Thank You so much 30

Hi there! I hope you are having a great weekend! Today I have a couple of very different projects to share. First up is a card that I made for my dear husband. I'm joining along with this week's PTI Make It Monday challenge where the challenge is to create a masculine project featuring PTI florals.

I made a rather clean and simple card for my dear husband Scott who has been making custom size frames for my painting projects :)

 My card features stamped flowers from the PTI stamp Botanical Silhouette stamp set:

For sketch inspiration, I'm joining along with the current Freshly Made Sketches sketch challenge:

It's Day 23 of 30 in 30:

Today I have a 24" x 24" painting to share featuring pretty sunflowers that were inspired by Nancy Medina's Sunflowers and Strawberries DVD:

Here's my first attempt that I shared awhile ago when I was practicing on an 11" x 14" canvas panel:

I purchased the video knowing that I needed to paint  a few larger paintings to hang in our front door entry way. I got up the courage to give it a try again on a larger scale. 
As the canvas is drying, Scott is in the process of making a custom floating frame for this larger painting and a few others ;)

I'm linking my painting to the current Paint Party Friday link up:

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Be Sweet ;)

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thinking of you today 37

Hi there! I'm looking forward to the weekend, how about you? Before I get to today's projects, I'd like to thank all of you for keeping my sweet sister Marlene and our family in your thoughts and prayers. I truly appreciate all the kindness. To bring you update on my dear sister's status, she has completed 14 days of full brain radiation 3 weeks ago and now the side effects are rearing their ugly heads. She's quite nauseated, doesn't have an appetite and has lost all of her hair to name a few. Since her cancer is aggressive and her condition is terminal, the oncologist needs to treat her as aggressively as possible in hopes of slowing down the growth of the brain tumors. She has started chemotherapy treatments as of yesterday. She's so brave. Depending on how she tolerates the chemotherapy the treatments are scheduled every 3-4 weeks. Here's a recent photo that was taken Labor Day weekend of my sister and her sweet daughter Renee:

I joined along with this week's PTI Make It Monday challenge where Danielle has challenged us to use a technique that she refers to "From Black and White To Color". 

 

 Using the fun technique, I created a card for my dear sister using pretty flowers and foliage from the PTI  stamp set: Flower Garden  along with a couple different colored COPIC markers: 

This is a rather clean and simple which makes great for simply mailing it via "regular" mail without any additional trips to the post office! 

For card sketch inspiration, I'm joining along with the current CAS(E) sketch challenge

 and for color inspiration, I joined along with the current Color Throwdown color challenge:

It's Day 8 of 30 in 30:

I painted an 8" x 8" sunflower on a gessoed canvas:

I love sunflowers and I'm hoping to improve my painting skills so I can have a few canvas's hanging in my home featuring sunflowers :)

I'm linking my painting to the current Paint Party Friday site:

Thanks so much for stopping by ~ I hope you have a great weekend!
Be Sweet ;)

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sending sunny thoughts 26

Hi! I can't thank those of you enough who left such kind and heartfelt comments regarding my dear sister and for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers. I appreciate that more than you know. I will certainly keep all of you in my thoughts and prayers as well. I had a great time visiting my sister and her family, reminiscing of childhood memories and making new ones. Needless to say, talking with sister about end of her life decisions including when to stop treatments, hospice and my departure at the airport were the most heart wrenching moments that I have experienced since I lost my Mom 13 years ago. Today I have an 11" x 14" painting to share which was inspired by Nancy Medina's Strawberry Sunflower Bouquet video tutorial:

You may be wondering where the strawberries are... well, I'm practicing and I didn't leave enough room for them because I wanted to paint the flowers instead :). I am going to try to paint this again on a larger canvas with a few changes:

I'm going to join along with Paint Party Friday:

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Be Sweet :)

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Bold Sunflowers 23

Hi! I hope you are having a great week! Sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers and one that I really want to master at painting. I've taken on line painting lessons as well as following along with dvd tutorials from several of my favorite artists and I think so far that I'm really enjoying Gary Jenkins style of painting Sunflowers the most.

Today I have a 11" x 14" gesso painted canvas art board to share featuring sunflowers inspired by Gary Jenkins Sunflowers video tutorial:

Gary makes it so easy so fun and easy to learn how to paint. He paints with such charisma and enthusiasm you just want to pick up a brush and give it a try!

I'm joining along with Paint Party Friday:

I hope you have enjoyed my painting as much as I enjoyed creating it :)
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Be Sweet ;)

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