Hi guys: How is your painting coming. Hooray I got a picture that finaly came out. Have you worked on your apples and do they look like the ones in my picture? Mine is almost done and just needs a final few touches. I added a squirel to my painting but you do not have to. I hope you are enjoying the painting this way. Let me know and maybe we can do another . Can you imagine that we have over 200 inches of snow were we live and I suppose I should take a picture as it has been a very long time that we have had this much. Dad and I enjoy going to the gym and at first I wondered how I would like working out with my husband since for nine years I went by myself. Well it has worked out great as we each to our own thing and he really has taken a liking to walking the track and working on the weight machines. Plus my husband loves talking to people and has found a few men that he gets a chance to talk to. So our life as retired people is very busy and that is a very good thing because God never intended for senior citizens to just sit around the house and do nothing. Well hope those of you that are no longer working can find things to do to keep busy.

Hi. Now what I want you to do for step four is to start drawing the apples that are going to go beside and in front of the tree stump. I am not sending a picture because I do not think it will show up very well. So remember apples are not a complete circle so when you draw them take an apple and study it. The color I want you to use is light red and mix some purple into it to make a deep red color. This will be the under painting for your apple. When it is dry take light red and plain red to cover the underpainting of the apple. You should have a very pretty shade of apple and we will stop at this point. Remember to make a fair amount of apples in the painting to look like some one dropped them from a bucket. I will take a picture of mine and see if it will show up but it may not. Keep at your work and let me know how you are doing.

Now we are doing step three. I hope you can see it pretty good. I want you to draw with chalk a tree stump to the left of your painting. Remember to make it look old and out of shape. Use brunt sienna, blue, red, purple and a little white. You can paint it messy and uneven as this makes it look like bark. When it is dry you can start to paint some very dark areas to look like holes in the stump. Because your light is coming from the left you take white and a very little orange to paint along the left side of the stump to show your light source. On the right side of the stump you should paint a hint of blue to make it stand out and show that it is not flat but has some roundness to it. Forget about the red and other stuff I painted as I went ahead a little. The red is going to be apples in the forground and we will do that in step four. It is very cold here and very snowy (120 inches) so that is why I figured it would be fun for us to start this painting. Good luck and keep at it because the more you paint the more comfortable you will get and also better.

Now on the dried canvas from above we will start to pain the back ground for our picture. It will be all grass of differant shades. In the left top canvas take some yellow and white and paint the corner about a 1/4 of the way down and 1/2 way to the middle. This is your light source. On the other side you will take hookers green, a little orange and yellow green and start painting the other side from top to bottom and slowly start easing the paint to blend into the light part of the painting. At the bottom of the right side of the painting add a little earth tones (brown or burnt sienna) but do not make it to dark. When you are finished with this, take a very small brush and take white and green together to start make grass. You don't have to make tons of it just make a hint of weeds and large blades to show that you are in a meadow. Good luck Do not get discouraged as it does not have to be perfect at this point.

Hey Kids- here is a project painting we can do together. To paint the back ground like I did take red, white, blue, green, purple and just paint the whole background so you can see a little of each color. You don't have to be fussy as we are going to cover it with the beginning of the painting. Good luck.

Well Christmas is over and as always it went far to fast. The house is cleaned and all back in order and it seems like this year we did not even have a Christmas. A nother New Year is starting and since I am not in the mood to paint a picture I decided to make another purse. I found this crazy material that caught my eye and thought that it would make a great summer purse. I don't make fancy ones like my friend as she sells hers for $50 to $80 dollars. Mine are the kind that you can throw around and when they get dirty throw them in the wash. They work for me and it gives me something to do. Christmas was as always a time to enjoy eating all the goodies that people put before you and as expected to gain a few pounds. Hooray I only gained two pounds and am very proud of myself. However, my husband and I have decided that we will give up eating alot of meat. So many of our meals will be meatless and when we do eat it it will be chicken breast or fish. We pray that we will stick to eat as the Dean Orish plan is to eat very little meat and stick to lots of vegetables and fruit. I will keep you all posted on some of the meals that turn out good. -

Happy New Year and it is hard to believe it is 2009 already and you wonder were 2008 has gone. Life is but a whisper the bible tells us and yes it is and the older you get the faster the years slip by. Today is sunny here in the part of the country that borders one of the great lakes and unfortunatly we get very little sunshine during the winter months. Some can't stand all the dark sunless days so they head south but those of us that don't mind and are hardy souls enjoy the long dark days and all the snow (maybe not all the time) and get lots done. I spend many days reading, sewing and painting. My husband and I like to visit our friends that are getting older and can't get out like they used to and spend time with them. We also look after our three year old grandson twice a week that keeps us young as he is a very active child. Our city has lots that you can find to do during the week so we never get bored. So enjoy the coming year as before you know it, it will be gone.