So Many Options

Posted on August 15, 2025 by SusanG

It’s good to have choices and options. You don’t feel as trapped, stuck, or stifled. You can choose a different thing to do, to eat, to read, to listen to, to wear, you name it. Sometimes though, all those options and choices can make the situation more difficult. For example, getting dressed in the morning when you can wear anything you have in your closet, because there is no dress code for the day. You could have 5 different favorite shirts that you could wear and they are all clean. How long does it take you to decide which shirt to wear when you want to wear them all? The same type of dilemma sometimes happens to me when I want to make art. 

Not only do I have a large number of reference photos to choose from, in those photos I have several different themes or topics to choose from. Add to that, I like to work in several different mediums. This often makes starting a new painting or drawing a time consuming process. I spend hours looking through photos until I finally decide on something. Sometimes I will start with one theme and then change my mind and look through photos of a different theme. And once I decide on one photo, or even a few, then I find myself trying to decide how I want to create the art. I suppose it’s a good thing that I don’t also sculpt. I have enough choices as it is.

There are several ways I can create art. I started out with pencil. Simple graphite pencil. I had watercolors and watercolor pencils early on though I didn’t really use them much. Then I had a chance to really use the watercolors so I got a little better with that. Along the way I picked up some soft pastels and did a piece or two with those. And then I tried stippling with ink and acrylic ink and had a lot of success creating that way. I tried acrylic paint with a brush, and fortunately for me, I didn’t like it. It was fortunate because it removes an option for me. Most recently I tried oil painting, and happen to really like that. I’ve even done some 3D computer art/sculpting.

With all of these options, it can be a challenge to find an artistic identity. Which is something I’ve been struggling with. How do I define or describe my art? I can’t really say I’m a “x-artist” because I don’t stick with just one thing. Or I haven’t been. I’ve decided to change that for the most part. I am excited and relieved, and also a bit terrified. 

Aside from all the branding, marketing, and business reasons to make this decision, there is a creative one. There is an artist I came across on Instagram, Kimberly Djehanian (@Kimberly.djehanian on Instagram). She paints frogs. She paints frogs in all kinds of scenes and environments. She recently posted a reel about why she paints frogs. It was an artistic challenge. By limiting her subject she would have to be more creative in what she did with them to keep them interesting to her. Working within narrow constraints can be very helpful with stretching your creativity, growing in your medium, and sometimes it’s even freeing. Because it filters out a lot of noise. Like for me, trying to decide what medium to use to create with, or what to paint. 

I’m not ready to stick to painting just one thing. I still have a lot of stuff that I would like to paint, or attempt to paint, and a few things that I just really like to paint, that I’m not ready to remove from the equation. That means that if I want to narrow my focus my best option is for me to limit my medium. This was not an easy choice. I really like having versatility, and being able to create in many different mediums. Though, there are things I like and don’t like about all the mediums I use, including acrylics which I’ve already removed from the list so they don’t matter for this. The decision has been even more difficult with my recent foray into oil painting. I love how the easy I found it, getting what I wanted on the canvas, and the appeal of working on canvas or canvas board without worrying about the pastel dust and how to keep it from rubbing off, or the paper warping with the watercolor, and then how to protect that. Oil painting is very appealing. And I still want to do more even if it can take a long time to dry. 

So here’s what I’ve decided to do. I’m going to focus on being a Watercolor artist. I’m going to leave a little room for the occasional piece in oil or something else if warranted because, like not being willing to give up some themes or subjects for painting, I’m not ready to give up on the possibility of oil painting. What this looks like in practice for me is that when I choose a subject to paint, my first choice of medium will be watercolor. If I can’t make that work for some reason, then I’ll use something else. Also, on the side, or as a secondary, I want to spend some more time working in oil to see if I can get the same atmosphere with it that I get from watercolor. And, because of the difference of what I feel I can do in oil versus watercolor I think the oil practice will help make my watercolor work even better. 

So watercolor it is. Now, with that declared, I started out trying to do just what I said. I decided to paint a passion flower that my sister took a picture of. I was going to do it in watercolor. I thought I’d finally figured out how to do it, and that it would work ok since I was going to make it a little larger than some of the other watercolor flowers I’ve done. The sketch went ok, though I did have to re-draw the tendril like bits a couple of times. I got them so they looked good and started to use some masking fluid to mask them off so I could use the white of the paper since white paint in watercolor is a challenge. I have this bottle of masking fluid with a really thin sort of nozzle and it looked like it was going to work. And then it didn’t. By the time I finished masking off all the tendrils, I knew. That wasn’t going to be an option. Then, as I was rubbing off the masking, it left a bit of a shadow behind so that really wasn’t going to work. 

