claire took these!

PAINT!!!!!!!!!

About $120 later.... I have 24, 20ml tubes of paint, and five GREATLY needed paint brushes! :) YAY! I was pretty impressed with myself, I had about 10 brushes I wanted and I shortened it to HALF! And I just got them all today! I love art supplies!

I use Shinhan paints, which are made in Korea. I like them because they are firm, yet smooth, and glide nicely. In the past, just to be cheep I would buy winsor and newton to replace my shinhans...... which I realized was not so great. There really is a difference, winsor and newton aren't bad, but they aren't fantastic either, their texture is different from the shinhans, solid, and oily blobs... I don't really like the texture on my brush. But Shinhans are beyond fantastic!

these are my five brushes! there are three different types and companies here, I can't remember them all, but they are all new to me. I have usually used something else, I don't even remember the name, and they have worked really well for me, but I wanted to experiment with something new!

instead of my usual sable hair, I got three fitch hair brushes, I wanna see if there is any difference, plus the bristles are longer than I typically use (maybe that will help eliminate my grinding?) they seem a little coarser, yet finer, looser and have a little more volume to them. Also they are brights, normally I use filberts or almonds (this is the shape of the brush) an almond or a filbert is more domed in shape, a bright and a flat are, well, flat.) Also, these guys just look super pretty! I DID get one sable... it is the brush with the red handle. but it also has longer bristles.

I love fan brushes... I have never owned one, except for when I bought one at Jo-Ann's once...... it was like $3..... I could have bought a candy bar and I would have been 1000 times more satisfied.... that brush was a failure to all brushes! lol! This one however is made of sable, and looks and feels amazing!... it also makes a great goatee.

This brush is spanish, and it's just a plain old bristle brush. This style of brush has been around for years and years. One of the impressionist artists, (I forget which. ) commissioned this brush from a famous brush maker (I can't remember his name either.... gosh no one will believe my story..... but it was all up on the website!) because he wanted something sturdy (this brush claims to last forever!) yet, lush and flexible. TADA! And impressionist artists have been using it for years and years since then!

I love art. i really do. :)

Christmas time..... and the trees are still green!

The last few days t work have been slightly busier than they usually are! We have all these orders coming in from all these different companies, filling up our back room! We just got a HUGE pallet of Lego and another pallet of International Play Things! The past few days have been nothing but pricing, digging through the maze of boxes in the back, trying to cram space on all the shelves in front, reporting missing boxes, too many items, missing items, reorganizing the back room.... etc...! BUSY! And on top of that we all have to keep up our customer service! haha! It's nice to always have something to do, it makes the time go by faster!

Lots of people are doing lay-aways, and already buying gifts for Christmas! IN OCTOBER! The tress are still green, it has barely begun to get cold! haha! But I guess it can't be a bad thing if people are getting into the spirit of Christmas this soon! Christmas is good. Ask almost every one in the world, they will agree. And toy stores at Christmas time are pretty busy. I work at a toy store. I will be busy!

Today I bought Huckleberry an early Christmas present. You see he has been wandering off these days, he mostly just goes for long walks in the woods.... but I don't really like it, and I am worried someone will find him, this great looking, lovable dog, and they wont want to give him up! So Today I went and bought him a real collar and dog tag inscribed "Hucklberry, Mamma loves you! ###-###-####" haha! That way if anybody ever finds this adorable pooch they'll know he's taken! haha!.... I don't know what I would do with out my little baby! <3

"I LOVE CHINER!!! CHINER IS MY MOTHER LAND!"--jessie

Last night I got to skype with my friend Chou! It was so great! I had been thinking about China all that day (probably because I was anticipating this skype call!) Things just kept reminding me of China the whole day! For lunch I had spring rolls, a little asian girl came into the G, (she and her mother were ching chonging back and forth!) And then the I kept seeing the little "country cleaners" people in the shop next door to the G! That store is owned by Chinese, and every morning at 9am when the store opens I always see the old man go out, squat on the edge of the sidewalk and smoke... just watching traffic. It reminds me of all the other chinese men I would see do that every morning!

It was really good to talk to Chou! To hear his voice and see him face to face! Even though I am glad to be home, and do not want to go back right now, I really miss the people who I made friends with, the places I went, and even the life style, and seeing Chou brought it all back! He's a great kid though! I really miss him!

He invited all his friends to come see me, apparently some of them did not believe he was friends with a "blonde foreigner" ! lol! but as soon as Chou turned the camera to them they scattered like mice! lol! haha Chou said they were just too shy! lol!

So, as i was working on my portrait today, I decided I needed to get this China thing out of my system, so I painted a small picture, in about two hours, it is more impressionistic then I typically do, but it was fun to do and I am pleased with the outcome! :) It painted from a picture I took in China, it's Tian Tan, or "the temple of heaven" in Beijing! I took this picture from a taxi as we were driving there! as wer were driving around beijing I was pretty surprised about how much nicer the cars looked there compared to the ones in my small city Weihai! I just liked the feeling of the modern busy road and temple in the background. I mean, that temple and it's grounds were built in 1406-1420! So this is old, but the new world still works and functions around it. Going from the noise of the city to the gar

den of tian tan is like stepping back in time! the amazing thing about this structure is that it is held together with out a singe screw, bolt or nail!!!!!! those chinese are pretty dang amazing!

So, I ALSO did work on the portrait of Madison... I know I am being so slow, but it is starting to really pick up, I should be done by the end of october! :) (cross your fingers!)

This is what I had a few days ago! I think it was SUPER cute like this, and if I was not painting it for someone else, I might have left it like this, however, it doesn't look as cute as the real person.... so, I had to do a little but of surgery here and fix her face up a bit.. so this is before the real changes were made:

this is what I have now, I shaved in her face, bad her forehead a little bigger, moved her eye closer, I am going to raise the nose a little, I shaved off the cheek and the chin, giving her more neck, and not such "a long face!" lol! So we'll see, of and her mouth is a little higher! :)

....for some reason I cannot turn off the "underline" on this... weird huh? But any ways..... Sometimes I get frustrated with my art work, and so I turn it upside down, this helps me see it more as blobs of color instead of a face/person. Sometimes I get so caught up in making it look like a person I forget to just paint color, depth etc, so if it is upsidedown I can see it in perespective a little better, I can see what is going on, and what I need to do without being distracted by noses, eyes and chins! lol!

So, this is after about idk 5 hours extra to what I had before...... I lightened the eyes bluer, but they looked kinda empty.... so....

so about 2 hours more......

added the chair.......

close-up. almost there!

haha, i feel tech-ie and smart!

LOL! I got tired of picking out backgrounds and templates that had NOTHING to do with me, or what I was writing about.... They have some pretty good ones out there now, but I spent about an hour looking for THE right one... finally I googled how to actually creat your own template/background for your blog, and after try and fail I finally figured it out... yes I feel proud of my abilities! lol! no matter how little of a feat this was I conquered it! lol! google, always there to answer your questions!!! where would we be with out it eh? lol

step 6

okay, so I blocked in a few more things, nose eyes and mouth still undefined