So without even a little problem STAGE FOUR appears tonight. Now the light source is even more obvious and the big egg looks like an egg, even though it will get more light and modeling, and the quail eggs look like potatoes. The next phase will complete this painting. There will be reflections next to the shadows because they are actually on my glass-top desk. If you've never noticed them before, scroll down now and look for the reflections next to the shadows on some of the other paintings. I will also add the freckles to the quail eggs.

We installed the exhibit for the Komorowski Silent Auction early yesterday morning. It was so great to connect with the other artists and see their contributions. Just outstanding. Wonderful people with BIG hearts. Most of them don't even know the Komorowskis and they not only inconvenience themselves to be there at 8am on a Sunday morning, but also contribute really nice, really expensive work and services. The exhibit will be there until closing time, June 2nd. Please, try to get in, if not for the cause, then for the amazing deals on great art and related services. Truth is, if you knew the Komorowskis, you'd do the same thing.

Tomorrow is a heavy work day, framing paintings, making signs and finishing a large egg painting for my Three Little Pigs Exhibit that gets installed on Wednesday. Geez, there's still so much to do, I'd better get back to work.

I don't understand why this image didn't work for so long. But I'll just be happy with it now. The colors here aren't accurate, but that's not important. This is the stage where I put the shadows under the eggs and and started developing the values with the light layer on top of the eggs. The light layer is flat, but additional layers will form the eggs. There is also now a direction of the light source, evident, as I said before, from the top left. This looks like something Cezanne might have done and the eggs look like stones.

I tried to get the stage four on tonight also. Of course I can't, but I will next time.

I won't be back on for the weekend since we're hanging the Komorowski silent art auction benefit, early Sunday morning and there's still much to do. Please get out to see all of the different artist's work. It's wonderful how everyone has pulled together for this. I'm really touched and impressed.

Have a great weekend.

Today barely anything went right. Many minor inconveniences and a couple of bigger ones. Nothing that equals the end of the world, but enough to send me to bed, which is where I'm going as soon as I finish this. Needless to say that the stage three image still won't upload. Apparently there's a problem with the file itself. At least I know it's not my studio computer, since I'm on the office computer and it still won't work. Hopefully I can fix that tomorrow. Stage four is also finished and I'll put them on together. Maybe stage five, the final one will be finished as well. It will be nice to be able to put them all together. So after a monster of a day, tonight, Jay is working on another piano piece for church; "Minuet in D Minor" by Bach. It's amazing how music really helps ease the tension of a frustrating day. Last night as I was falling asleep, he was playing "Soul Eyes". I can't put into words the feeling of having someone do that for you and how it eases you into such a peaceful, blissful place. I know how blessed I am. I'm very, very grateful. There's my cue to go to bed. Jay's playing "Soul Eyes".

I've tried to upload the stage three painting, at least five times, but of course it doesn't work again. I'm wondering if it's my computer. In any case, I figured if I mentioned it, maybe it would work at the last second like last night. What I did with the painting was give it a light source coming in from above left. Then I put shadows under the eggs and put the first layer of lighter color on each one where the light hits it. It's amazing how such a tiny bit of paint starts to sculpt form. Wish you could see it....tomorrow I'll continue developing the lighter values to give the final form to the eggs. I'll get it posted on here sooner or later. I'll try tomorrow morning again to at least get the image uploaded. Last night after I went to bed I remembered that I didn't close the final door to secure the chickens. So I got up and went outside in my nightgown and struggled in the dark to really batten down the hatches. I don't think anything could have gotten in to get them, but Andrea, the woman that I got the hens from, told me about someone else who got ducks from her and a fox dug under the pen and around the wire and ate the female duck. Now we've had fox trouble here before when they used to come to grocery shop for chickens, ducks and rabbits. The raccoons and opossums are treacherous too, but since I closed everything up tight, I went back to bed. No sooner did I get under the covers, you guessed it, the fox was outside. Have you ever heard a fox? It sounds like a woman screaming. Really. It's so scary, that after all these years it still shakes me up. Tonight, the girls are in lock down. No worries.