After doing all that work, I thought about abandoning the idea of painting this flower. I haven’t, at least not yet. I’m going to try it in oil. I was working on watercolor paper which can work well for oil if you prime it. Since I already had a sketch down, I cleaned it up a bit and then used a transparent gesso over it. I think this might work. I may also need to pick up a few more tubes of paint. I don’t know if I have enough to make good green variations. 

I have another painting planned that has a better chance of working out as a watercolor. It will probably be the largest watercolor painting I’ve done so far and that feels a little weird. It’s from another photo that my sister took and it’s of a Blue Herron. It’s quite a stunning shot, I hope I can do it justice.

And that’s it for this post. I wanted to include some pictures from the false starts on the passion flower, except you can’t see very well what it going on so here are some cool clouds I’ve seen recently.

Cheers!

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Not All White Is The Same

Posted on July 30, 2025 by SusanG

As I’ve been working on my most recent painting I’ve been reading a book on the history of color. It covered how white paint was made using a metal oxide. Lead White was a popular one for a long time and still available, it turns out, even though it is toxic and it has mostly been supplanted by Zinc White and Titanium White on the artist’s palette. Because my martial arts paintings use a good amount of white of some form I was curious about a couple of things. So I went to the trusty internets and did a search.

While I knew a couple of things about Lead White, like it being toxic. I had one misconception. Between the book I just finished, and one I read a few years ago, I thought Lead White was no longer available in 2025. This is not true. Though not many companies make it anymore because of its toxicity. I learned that it doesn’t play nice with some other pigments due to chemical reactions. And I learned that it doesn’t age well. Since I don’t have or use Lead White, none of that really matters. What made it interesting is that I ran into another artist recently who really wanted it because he doesn’t like some aspect of the other whites that are more readily available. 

So what are the other whites? Well as I mentioned, they are Titanium White and Zinc White. I have both. And it turns out, I was using them wrong. But first a little more about them. Like Lead White they are made from a metal oxide, in this case zinc oxide and titanium oxide. But since I wasn’t sure if they were still made this way today, because so many colors today are synthetic formulations instead of the historical formulations, I went looking for information to find out. And I found out that they are. You may have read my previous post talking about how I thought I’d ruined my watercolor painting using white, and how white is discouraged in watercolor. In it I mentioned how it seems to sit on top of the paper and not soak in or absorb. Now, I think I understand why.

I found out even a bit more helpful information about the two more common whites today, zinc and titanium. It turns out that they behave differently and there is a reason for there to be two popular whites. 

In case you are catching up with what I’m doing artistically and a little confused as to why I’m talking about white paint since I was working in watercolor, my latest painting is in oil. And I am planning to do more oil paintings. I do have one watercolor that I need to finish. But that’s a story for a different post. With oil paints, and I imagine acrylics, white becomes a much more useful tool in the paintbox. But it depends on which one you use and what you use it for.

And this is where I find it funny to come up against my unfounded biases. I didn’t not know that there was a usage difference between the two. To me they are both white, but since there is a titanium buff and the titanium white, in some lights, looks a little less crisp, I thought it was an inferior white. Silly me. It isn’t. It is more opaque which makes it hold up better when mixing, and when using it to cover a darker color, or even just adding bright highlights. Zinc, while it is crisp, it also has some transparency to it which means, it loses itself a little when mixed. And it doesn’t actually get those crisp white highlights. I did test this after I read that. And sure enough, it doesn’t give quite the coverage as the titanium. 

What’s really fascinating about the history of art, painting, and the colors used is how, in many ways, artists had to be chemists as well. Because so many of the ingredients of their paints had a likelihood of reacting with each other, or reacting to light, or changing with age. When historical paintings are restored from the years of aged varnish and faded colors people are often surprised by the actual colors. And sometimes downright upset about them. It was also interesting to read about how some artists would use colors because they liked them, they were exactly the color they wanted for that moment, and they didn’t care how they would age and change. Probably an interesting topic of debate with regards to the ephemeralness of art and integrity of artists. But I won’t go there. 

