Girl Painting

Christi Ballerina

This little girl painting is for my niece Christi. It will be her Christmas gift. I finished her a few weeks ago and I'm already on to the  next one.  The painting I'm working on now is giving me all kinds of trouble. Not sure why????? I can't draw an eye to save my soul!
Mamma said there'd be days like this.
I'm so glad the weather has changed. We had a brutal summer here in south Texas.  It is actually in the 80's right now. So perfect! I can drag my art supplies outside to work and even turn off the air and open all the windows.
The weather has also inspired me to clean out my closets. I'm in a real chunking mood. I want to get rid of everything. All of a sudden I can't stand clutter. Go figure!
Have a great October.
Hugs,
Charlie

Video of My Newest Painting



This is "Gothic Princess"
It's all about the journey!

How about my first attempt at a video on my iPhone?
I thought a video view of my new painting would be nice. Hopefully you can see all the yummy textures. Sorry for the jerkiness but iphones are pretty sensitive.....or either I'm just a terrible videographer. She will  be for sale over at Charlotte's Collection on Etsy soon. I still have a few things I ned to do to her before I can list her.
On another note I'm listing a few vintage postcards as digital downloads in my Etsy store...trying something new. Again!
I'm still missing my kitty. Thanks to all of you who commented. I appreciate it. It will take time to get over it. 
Have a great week.

In Memory of....

Tangi

I am so depressed. My sweet kitty got hit by a car last Friday morning. I got her as a kitten in January of this year. She was not quite a year old, but she touched my heart in so many ways. I miss her so much. I can't believe I'm still mourning the loss a week later.
We put flyers out around the neighborhood early Saturday morning and someone called a few hours later to say they saw a cat that looked very much like her on the side of this busy street.  The city or some good soul must have picked up her body because she was not there when we went to look.
I'm not sure how long it will take me to get out of this funk. I can hardly go outside without looking for her or thinking she is going to run past me like white greased lightning like she used to do.
It's been unbelievably hard.
:(

Summer Paper Doll



Hi everyone! How's your summer going? I'v been super busy. I finished this painting a few weeks ago and I'm just now getting around to posting her. Luck has it that Inspiration Avenue's challenge this week is Sun Kissed. I thought my girl in retro swimsuit would be a good fit. Yes her outfit is supposed to be a forty's ish swimsuit. I tried a little different approach this time. Her face is very minimal. Drawn on scrapbook paper as is the rest of her body. So much fun....I'll have to do more.
Well got to go I'm having a garage sale tomorrow and have to make the signs, get change and finish pricing. 
Enjoy the rest of your summer!

Inspiration Avenue Weekly Challenge

Hi everyone I'm hosting this weeks challenge at Inspiration Avenue. I decided on Nursery Rhymes. I have not hosted one in awhile because I could not come up with any good ideas. Not that this one is so great, it just popped into my head and so I went with it. Ideas and inspiration happen upon me this way most of the time. I do things intuitively without really understanding why I do it.  For example why I pick one color over another when painting. It's like my hand just reaches for it without much thought. Most of the time when this happens it works. When I try to hard I find it does not work.
I know I'm rambling on about stuff that I'm sure most artist understand. 

My entry is a portrait of Goldilocks.
Goldilocks and the three bears is one of my favorites. I have so many favorites, it was hard to choose. 

"Goldilocks"

My obsession with painting the female face continues.

And my frustration with blogger continues. I have stopped blogging because I  hate blogger. It just does whatever it wants.....like why has the size of my type gone so small????? and I cant copy and paste anymore.

I'm just going to ignore it and go on. I don't have time to mess with this blog!!!!!!

Hugs,
Charlie



Flea Market



One of my favorite excursions while in Rome was going to the flee market Sunday morning in the neighborhood of Trastevere. What a charming place to visit and so unlike the rest of Rome.  More and more tourist are making the trek across the river. I guess you can't keep a good thing secret for very long.

 A beautiful must see church, one of the oldest in Rome called "Santa Maria In Trastevere" is there. 

"Santa Maria In Trastevere"
This picture is not that great. You can't see the intricate detail. It's all mosaics. Unbelievable! This is par for Roman Catholic Churches. 


After the flea market we walked around and found this lovely piazza with these musicians playing. 
We drank blood red orange juice and ate snacks. Yummmmm! 


I have so many pictures that I can't possibly show them all or talk about them all. I tried to put them together on a digital stick and they would not fit. I guess I'll have to buy a bigger flash drive. It's always something. This concludes the first week of my trip. I still have a week to go mostly Cinque Terre. That place was gorgeous. Oh my gosh....I already want to go back. So romantic!

Sacred Ancient Symbolic Art


Rome is full of this sort of religious wall art. They are on the buildings outside almost on every street. It does not matter if the street is a quaint little side street or busy and crowded. I was so enthralled by them all.


I loved the canopies and shelving like in this one above. 



I have made these and some of my other Rome photos into art cards. I've decided to sell them on Etsy. I guess I had an ah ha moment, so for now I'm back up and running on Etsy.
This week Inspiration Ave's theme is religious art so I'm entering these.Click the link to check out more art. 
Thanks for looking.
Charlie

Day Six Orvieto

Pottery In Orvieto

Duomo Of Orvieto

View From Orvieto

On the sixth day of my Roman Holiday we took a day trip to Orvieto. What fun to get out of the big city of Rome! More fun was taking the train! We saw all kinds of neat things including gypsies. I wish I could have taken pictures of them. A funicular takes you up to the top to where the city is located. I never rode one of those before. We went to Orvieto because it is known for its pottery and they were having a special pottery market in the town square that morning. We missed the early train so we did not make it to the market, oh well. We still got to go shopping and I got a couple of small items anyway.
Orvieto is in the wine region of Italy, so they have their own wine as well. It's a white wine. We tried it at a local restaurant. It was very good, loved it. It's also known for that beautiful church, picture above. It's called the Duomo of Orvieto. I wish I could have stayed in Orvieto longer. It was beautiful! 

Street Scene In Orvieto


Inspiration Avenue Charity Auction for Angel Faces


Inspiration Avenue is having it's annual charity auction today. Stop by the link here and look through some great art and make a bid or two. All money goes to benefit Angel Faces.