I decided to start a new series painting some seagulls.  Future posts to the blog with include some picture of the paintings as they progress.  It will be 5 or 6 pictures all on the small side (6 x 6), on gallery wrapped canvas.  This will be fun to complete.  I do find that I'm waiting for them to dry quite a bit, so I'll start another painting in the mean time.

Keep your eyes open for this subject in future blog posts. 

Today was supposed to be focused on painting; instead, I got wrapped up with Symantec, resolving a space issue with my computer backups.  After that it was lunchtime; which was interrupted by a volley of text messages stating that people thing my Facebook account has been hacked.

What someone was doing was impersonating me and asking all my contacts to be friends.  I reported them to Facebook who shut them down.  It's strange how we spend our days that are targeted for painting.

This painting started from simply looking up when standing next to the shed in my backyard.  I was amazed at the number of layers I put into making the flowers.  After a long winter, lilacs are one of the first flowers to bloom.  Their aroma fills the yard with a pleasant smell.  My wife usually picks some for the house, bringing that smell inside.

I was able to spend some time this weekend working on my painting.  It was only a short time as the weather was nice, and I tried to take advantage of it.  I blocked on the background and started putting in some of the Lilacs.  I need to verify their size as compared with my reference photo.

I'm afraid that Lilac season is almost over and it will be before I get to finish.

This is the very early stages of a painting of lilacs from my backyard.  I noticed a lot of artists are painting lilacs.  The amount of detail necessary will keep me busy for a bit.  Most of the red you see here will be covered with leaves; even so I think I need to tone it down a bit.

As predicted I didn't get a lot of painting done yesterday.  The dog and I went off to the woods to shoot target archery.  I did do some work on the fence.  Next up I need to work on the beach grass.  I should have a lot of time to work on this today.

I also hope to get back to work on Springtime in the Park painting, I now see some work that needs to be done there.  The painting was nagging at me that something was wrong so I put it aside for a few days and now I see what needs to be done.

Before I put the wave in the highlights on the left were showing up nicely, now they need more lights.

Things are starting to shape up, my next steps will be working on the distance sand-dune fence, followed by the beach grasses.  I'm hoping I can wrap this up mid-week; however, today is looking like a busy day with non painting activities.

Things were fairly quiet this weekend so I had some time to work the beach sand and start the fencing.  The seascape is starting to come along nicely.  My next steps will be to rough in the fencing on the right hand side, then finish the waves.  Once that is done I can start on the grass for the dunes.One of the nice parts of posting images along the way is you can see some changes that need to be made that I could not see when working up close.

I spent a fair amount of time working the sky and water yesterday.  I just started on a the beach sand when I ran out of time.  I'm thinking today is not going to be a day for me to get any work done.  For the beach sand, I used the pallet knife.  I'll go back over it later with some lighter color.

I'm at the very exciting part of a new project, I have an idea that I want to paint.  I did some light sketches and purchased my canvas.  

Other things in life seem to keep wanting to get in the way of me getting started, but this is important.  While I am still looking for work in the IT industry, painting after all one of my new jobs and besides it helps me keep my sanity.  I am amazed at how much there is to learn about running the business and how much time this takes.  Today I read about blogging.  Next up will be learning about contests to help drive interest and make contacts in the business.  All this is taking place while I'm preparing for an interview tomorrow.  If nothing else I will learn to have good balance.

Now I'm off to start my new project!

By the way, pictures will come later.  Right now it's a white canvas.

I'm not sure I'm done yet, but it is close.

Can you see the ducks?  They're pretty small and they are hiding.

I'll keep this on the easel for a couple of days to see if I want to make any adjustments.