If you are interested in reading about color and its history, the two books I have read are: “The Secret Lives of Color” by Kassia St. Clair. And I just finished reading “Color: A Natural History of the Palette” by Victoria Finlay. Both were really good reads and very interesting. The later book is like a journey to different locations and is more of an adventure or detective story as well as covering a lot of history. It’s been a few years since I read the first one, but one of the things that stuck with me from it is where the term ‘white washing’ came from and what it really was. 

I’ve just finished, or I am close to finishing depending on whether I think it needs more enhancement, my latest painting, ‘Break the Board: Flying Side Kick’. It is a martial arts action painting. This time I caught the kick as the kicker broke the board. I really like how it shows that moment and the way the pants move as part of the action. It will need to dry a little longer than what I’ve been used to before I can varnish it because it is oil and that just takes a little longer. 

I still need to put the finishing touches on ‘Say Cheese!’ which is a watercolor painting. Then I can seal it and take it off to the photographer. As soon as those finishing touches are done it will be time to start on the next painting. I have several martial arts paintings I want to do. At the moment, I’m thinking of either, one that focuses on the Master holding the targets for the kickers, or one that is the wind up for a back spin kick. That’s in addition to a painting or drawing of two students sparing. That’s one I have had in mind for a few weeks now but I haven’t got it started yet. So much to paint! I need to get to it.

Cheers!

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I Think I’ll Try Another

Posted on July 15, 2025 by SusanG

Remember that practice oil painting I was working on? I finished it. I enjoyed creating it so much I decided to try another one. Though I did a few things different this time. And learned something interesting, and important.

Practice oil painting

I really enjoyed creating that practice oil painting. Even as small as it is I managed to get the detail I wanted and needed in order to portray what I wanted to and that is awesome. I was working with brushes that I felt were not quite ideal for it and that doesn’t seem to have mattered with regards the outcome. When I finished I was really happy with it. It felt like I’d finally found the medium that will allow me to create the art I want to create with relative ease. 

It is interesting that it has taken me so long to try oil painting. I wasn’t really avoiding, or fighting the idea of painting in oils though, I also wasn’t really embracing it. Mostly, I have painted with what I had. I had watercolors so I did that, and got a few more so I could do more. I had some soft pastels so I worked with those and then got more so I could do more. I had acrylics so I tried to work with those, and got some more to try to make those work. And yes, I had some oil paints from trying them few years ago. I didn’t use them because I had already invested so much into learning to use the other mediums. Or into figuring out that I didn’t like the medium. 

That meant, that even if I thought something might look better in oils, I didn’t try it. Instead I chose whichever was going to give me close enough to what I wanted. 

I had planned that, after I finished the practice painting, I was going to do another one on larger paper. To practice. Instead I decided to try one on canvas board that is a little larger. I also decided to try a more dynamic composition of two figures, not just one. I wasn’t sure how the composition was going to fit on the canvas. So I did something I don’t generally do. I sketched it out first, like a planning sketch. The way it turned out is cool, and even though I used a smaller sketch pad than the size of the canvas board it was enough for me to see how to put it on the board. So I sketched it in. Then I did something else very different from what I usually do. Instead of opting for a super simple background, or an abstract background, I sketched in enough information about the room so that you can tell the sort of environment the action is taking place in. So now I have one of the most complex paintings I’ve attempted to date and it is only my third oil painting. Yeah, I do think this might be my medium. Well, along with regular pencil.

Painting in oils felt, and feels, so much better, and freeing. Much more than I expected. Truly. I don’t find myself fighting with them to force them to do something. It’s just figuring out what color is going to go there and how to mix it or how to blend, or not, with the paint already laid down. It’s even more relaxing. Who knew. 

I have learned that if I am going to sketch the outline in using pencil on canvas board that has been pre-primed, then I’m going to need something between the pencil and the paint. On the practice painting, my surface was treated with a white acrylic gesso before I started. I drew right on that and then did something of a wash like thin coat of paint over it. I thinned the paint with turpenoid. I’ve seen people do similar and said it helped with seeing the sketch when they used an orange color especially. I didn’t use orange when I did it, and it didn’t really help me see my sketch better. What it did do was to sort of fix the pencil in place and create a barrier between in and the more oiliness of the oil paints. I know. It doesn’t make a lot of sense yet. 

