I will start with a note to tell you that as I have been striving to get back to diligent painting, I get carried away and forget to take consecutive photos so you can see my progress.  I am going to put a few that I have here but later I may pull a couple off my Ipad if I can figure out how to do that.  First, let me pull up the class painting.  I have already shown you some early shots of it.  Here is the most recent..You will notice that this is the same shot as I used when painting “There Once Was a Little Girl.”  It is a perfect example for teaching.  It is captivating, has descriptive shadows and light, and of course, a winning smile and bright shining eyes.  OK, so on the first rendition, I finished it  in a hurried, rough manner.  With this one, I wanted the skin to be more refined and the skin tones to be more milky, as is natural for this child.  On this photo, it does not look as soft and natural as it does in person.  Now I will pull up Ryan, but I am sorry I don’t have more in between images.This is my grandson. He is about to graduate from High School.  I wanted to paint this because I wanted him to have a more adult painting than the pouty little child I had painted when he was three or four years old.  Now I am going to show you another image or two. This is a work that I first attempted when I was just beginning to teach myself portraiture.  I did it in water color and it would have been a good painting except that my drawing was out of proportion.  Even when we make mistakes, we can learn.  This mistake taught me that all the problems must be worked out as much as possible when in the drawing stage.  At least this is so in the method I use.  Also I want you to know the these are my two youngest daughters, the photo taken at the graduation of the youngest.  Both the girls loved this shot.  It shows how close they are and yet how different.  Neither of them know I have pulled this out to do an oil.  The photos will also reveal my duplication in progress simultaneously so that they each have an original.  Well, I was mistaken about the photo, it does not show both canvases side by side.  Just try to imagine another one just like this sitting on the easel beside it.  I’ve done this before, working on two exact images and you can barely tell them apart.  I know this photo doesn’t show much but this is the stage that excites me most.  The potential is all in there. Now lets see what I can do with it.

I am almost finished with the large painting that got postponed when my uncle was ill.  I wanted to have it done for a national show but I was at least a months work from that goal.  Now there is just a tiny bit to do.  I won’t show it till it has been accepted into a show.  I’m just not quite sure where I should enter it.

I wanted to show Plimoth Wife in the Three Rivers Show but it didn’t fit their criteria I guess.

I am waiting to hear from Philadelphia too.  I’ll tell you more after I hear from them.

One more thing,  Years, maybe ten years, ago I bought a Cimbidium orchid.  I tried to get it to bloom but finally learned that they won’t bloom in the  north unless you can provide perfect conditions.  About two months ago I was so surprised to find a flowering stem with two buds on it.  I feared they would abort and die but they continued to develop and now they are sitting in my kitchen bay window.  Next year I will move the other two Cimbidium plants to get more light and maybe I will be able to get them to bloom as well Here is an image.