Day 128: Tuesday, September 6 - Call for help for Carol Marine

Carol Marine, whose face I painted months ago,

is in trouble! The Texas wildfires that blew through the prairies yesterday took everything, house, clothes, her studio.....she did get out with her computer, all of her small paintings, her new iphone, and most importantly? Her husband and son Jacob.

This was her self- portrait for the challenge in April, the "All About Me" Challenge.  Sense of humor, sense of commitment to other artists.

Here's Carol Marine's day before "take" on the fire:
http://carolmarine.blogspot.com/2011/09/before-fire.html

She and her husband have been so wonderful, stating a weekly painting challenge and then taking the time and energy to post everyone's works.  A lot of time, a lot of hard work.

A news announcement is flying around among her friends and all of those who painted for her challenges.  They are asking for donations to get Karen and her husband and son back up and running...........money through paypal.  Everything they owned burned and yes, they have insurance, but in the meantime, we could help a bit.

A good friend of Carol's who was actually at the house when everyone was ordered to evacuate, has organized her blog so that donations through PayPal can be easily accomplished.

http://www.noonesthebitch.com/

This is what Karin Jurick had to say:
A shout-out to the artists community -  Carol and David Marine and their son lost their home in the Bastrop, Texas wildfires on Sunday. Their entire subdivision was wiped out, up to 300 homes. I hear they are all safe, that's great news.

Karin Jurick, also a good friend of Carol's has stated all the "how's" of helping on her blog.  If you feel like making a contribution to Carol and David Marine, I'm sure it would be greatly appreciated.

http://karinjurick.blogspot.com/

I'm hoping we'll all donate a little something as a huge thank you for all of Carol and David's work these many months.

Day 87: Thursday, June 2 - challenge painting

I finally, after spending almost 2 hours with the Google Map of the world, found something to paint in/of/about New Zealand for the Virtual Paintout monthly challenge. Took a long time. Looked for gardens, looked for golf courses, looked for interesting tourist sites - I've never had any luck before,  but today I came across a "possible" right away. I copied down the link.  Good thing because I never found anything else paintable!  So here's the link:

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-40.979898,172.441406&spn=11.606664,18.676758&z=5&source=embed

 

and here's the painting of that link:

You submit the link and the painting to the nice man, Bill Guffey, who runs the website challenge. And as I said yesterday: If you paint for the challenge send me your link and your painting and I'll post them here as well.

And then at the Daily Paintworks Challenge they had a challenge of "paint what's outside your window".  Since I paint in my son's bedroom and since the view I have is of the canyon across the street and since I'm usually painting away late afternoon/sunset............this was my submission.

It actually looks more like the San Gabriels than the canyon, but artists have "artistic license" - or that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

AND THEN:
Tonight, Thursday, I heard from Bill Guffey that the http://www.thingie/ that I copied was only for the map of New Zealand, not for the specific site that I had found. I told him "drats, rats and phooey" as we say around this household and asked him to delete my submission until next month when I would try again. And hopefully? By next month? I will have figured out how to copy the exact location of my Google Virtual Paintout Challenge Site. Drats, Rats and Phooey.

Day 78: Thursday, May 5

Hoping to paint today. Want to paint a portrait of Suzanne McDermott based on her photo of herself with all her jewelry on. And then I'd like to ask permission of Carol Marine to post it as a "challenge self portrait". Suzanne took such a horrible fall a couple of months ago and is still not "back together".  I emailed Suzanne Carol's challenge for this month on the DailyPaintworks site telling Suzanne that she should paint the wonderful hand with all the jewelry........she said she still wasn't up to it.............Or maybe? Maybe people who are reading this blog could paint it for Suzanne and we'll just inundate her with our paintings of her hand and her jewelry and give her a bit of a perking up!  If you think you might be interested in doing that? Let me know and we'll band together to make her happ(ier).

Here's the photo I'm talking about.  I love it. The repose, the color of the sweater, no face just that hand, languid...........Give it a try and let me know.

And a final note on the skunks: Had left the Have-A-Heart trap out behind the garage thinking I'd deal with it tomorrow, kinda like Scarlett O'Hara........ so Monday  morning I take a look and lo and begorrah! There's a giant skunk in the cage. Go inside. Call the Humane Society. Tell them I have the momma skunk for those 5 live babies they have, Humane Society lady tells me that it isn't the momma because momma skunks do not leave their babies and go to Vegas like humans.......She says it's a totally different skunk but that she'll be out to deal with it momentarily.  Fifteen minutes later, she arrives, creeps up on the cage, drops a bedsheet over it without startling the skunk, picks up the cage, walks across the street in front of our house, to the edge of the canyon, opens up the trap, skunk walks out, skunk crosses the street, skunk goes right back up the next door neighbor's driveway to the rear of the house and is back in position within 15 minutes.

For what did I call the Humane Society I'd like to know!! I thought they'd at least take him a block or two away!!

So skunk saga is over. Yesterday I hired a repairman who put wire with small holes over the existing hole-y fence behind the garage.  The skunks are gonna have to learn how to climb to get into our yard again!

Day 77: Wednesday, May 4

I keep talking about Suzanne McDermott and her fabulous self-named blog. Carol Marine has mounted a self portrait challenge on the Daily Paintworks site...........Suzanne has a fabulous picture of herself, posing gracefully with some of the jewelry she has taken to making as she recovers from her horrible fall and horrible fractured leg, ankle, knee, shin...........I'm not sure what all she broke but it's a long, long recovery.  I saw this gorgeous photo of her

on her website and thought wouldn't it be fun if many people painted Suzanne this way and submitted their version of her to the Daily Paintworks Challenge.  She is feeling mentally and physically challenged at this moment and this could be just what she needs to perk right up. I wrote her about using this as her self portrait and her answer was so depressed that I think we should do it many tmes over.......remember Karin Jurick's self portrait that all of us painted?   I'd love it if Nancie Johnson? AnnMarie Thomas, April Foster, Michelene.....would take this photo, draw it up, paint it up and submit it to the Challenge.  Suzanne would be thrilled.  And then in your spare time you can all paint a portrait of yourself and submit that as well.  Paint, Paint, Paint................it's almost June and what do you have to show for yourself so far!!!!!!!!!!!  Get to painting.