When I started the second painting, I drew my sketch on the canvas board and didn’t do any sort of wash or anything. I just started painting with the oil paints. And what happened was that the graphite sort of melted into the oil paint and then did a little of a smear. It was frustrating at first but I was able to work past it. At one point, after I had got started on it, I went back in with a kneaded erasure and lifted some of the heavier, ‘excess’ pencil off the surface and that helped some. Next time, I’ll just use the clear gesso I was able to find at the art supplies store. That should solve things. 

Another thing I’m learning is that as much as I like the quicker drying of working the turpeniod into the paint for thinning it, as needed, it does mean that I lose that ability to blend back into it later. And sometimes even during the same painting session. That ability to work back into something already put down is part of what I like about oil paints so I need to adjust my habits and expectations so I can take advantage of it. The other bit that I need to keep in mind is that oil paints thinned with turpenoid (a synthetic turpentine I believe) tend to have a flatter finish versus paints thinned with linseed oil. The advantage of the turpenoid is it drying faster and then being able to paint over it or up do an edge without mixing or smudging. But the cost is some luster in the finish. I expect I’ll be finding the balance I want as I go. 

I have a good portion of the new painting done, I think. I’ve got a lot of the main detail filled in and I may even finish it in the next few days. Which is very different from the paintings I’ve been working on where I let them sit for a while before I decide if they are finished. I mean, I’ll probably do that with this one to an extent as well. But, if it’s like the practice one, it will sit more for drying than for choosing to do more work on it. I think. This is considerably more complex than my practice painting was. Of course, with completion of this painting feeling imminent I am starting to think about what I’ll work on next. 

I still have the ‘Say Cheese!’, watercolor painting that I think I want to add a bit more shading to, so I’ll get that done. Then I can get it ready to go to the photographer. And then I’ve got that large piece of paper laid out that I think I’m going to start a pencil drawing on it, but it could turn into an oil painting depending on how I feel as I get to working on it. And then I’m going to look through the old photos I have and see what I want to paint from those. And yes, I will probably do the next one of those in oil as well. Because I liked that first one so much I had to try another, and I think I want to do yet another one. 

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ve got to go to my taekwondo class and then back home to paint some more.

Cheers!

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I Tried Something Different

Posted on July 2, 2025 by SusanG

I got all excited about sitting down to write this post the other night and then when I did sit down to write, it all went away. Or just sort of scattered. I had a couple of things I thought I’d share so I thought it was going to be quick and easy to write. That was not the case at all. 

I started writing and everything quickly morphed into long explanations of the history of why this was a cool thing or some sort of back story to what I was doing. And all of that might have been fine if it wasn’t also a bit jumbled and unorganized. 

So. Here’s the short of what I was excited to share. I did a couple of different things regards art making and they have promise. I think. Maybe. We’ll see. 

The first thing I did was some work with charcoal. I’ve worked in it a long time ago as part of an art class or two. It’s not really my favorite. I don’t despise it, I just don’t tend to use it. For anything. Though, I do have some that I just keep shuffling from shelf to shelf. Anyway. I was feeling like I wanted to try to loosen up my sketching and since I didn’t seem to be doing so well in my 8 inch by 8 inch sketchbook with using a pencil I decided to try a big newsprint pad and some charcoal. I feel like charcoal, and pastel when I let it, are very good at requiring you to not get too far into the weeds, those tiny details, right away. But they also allow a bit more flexibility than trying that with watercolors. 

I didn’t do a lot of charcoal sketches. Mostly because I was wanting to get started on something else and didn’t want the charcoal dust to get into it. I did do just enough so see the value of keeping the newsprint pad and some vine charcoal handy for occasional quick exercise.

The other thing I did was to start a practice painting in oils. I would like to learn to paint in oils. I can’t really tell you why other than that it feels instinctual. I have tried oils before. A couple of times. And I have even completed, exactly one painting in oil. I do like oil better than acrylic even if it feels a little more involved, complicated, cumbersome, and confusing to work with. Though, to be fair I found acrylics all that and frustrating. Go figure. 

I’ve spent some time trying to decide how to go about practicing with the oil paints. I have some canvas board but I didn’t want to use it because it seems so permanent for something that is meant just as practice and not as something to potentially hang on a wall. For whatever reason, I feel like if I’m going to use canvas or canvas board then the end result has to be display worthy. And that can hinder the learning. It creates pressure to ‘do it right’ and make it perfect. I don’t feel like it’s ok to mess up. And I need to be able to mess up. I finally decided that a good option would be to coat some watercolor paper, not the good stuff that I use for my paintings, the old stuff that I don’t really like to use for my watercolor paintings, coat it with some gesso. This makes it less susceptible to the oil soaking in and separating from the pigment. Canvas is primed with a type of gesso for the same reason. 