Today is my Mother's birthday. She passed away 12 years ago. I often think about her mother strolling her through their neighborhood on beautiful days like the one we had today. Every spring flower is in bloom. Even the green buds on the trees look like flowers. A wonderful time of the year to have a baby. Happy birthday Mom, I miss you. I laid in the shapes for the second stage of the painting, but the image uploader is giving me ag again. I've used the colors from the bottom third of the painting on the outside of the shapes...it's indigo blue and I also used the color from the top third, which is burnt sienna on the inside of the shapes. I'll try one more time to upload the image. Well, it won't work, so I'll tell you about the past two days. Yesterday, I drove up to Christmas Village, which is an hour and a half each way to get my Auracana chickens. They lay bluish-green to olive-green eggs. I can't tell you how much I love having chickens. They were worth the drive. They're really cute. I can't wait to paint their eggs. Today I drove to Sparta, New Jersey...that's a two and a half hour drive each way, to get two rabbits that aren't related to mine. They're huge and beautiful. It took me a day to get them all set up, so that they're safe, especially from the red-tail hawks that dive-bomb my bird feeders for mourning doves. As I type, I'm holding the single hatchling quail. He gets lonely and so I hold him, or take his bumblebee-sized body outside to peck at the grass and stuff on the ground. Hopefully more quail will hatch this week so he can have normal quail relationships. He's already starting to get feathers. He has a club foot, but seems to get around on it OK. Well I'll try again tomorrow with the second stage of the painting.

Geez, I made a spelling mistake and went back to edit the post and decided to give the image uploader one last shot and it worked! So after all of that, the image is too dark, but just look at it as closely as you can and you'll see the egg shapes. The bigger one on the left will be a brown chicken egg and of course the four on the right will be quail eggs.

The chicken egg is positioned in this composition to lead your eye into the painting from the left and it's pointed in the direction of the quail eggs to take you over to them. Tomorrow I'll lay in the shadows under the eggs and start building up the lighter layers to give form to the eggs.

Sleep tight.

First off-THANK YOU to Karen Morss the "orchardess" for the purchase of the last painting di giorno-"Homemade Meyer Lemon Limoncello". Karen you're now officially a collector, in the plural sense of the word, since you own two of my paintings. I'm thrilled and very grateful. Great idea about the Splenda.This so long awaited beautiful weather ,will soon give way to heat and humidity. We'll be needing that sorbet! Thanks again Karen.

Secondly, I'd like to thank everyone for the encouragement and feedback on this site, especially my sister-in-law Josie, my Aunt Jeannie, Deb Sarles and Patti McIlhaney. I want you to know that I appreciate everyone's support and the time it takes to visit and read this. I hope you're having as much fun with it as I am.

As promised, tonight I'll show you the first step of the painting I'm working on. It's a 10"x8" deep, gallery-wrapped linen canvas. I love to paint on linen, especially with the colors I'll be using, which are deep and earthy. Now, let's hope the image loader works. OK, so here it is. I've thinned the colors with some walnut oil (artists grade) so that the texture of the linen shows through as well as some of the loose brush stokes. There is no background in my studio that looks like this. I just paint color combinations that strike me as appealing, depending on my mood. The walnut oil also helps the paint dry faster. I always do the very basic background first and usually start with the darkest colors, but sometimes add more darks, depending on what's needed. This is very typical of my still lifes. For landscapes I start with the darkest and largest shapes. The only time I draw on the canvas first is if I'm doing a portrait...house, person or pet.

I like the layer (shown above) to dry before I continue. I will often do a dozen or so canvases this way in different formats--vertical, horizontal and using different colors. Sometimes it's what's left on my palette after several paintings. Next I'll lay in the basic shapes of the still life. See you then.

Jay's playing in church on Sunday and practising "Great is Thy Faithfulness" what soothing solace after such a horrific week.

Have a great weekend.

My daughter Jeanie has been teaching my 4 year old grandson, Jonah, (see photo of him below) his letters, numbers, science and bible in preparation for kindergarten in September. During bible lessons, there has been an ongoing discussion about salvation and how a simple but genuine, heartfelt prayer can secure salvation for you. Jonah's older brother Gabriel --he's 7 years old, has been on the case in regard to this, as well as everything else Jonah does. So after Jonah's bible lesson on Monday, Jonah in an earnest prayer said, "Jesus, I am sorry for the things that I have done wrong, please forgive me, thank you taking my punishment on the cross, please come into my heart and be with me forever". Well Jeanie was stunned and Gabriel immediately got on the horn to report to me. So they decided to have a party for Jonah that night. He had all of the foods he has on special occasions, pizza, garlic bread sticks and chocolate cupcakes. Derek, his dad, brought home a little present for him too. He had a wonderful party. The next day, he finished his bible lesson and started saying the same prayer. Jeanie had to tell him that the prayer is a one-time deal. Jonah was very upset and told his mother, "but Mommy, I need to have a party everyday"! This is a child after my own heart, because I need a party everyday too. I don't always get one a day, but at my age and condition, any half decent day is nothing short of a party. I've started a new series of quail egg paintings, but didn't finish it today. Instead I met with some of the local press to get coverage for the Komorowski Silent Art Auction. I'm thinking of taking you with me through the process of one of the paintings di giorno. I just have to remember to stop painting and photograph the process. We'll give it a shot tomorrow, since there must be a party going on at blogger. The image uploader isn't working again.

It's been necessary for me to get some things in the studio organized for the exhibits coming up, so that I could paint again.

Fortunately the vertigo left on Monday, but only after being brutal over the weekend.

In any case I'm taking allergy meds, so I hopefully won't have to deal with it anymore.

As promised the painting is a cordial glass of limoncello. It is out of scale for the canvas, meaning the glass is too big. I wanted it this way because it's a little glass, but a big deal to me. You'll also notice that it seems to be levitating, that was intentional too. I was actually going to paint rays of light around it like a holy grail... well, not really, but it did enter my mind.

This is the limoncello that I made, once again, thanks to Karen Morss, the "orchardess" that grows the Meyer lemons out in California and ships them here--http://www.lemonladies.com/. I wish you could taste it. I started it in February and let the Meyer Lemon zests "steep" in vodka for 6 weeks. It only needs four weeks, but I didn't want to open it until Easter. It was a beautiful process. The color from the zests leached out into the vodka and turned it the beautiful , warm, golden yellow, that differs Meyer lemon skins from regular lemons. I added the simple syrup on Easter Eve and bottled some for my cousins and Aunt Jeannie and Uncle Nickie. We went to my cousin Larry and his wife Marilena's for Easter dinner. The guys all did a taste test and compared it to a really good commercial limoncello. I wasn't there for the taste test, but there is really no comparison. First of all, the Ketel One made it so smooth and velvety, almost creamy. The clarity was outstanding and there's no artificial color.

Making limoncello wasn't hard to do. Try it, it's really fun and very gratifying. Now if only the weather would get warmer so we could do those limoncello snowcones.

Finally, the painting di giorno, "Homemade Meyer Lemon Limoncello" 6"x6", oil on canvas-$50. Salut. SOLD.

Jeanie and her family returned from California tonight to pick up Spikey. They brought me an Easter Egg and their dinner check (it's presented on a laundry tag) from Thomas Keller's French Laundry restaurant, in Yountsville, CA. Derek's parents gave them the dinner for Jeanie's birthday. Wow! Now, those are wonderful in-laws. His Mom also gave me an autographed French Laundry cookbook. It reads "It's all about the finesse-Thomas Keller". The recipes are just mind-boggling. How this man thinks of these things just hurts my head--which by the way, is not 100%, but 90% better and that's pretty good. The antibiotics must be kicking in. Painting and the usual blog will pick up again on Monday. The image uploader isn't working, so I'll just say goodnight.

I need to post another Chanticleer photo as my eyes still aren't quite able to focus enough to paint without me getting dizzy. The same holds true for looking at the computer screen, so this is the photo that shows the grasses that look like wild, blonde-haired people with the tops of their heads sticking out of the ground.

Just wanted to be in touch. I'm feeeling better today and hopefully will be back to myself tomorrow.

Uh oh, my Aunt Jeannie just caught me out of bed. Good night.

We'll talk soon about the Limoncello, I promise.

I've been down with vertigo ad nauseum...pun intended....yesterday it was debilitating, today not as bad. I believe it's sinus/allergy induced inner ear problems. I feel like the Lyme disease exacerbates it too. It hasn't been this bad in 20 years. It's brutal. I'll leave you with a photo of the daffodils and wood hyacinth at Chanticleer and go back to bed. It's better when I keep my eyes closed.

I promise to fill you in on Easter and the Limoncello as soon as I can.

Quickly, just want to wish everyone a holy, wonderful, happy Easter and also hopefully, bring a smile to your face with this image of "Easter Spikey".

He belongs to my daughter Jeanie and her family. He's staying with us for the holiday while Jeanie and her husband and three kids are in California visiting her husband Derek's family.

I like Spikey's bunny tail the best. He's a great bulldog and I've grown to love him much more over this visit. One of these days I'm not giving him back, like "Princess Leia/Senor", that I love so much now. He's a lovebird that their son Jonah found and brought here when they went away last summer. Jonah named him that by the way. You'll get to meet him one of these days via a photo or painting.

Blessings.

I went back to Chanticleer www.chanticleergarden.org again today for my walk. This time I took my camera.

It didn't snow, or even flurry, but it was pretty chilly. What a wonderful place. They have the bluest squill that I've ever seen. They've left some of the ornamental grasses from last year and they look like the tops of peoples heads sticking out of the ground. You can imagine that they'll pop up from the soil at any second!

Next week I'll post some photos I took today.

This is the last of the bunny shots. Hopefully you'll get the real treat tomorrow for an unexpected Easter Bunny photo.

Pray-thanx and blessings.

Even though it was cold today, I decided to go to Chanticleer to renew my membership and for some exercise. It was wonderful. As I was passing the girl in the water, (see previous post "A Better Lady in the Water") the sun came out and was shining so warm on my face, then suddenly a snow squall just had snow falling hard and fast everywhere. I love that combination of snow or rain and full sun. I was so blessed that I laughed out loud.

Good thing there was no one else around.

I'm very happy to welcome a new collector Joan, from Nebraska. She is now the owner of a painting di giorno, "Art Glass Egg, Quail Eggs and Blue Camphor Glass". Thank you Joan.

I'll be happy to get back to painting later next week. I have a 36"x30" linen canvas prepped for quail eggs to be painted on it. I have 15 quail eggs in the incubator, including the two odd white ones. Hopefully they'll all hatch in about two more weeks or a little less. I have four beautiful quail eggs waiting to be painted, one that looks like it's made of handmade paper. Another "odd egg".

I'm looking into getting some hens that lay green and/or blue eggs. I used to have them years ago. Also, French Maran hens that lay dark brown eggs. I think that they, along with the quail eggs, would make beautiful compositions for paintings.

Remember your prayers. They're needed very much. Thanx.

I just love the ears on this rabbit. His are the biggest and wildest. Note that he's got one hanging over another bunny's face.

Noah fixed the comments option so that you can click on "post a comment" under each day and leave one, or several. The other thing that he's going to do soon and without notice is take away the sale. So get in on it now if you have any interest.

Along this same line, I'm thrilled to welcome Margot from Minnesota to the blog as a new collector. She is now the owner of two paintings di giorno- "Blood Oranges, Quail Egg & Camphor Glass" and "Just Hatched #1". Thank you so much Margot.

It was just too beautiful to stay inside today. I know it's going to get cold again after tomorrow, but everything was so alive today.

Please remember my Uncle Nickie and Aunt Jeannie in your prayers tonight. They're taking it tough. He is home from the hospital now.

If you would also mention John, Gwen and Barbara, it would mean a lot. Thanx.

Finally,the comments option really is enabled-have fun with it.

The weekend was so full. Friday a.m. we went to our bible study, then that night Jay was called to do background music for Church of the Savior's art show. So I went with him. It was great to see all of the art in our church. A lot of talent. I plan on joining the group this month. I'll be in this art show next year. We went to Georges' for dinner after. It was great as usual. The executive chef, Joe Frost sent out homemade blueberry waffles with homemade bourbon ice cream for dessert. It was outstanding. The place was mobbed, but it was fun to see a lot of friends there.

Saturday I cooked meals for the Welchs and Komorowskis, then Jay and I delivered them. These families still need prayers, as does Uncle Nickie and Aunt Jeanie and their family. We were going to visit him yesterday after church, but there was no definite word about his release from the hospital, so we stayed home.

Jay Jr. and I are working on an art, silent auction benefit for the Komorowskis. It'll be held at the Gryphon Cafe' for the month of May.

I will be exhibiting at The Three Little Pigs Cafe' in West Chester for the months of May and June. I'm looking forward to that.

I won't be posting paintings until after Easter unless a troop of helpers comes and gets everything ready for Easter. So I'll post some more photos of bunnies.

I also have a portrait that I need to get started this Wednesday. Chopin is on the CD player, doing what he did best.