easier to continue working on my artwork for B2MeM. It's coming along well, but I have to make some serious decisions now to allow me to finish it up. I worked on it for several hours while watching the Ice Dancing Short Programs and I'm pretty happy about where it is at now. It goes back to the shop with me today in hopes that I can continue working on it either this morning or tomorrow morning, then home again to work on it on Wednesday. If things go smoothly, I'll be done by deadline and won't have to ask for any extension.

If you're unhappy with your life, type a new masterpiece. 

The US has had its usual luck in curling. The women's team conceded a match to Korea this morning, ending their Olympic games with a 1-9 record in round robin and last place. Way to go, women's curling team! Oy! The thing is, we were horrid four years ago and we're just a horrid now. Two of the four women on the team are retiring from the sport now, so maybe we can hold out hope for 2018. But I won't hold my breath. I still love watching curling, and whoever wins, good for them.

Great Britain has good curling teams. I love the women's skip, Eve Muirhead. She's
a really competent skip, and a very attractive young woman. 

We're going to get a 4"-6" snow this morning, hitting right at the morning commute. Looking at the weather satellite pic on my phone, we will miss a lot of it, but can't manage to miss it entirely. I hope we don't get as much as they are predicting, but who can say? All I know is that many more of these may well kill my poor DH. I join my thoughts with so many others of you - "Winter has gone long enough. Time for some mild weather."

Argh - OK, Getting On With Things Now

Argh! Wednesday was SO busy. Even though I was organized, I still didn't get enough time to work on my artwork for B2MeM. I did get the final block-outs done, picked up the one additional Pan Pastel color I was lacking for it, and decided how much pass-through I'm really going to do from the elements I've chosen to make up the piece, but not a single swipe of color made it to the paper yet. I'll be taking a bag of my pastels and colored pencils to work with me today and hope to at least make a start on the coloring this morning before I have to unlock my doors.

Pan Pastels are applied with specific foam applicators. They allow the color to
be put onto many different kinds of paper. My pic is on smooth paper, but
the application technique would work equally well on a heavily-toothed
watercolor paper. 

I know that Sunday DH will be tied up watching the Olympics. Checking the schedule, there will be curling, ice hockey, some figure skating, snow boarding, and other things that will keep him occupied. That may leave me some more time to color my piece, although I always find it very difficult to work on my projects when sharing a room with him. I'll have to figure something out, though. I have a firm deadline and I also want to watch as many events as possible.

There are 80 colors in the full system plus some metallic additions that they
just introduced. I have 50 of the colors that I've been getting one pan
at a time as I needed them or had an extra $5.50. I love working with them.

On the home front, of the last two showings, one needed a larger home although they really liked ours, the other supposedly smelled gas so she turned on every light and left the house. What's up with that?!? What a doofus! I was there to close things back down after her visit and I didn't smell any gas. She complained to my Realtor, though, so I had DH check the house out also on his way home from work. Everything was fine, so I think the agent was totally imagining things. However - when you smell gas, you're supposed to leave. Just turning on a light can ignite the gas. So her turning on every light and then leaving them on ... how stupid!

Maybe the agent should carry one of these with her so
that she won't bother all of us with her fears. What a pain!

My grocer had a lovely sale on strawberries yesterday, so I indulged and bought several containers. That'll be my lunch for the next week. Strawberries and soup - nice lunch staying within the letter S. I should be teaching small children some of the various words that start with the letter S - LOL.

I've been loving the snow boarding events. I suspect I would have been much more likely to enjoy snow sports with a snowboard than I ever did with skis. I was always a poor skier but a very good figure skater. I felt that skis were too long and just couldn't handle them. But I loved skateboarding and I'm pretty sure I would have been really good on snowboards. Of course, they didn't exist when I was hitting the slopes of Colorado. At least I do have the bragging rights that I learned on some of the most beautiful mountains of Colorado - the mountains around Aspen. My home of the heart.

I think I would have really enjoyed snowboarding - certainly much more
than I enjoyed downhill skiing. 