There are two things that made me think to do this. One was when I thought I’d try to learn to paint with acrylics. I used watercolor paper then too. Though I don’t remember priming it. The other is this Italian painter I follow on Instagram who paints super hero and fantasy type of characters, for either covers, or graphic novels. I remember reading about one of his paintings was oil on paper. If he can do these finished master pieces on paper, I can surely practice on it.

That’s the other different thing I did, a practice oil painting. I started with a small piece because the idea is to use it as a sketch and a practice. And for my subject, I chose a taekwondo image that I took. Since that is ultimately what I’d like to paint using the oil paints, I figure it’s a good thing to learn with. I’ll have a chance to see how easy or difficult it is to blend the paint to create the folds and wrinkles and creases of the uniform in motion. And how easy it is to keep coming back to work on it day after day until it is finished. How will the colors blend together, or run into each other? Or which thinning medium is going to be better to work with because of quality of the color and paint or drying time? And by doing that all on the type of image I want to paint, then I’ll have a better idea of how to get what I want when I am ready to try it “for real”. At least that’s the hope. 

So far, I’m liking the prospects of the oil painting. I have only just started and have a fair way to go. It is fun to see that in the little time I worked on it, and the not very well defined shapes, I feel like I can really see the potential and the feel of the subject. Might just be me because I know what it is I’m painting, and that’s ok. It keeps me encouraged and motivated. 

I did have to wait to do these experiments until after I got the painting I was working on to it’s resting point. That point where I need to set it aside for a while so I can look at it and see what else it might need. The way I have things currently set up/laid out/arranged in my studio, I didn’t have a good space to use until I got to the point I was ready to move the painting off the desk. I have an easel but it’s got a big board and paper set up on it at the moment and I didn’t want to risk getting something on it since I haven’t decided what exactly I’m doing with it. 

All that, to say, I also worked on a watercolor painting the last couple of weeks. I worked on one I’m calling ‘Say Cheese!’. I think it’s a cute picture and it looked like it might be fun to paint. I’m a little surprised at the results and not disappointed. I’m not sure if it needs more work yet. I should have an idea in a few days to a week. 

I’m still working on what is going to go on the big board. I have an idea of what I want I just haven’t chosen the reference I want to work from. I also haven’t decided if I want to do it in pencil and make it a full pencil rendering or if I want to do it in watercolor. It will probably depend on the reference I choose to use. 

I took an extra day off from the day job for this week’s holiday so I’m hoping to get more painting time in. I think I may need to make a trip to an art supply store as well. I’m going to try to keep that from getting too expensive. But I think I need some brushes for oil. I have a good collection that were my grandmother’s but I found a few types that I wanted to use were not in the collection or were not the size I was looking for. I also want to see if the local store has a clear gesso. Then I could draw a rough sketch on paper or canvas board and then gesso over it and still see the drawing underneath for reference. Whatever I find, or don’t, I have a nice few days with nothing scheduled except normal chores and painting, and I’m really looking forward to it.

That’s all I’ve got this time. Have a safe holiday if you celebrate. And for those in the northern hemisphere suffering through heat waves, stay cool. For those in the south, stay cozy.

Cheers!

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The Yearly Trek

Posted on June 18, 2025 by SusanG

This is year three of the trek to Orlando for the day job. It’s never a trip I am excited about so I try to make it more interesting by adding some extra time at the end or the beginning of the trip to spend time with my sister. It makes it more palatable. 

This year, I decided to arrive early. We made plans for this a couple of months ago and then her work travel plans changed considerably and where we were going to separate on Monday we had to move that up to Sunday. Not really a big deal, just a minor change of plans. It meant that instead of showing up at the hotel on Monday, I got to work from the hotel on Monday. And that turned out to have a really cool moment. 

A flower at my niece’s house

I’ve been talking to my sister, and just about everyone who asks, or doesn’t, about what really frustrates me about where I live and what I wish I had. A few years ago I wrote about some of the issues of manufactured demand and things like that, and probably about what I find frustrating about where I live. I live in a suburb. And where I live there are a few dining options across the street from me. But I still have to get in my car to go get take away food or to dine in, because the road/street between me and the food is too dangerous to cross on foot. So what I want is to live where I don’t have to have a car to get a few groceries or take away or to dine or…whatever. I want to be able to walk to places and have public transportation that works and is reasonably reliable. 

As it turned out, for my Monday in Orlando, that I spent working from the hotel, I got to have a little of that experience. I lived on the outskirts of Orlando many years ago. And at the time I don’t think I would have considered the downtown area to be livable. I’ve been really pleasantly surprised the last couple of years to find that city center/downtown Orlando has become a bit more livable. And that was what I got to experience. I got hungry for lunch and the hotel restaurant wasn’t serving lunch so I needed to go find some. I headed out to the grocery store for some snacks and maybe a ‘grab and go’ meal. On the way, there was a food truck stopped, selling homemade pasta. So I changed my plans. I grabbed some food at the truck, then headed back to the hotel to eat it. If it weren’t quite so warm outside I might have gone over to the lake to sit and eat. As I was walking back to the hotel with my food I was thinking about how this is exactly the type of experience I want to have on a regular basis. I want it to be a daily normal. That was my cool moment.

Most of the rest of the trip was ok. One of the things that usually happens at this event is that they give the group a problem to solve. Which, of course they did again. The day job is pushing for more automation and AI type of solutions for time consuming processes. I’m pretty sure it has a lot to do with an aging workforce and a tendency to not have layoffs. Which is good on the one hand, we don’t generally have to worry about our jobs. On the other hand, it means we run very lean and are less likely to replace people as they retire. So of course our problem to solve was centered around this sort of thing, and the expectation was that we create a process solution that was scalable and used AI and/or Agentic AI. Yes, I work with some very smart, and technical people.

And yes, I have railed against AI and continue to for specific reasons. But when they tell you it’s ok to use it to make your job easier and more manageable, and you’re a one person team. Well, it becomes time to at least start to consider it. Not only for my day job, also for helping me with my Art Store.

Taco Truck at Disney Springs, not the cool pasta truck in Downtown Orlando, I didn’t even think to take a picture of that. I should have.

I subscribe to a tool for my Art Store designed to help me with the ‘office work’. Not the painting, drawing, and general creation, just the office stuff. Things like finding the right hash tags for social media, research that takes time and analysis and effort that I would rather spend in creating art. It can also help with finding niche groups and several other things. When I first got it, I was very interested and excited. Then as I started playing with it to see how I might use it, I got a little disappointed because at the time one of the main features was writing product descriptions. It all sounded the same and very ‘canned’ and that just didn’t sit well with me. So I haven’t been using it. I haven’t been doing a lot of the work I need to do for the store either but that’s a whole other issue. 

Anyway. After the day job event with the AI stuff, it does have me reconsidering how I can use the tool I have to make the stuff I need to do to get my art noticed, easier, and hopefully more effective. So I guess the trip wasn’t the waste I was fearing it would be a few days before I left as I was staring at a drawing I was longing to work on but wouldn’t be able to because of the trip.

The trip back was much more eventful than the trip down. I was sent a notice six hours before my flight that it was delayed by almost and hour. Ultimately, we had four gate changes and seven delays before, while already on the plane, it got canceled. I don’t think the first delays were due to weather, however, the last ones were which means all they do for you is rebook you. That was also a challenge and at that point I had reached the end of my reserves for dealing with anything. Fortunately someone helped me get rebooked for the 5:00am flight the next morning. I spent the night at the airport because it wasn’t worth trying to get an uber, a hotel, an uber, and go back through security for a flight that was boarding at 4:20 in the morning. I did make it back home. I walked in the door of my place at 10 to 8:00 am and was able to do my 8:00 am deploy, my 8:30 am meeting, and my 10:00 am meeting before taking a short day and logging off. Not my best flight experience but I suppose it could have been a lot worse. 

I think I have finally recovered from all the travel and the airport shenanigans and now I’m getting back into the groove of things. I don’t have a lot of pictures to share this time. I barely had the phone camera out and never took the regular camera out. We didn’t make any runs to a theme park or anything else, just a trip to the mall for something that ended up costing me more than I expected. My sister is very good at helping me spend my money. That’s ok. It was needed.

I’m planning on getting back to the art this week and might have pictures and more art stuff to write about for the next post. See you soon.

Cheers!

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