Last day of 2011

Well, I was planning to write a fancy recap for my art year, and celebrate the last day of 2011 here on the blog, but what do you know... life had other plans. We had to go to the mechanics to check on the brakes and other mechanical surprises, and that took the whole day (and a fat bill of course!) Hours later after having lunch out, running a few errands and coming back home to do lots of laundry from the trip, all I wanted to do was watch one of my new movies (Did I mention my husband gave me a collection of the Jane Austen movies from the BBC?)
Just came to check on emails and such, to discover I sold  an art card in my Etsy shop... that felt so good! The last day of the year. Thank you! ♥

May your new year be... Awesome, happy, artsy, fun, creative, exciting, positive, rich, blessed, productive, adventurous, fulfilling, enlightening, thrilling, and full of passion. Because after all, it is the year of the Dragon, fearless creature.
Here's to another year of friendship and art!

if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

San Simeon and La Cuesta Encantada

Living in the desert, we take any chance to go to the coast and enjoy the fair weather, cool breeze and wonderful ocean smell. All the flowers and salty scents that seem to foat there. This year we finally went to Hearst Castle, in San Simeon, in La Cuesta Encantada (The Enchanted hill). Something I wanted to do for a long time, but I didn't want to deal with strollers or tired little kids. Now that the kids are older, they had fun, and enjoyed the trip as well.

What a place that is! 165 rooms, tons of art, sculptures and original architectural European elements, beautiful vistas, way over-the-board details, like the gold floor by the Roman pool... And gardens to die for. Specially if you are not in good shape, because there's tons of stairs to climb to go all through them ;o)
All in all, it took W.R. Hearst 28 years to build it, and it still was not finished. Which is understandable, since his original plan was to build two small cottages, and he kept adding to it.

We went to 2 tours and I strongly recommend the "Upper Suites" tour. I'm sure all the tours are fine, but I liked the first so much more than the other, though the Grand Rooms has a movie with all kinds of famous people of the time, visiting the castle in those years.
For their copyright reasons I can't post pictures of the insides, but you can check out some of the art HERE

After that we went to Cambria, a place I love. Walked in the beach, relaxed just listening to the waves, enjoyed the blessed feeling.... then came back home.
I will come back tomorrow to post my recap of 2011.
Thanks for visiting!

if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish everyone a blessed Christmas.

May the Christmas season
fill your home with joy,
your heart with love
and your life with laughter. 

Let the spirit of love gently fill our hearts and homes.
In this loveliest of seasons, whatever you celebrate this time of year,
may you find many reasons for happiness.

And for 2012: Health, money and love! (And time to enjoy it)

if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

Made a background!

It took me forever and a half, but I made my own background. I like it a lot, but I am not sure I will keep it because I think there's too many things going on. Nevertheless, I am happy to finish it, even if it was at midnight!
It looks better in a wide screen. When I looked at it in the other monitor you can't even see the edges at all :oP

I used this image of a recent painting:

I probably will be playing with images to make a new banner, but that will be another day.
Good night, good morning... good weekend! (Can you believe Christmas  it's only a week away!?)


if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

Palette and reworking a painting

So.... I was not quite convinced with this lady, her hair kept bothering me, and although I wanted her kind of floating, all of a sudden her floatingness bothered me too.

  

I went, grabbed more paint and went at it with passion. Started with the background, then the hair. And I added a wing, and wrote on it, for a good measure  (^_,^)

I am happy now!
This is a sample of the palette I used for this last step, but I did not have the first selection of colors to photograph.

Anyway, this is my post for the Palette and Paint blog, check it out HERE
Happy Paint Party Friday as well!

*if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

Heart

I had this little 4x4 canvas left on the side, undecided if I should leave her more ghostly, monochromatic. But I love color, so I added turquoise, purple and flesh tones.

 

It is more like my little girls I paint in ACEO size, but with a more realistic style.

See how she looked before HERE in an older post. Thanks for visiting!

if you like this post, share it with the buttons below:

The background? ... The hair?

There's a couple of changes in the painting but I have to say, I am still not feeling it. (-_-) I think I overworked it, and somehow, somewhere I took the wrong direction.
Here's with hair:

And here's with some changes in the background, and I worked on her mouth in a way that she is smiling:

The colors are sweet and dreamy, but there's something missing and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe the hair.
Well, I have more paintings to scan so I will be working on those.
Thanks for visiting!
OH! If you are in Pinterest, please say hello! http://pinterest.com/ayala_art

if you like this post, share it with the buttons below: