Sunflowers and Speedwork

Well, summer has come and gone, Now it's time to commemorate the days with another painting. One of my Facebook friends posted a number of absolutely gorgeous pictures of the sunflowers in her area and this motivated me to paint my interpretation of her flowers.  So here you go.

I had a lot of fun playing with modeling paste and gel medium. I really love Golden acrylics. I have found that with my passion for palette knife paintings that I don't have patience for the cheap watery paints anymore.

And speaking of not having patience.. I don't have patience for just simply running 3 days a week and calling it good. I HAVE TO HAVE A GOAL! ugh.  That is just one of my quirks.

So, I am in the heart of training for the Fort Worth Marathon on November 8th. I know. Working full time, raising three daughters, being a pastor's wife and taking 12 hours of graduate class isn't enough for me. I have to train for a marathon. 

Yep.

And so far, I am loving it. 

Okay, check that. Today I am tired.

But Wednesday is my only off day, so by this morning, Tuesday, I was sluggish. And it was SPEEDWORK! oH mY GrAvy! I did a 1 mile warm up, 9x600's and a cool down mile. Last week, no problem hitting my goals. Today, I had to work a little harder at it. But I ran Thursday thru today and that is new for me.

Anyway, I think besides the sluggish part of it, I like making speed work the last workout prior to the morning off. There is just something really cool about hitting my time goals knowing that I ran a ton of miles on Saturday and Sunday! 

I am stronger than I think I am!!

Always.

A break between semesters

The school year is winding down. This means all kinds of crazy, but one thing it means is that I'm not buried in deadlines for competitions and I'm finished with my grad classes for the semester.

I am rather proud of my 4.0 for the semester. 12 hours of graduate classwork on top of our life meant for some stressful times, but I didn't want to make a B. So at least for this semester, all is good. :)

One of the things I am most proud of this semester is that not only did I earn A's in all four courses, but I feel like I really LEARNED useful stuff too.

And since last night I didn't have classwork to occupy my time and as I've mentioned before, I don't watch much television, I painted another painting.

I'm really focusing now on developing my own style. I love palette knife paintings, but using the entire color spectrum has bothered me. My painting mentor pushes us to use all of the colors, but I'm finding myself really enjoying a limited palette painting.  The painting below has no red in it.

I think for a 20x24 inch painting completed in an hour and a half, it's a nice piece.

More than that, it was fun.

Another New Painting

We have been so busy lately that I haven't been able to stop and paint. Last night I said the heck with all of the extra stuff that claims my evenings and painted.

The little girls did their thing around me and I enjoyed some painting zen in the midst of their noise and chatter.

Here is what I painted last night. Not too bad for 2 1/2 hours of work.

 

Once again, I have to say I love Leonid Afremov's style and inspiration!