I hope those of you getting hit by storms are battened down and safe. You've really been getting pounded this winter. Warm hugs to all of you.

I'm At a Loss So I'm Rambling

I'm tired. I've been watching the Olympics and more and more, curling, cross-country skiing, downhill, speed skating and more. Yes - curling, one of those very odd Olympic sports that's crazy, fun, strategy rather than head-to-head brute force, and ... well, I love it. A small team, a set of very heavy rocks with handles and a long course of highly-polished ice, brooms, calling - no...screaming - orders to sweepers. What's not to love? Actually, I know a lot of people who just don't get curling. But DH and I would be really happy to sit and watch for hours. Strategy, skill and a bit of luck, it all comes to play in curling.

The US doesn't do curling well, but we love the sport anyway. In 2010 we
were in last place at the end of the games, but we're here again and trying
to improve. So far, though, the women's team is 0-2. *sigh*

But, what else to post about today? Well, I'm head-deep into an illustration project for B2MeM. I wasn't going to take an art project, but had an idea and my schedule seemed to cooperate, so I decided that my story was progressing well enough that I could finish it on time, still keep up with the small things, and allow myself the fun of playing with pencils, inks and pastels. So I'm doing an illustration. I worked on the mock-up on Sunday, did the first penciling yesterday morning, and will be continuing that today to try and get to the inking tomorrow. It's flowing well across the page, so I have hopes for this one. I also have a very fast due date, so I can't waste a lot of time with it.

I started using Pan Pastels almost two years ago as a media and I really
love them. They are so easy to blend, and I can use water or other carriers
to change them on the page. They're very fun. I think I gathered my collection
over a year using Dick Blick Art Supply 40% off coupons. 

Bought an ebook a bit outside my norm this morning without a really strong idea about why, except it seemed interesting and the reviews were FABULOUS! So, I'll be reading "The Fault in our Stars" by John Green within a few weeks (I have to read others I've downloaded before it first, thus the delay). It just seemed like a really interesting book. I read into the first ten reviews or so and they were glowing. There were more than 2000 5-star ratings for it, so I caved. Those of you doing book clubs - this may be a good one for you.

The Fault in our Stars is also going to be a movie, released
in early June this year. The tag line "One Sick Love Story" is a
bit controversial, since the two main characters are
both suffering from cancer. But I'm looking forward to
reading the book. 

Finally, in this very disjointed post, I'm going on the record saying that I'm really tired of winter - REALLY TIRED. It's cold, I'm just seeing a lot of dirty snow and very high piles of shoveled snow - mountains of it in the parking lots, and I really want winter over already. I want the snow I see to be on the television as the skiers compete in Sochi, not in my front yard.

One of the places where the city deposits street snow is behind one of our stadiums.
This pile is from two years ago. We have LOTS more snow this year so
our pile is even higher. They move the snow with backhoes and front-loaders
that move up a path from the right. Notice the person standing in the front. 

It's a crazy post today, but sometimes rambles can be fun. Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Sharing Artwork

I've posted often over the past two months about how I was creating artwork for CB's Big Bang story.

Well, the story was finally released yesterday and I thought, since many of you wouldn't necessarily have access to her story, that I would post the artwork here so that you know what I've been busy with and how much fun I had playing with pastels as a new media.

Abney Park Cemetery chapel

CB's story had a character who was slain and buried in a specific cemetery that had a fabulous chapel. I actually think she didn't use this illustration, but I still loved the way it turned out and decided to go ahead and share it here.

"Extra! Extra! Read all about it!"

There was a jewel theft that our hero, Lord Glorfindel, found out about via a paper boy in front of the gates to his estate.

Returning home in the 1904 Mercedes motor car.

Accompanied by two servants he investigated the theft and then returned to his home, a large manor house. He was driven in a 1904 Mercedes motor car (I really loved finding the different views of this fabulous car).

The rose was poisoned, the sign was just a small warning.

