Remember my blirthday photo competition? Well, out of the four paintings I intended to make as a result of the competition, two are now done! Meet Athena:

I enjoyed working on this painting, even though it took me forever. I'm pretty pleased with myself for not overdoing and overdetailing it too much. I think I managed to keep the original exciting colors and amplify them a bit. Elza, the dog's owner, will be getting this original painting for free :) Read about how you can order your own custom portrait here.

Fontana Art Festival that I posted about last time apparently turned out well. We didn't make it there. Due to a number of little reasons, we left home running a bit late, stopped for food to save the starving husband from certain death, and then ran into a major traffic jam on the freeway. While wasting the precious time in traffic, we came to the conclusion that we wouldn't make it there in time to set up and turned around. We went for a dinner, movie, and even a 15-minute massage date instead. Beats working (which art fairs surprisingly are) but I feel bad about flaking out on the show organizers :(

Otherwise, I am feeling swamped...(insert a long rant about not having time to paint anything other than commissions, not having time to answer emails and comments, and in general not having time; being exhausted by my own kid and occasional marriage drama; not having a single soul to go have a cup of tea with; and an overall state of blues).  Yeah.

On a good note, I started giving private art lessons and it's been interesting so far. Tomorrow is our fourth lesson.