A variety of threats and attempts on his life follow while he looks into the theft and possible future planned theft of the Crown Jewels of England.  His partner in this is an Inspector of Scotland Yard, here shown seated in his office.

The Inspector seated behind his desk on a rainy afternoon.
I really loved how this one turned out. It was a montage of lots of
images before it came together as a whole in the finished piece.

He was kidnapped and then threatened by a cobra. Here I did a colorful cobra first but she asked for a re-do so that the cobra would be banded black and yellow with a cream breast. So I did two snakes for her.

This was my first cobra, but she wanted a darker version. So I redid it...

This is the second cobra and she ended up using this one.

After being rescued by a mysterious person Lord Glorfindel is finally face to face with an underground group of elves. Among these are his rescuer, Erestor. Erestor attends a formal ball held by the King, so here he is pictured in formal wear.

Erestor in formal wear.

That was it for original art, but I also created three different digital photo montage pieces. One for her chapter headings (33 chapters - but they're short - LOL).

One montage for a scene where Lord Glorfindel is tested for character in the light of Earendil's Silmaril which has been placed in a stand in the center of a table.

Silmaril in a stand.

And finally, have you ever seen the Silmarils in the current day? Well, they exist in the Crown Jewels of England. Here's a photo montage of the Imperial Crown and Sceptre, each one holding one of the Silmarils. So if you ever need to know where they are....  Well, Lord Glorfindel and Binky figured it all out.

The Imperial Crown and Sceptre

So, if you want a link to the actual story which is great fun, just follow this click to the AO3 version. A big THANK YOU out to Binky for giving me such fun for a couple of months. I had a blast composing and making her story come alive.

Wednesday Was Wonderful (WWW)

Wednesday was wonderful - I was happily bouncing off the walls by the end of the day. I had a long list of errands - everything from picking up a ream of paper to grocery shopping and I accomplished all of it in a timely manner. But the major work I had on my agenda were the final two pictures for CB's Big Bang story.

I'm not fond of shopping and am the Queen of getting out
of stores in record time. Watch out ahead! I'm driving
a grocery cart!

I knew what I wanted to do. I had a re-do for her on one picture where she wanted different coloring. Although I tried to change it in Photoshop, it just wasn't working for me so I spent an hour or so on Sunday redrawing it from scratch and did the coloring yesterday. My happy was my Erestor, though. I was nervous about him - I was coloring him from a photograph that I fell in love with but pastels are still a new media for me and I was nervous about how well I could pull this off.

Painting from a photograph requires blending colors. I was really
nervous about how well it would work out.

He is BEAUTIFUL! I am so very happy! CB may not like the picture or my interpretation of him, but I am delighted with the color work and immediately started blocking out a picture I've had in my head of Feanor and Nerdanel. I worked on that for a little bit and have a much better idea of how I want to block it out. Maybe next week for that. I also finished some beta work for my friend in Germany that I really owed her for a couple of weeks now (bad me!). Now it's back to her before it returns to me for a second read-through.

I love fresh fruit. My fridge has kiwis, grapes and strawberries for munchies right now.

My refrigerator is stuffed full of wonderful fruit - I went a little crazy at the grocer yesterday. I have lots and lots of green and red grapes, two pounds of strawberries, carrots and celery and a bag of oranges is on my counter. I don't think I'll starve between now and next week.

And finally, because I really can't let it slide without comment, the murmur about yesterday's Supreme Court case (#12-307 if you're looking for the transcript) seems quite positive for the abolition of the Defense of Marriage Act. DOMA penalizes legal marriages between same-sex partners because it specifies that marriage is only legitimate between one man and one woman. Of the two cases that the Supreme Court heard this week that dealt with gay marriage, I think this case has a stronger platform and a greater chance of success. I think that the justices will decide that Prop 8 could still be altered via an amendment to the California constitution, but the DOMA is a federal law and falls more into their jurisdictional umbrella. I downloaded the transcript but haven't had a chance to read it yet. I'll catch up on it today.