I survived...

Well, the week of Christmas was very busy. Cooking, cleaning, painting (pictures not walls), shopping, and other ings. I had hoped to spend some time blogging and catching up on my blog reading but alas it was not to be. There were fifteen of us for dinner Christmas Eve which is when we do the family get together. That way everyone has their own Christmas mornings together. Mom and I cooked most of the day making a Northern traditional meal with the beef roast, mashed potatoes, gravy, yorkshire pudding and green beans. This year I added Chocolate Truffle Creme Brulee which I got from a little creme brulee cook book. It has a little rum in it and is to die for (if you love dark chocolate like me). My brother in law even liked it and he usually doesn't eat dessert.

Everyone is feeling at least a little financial crunch this year so we drew names and I got my niece. She saw one of the paintings I did from Paulette Insall's Organic Backgrounds class and wanted one. I only had the week of Christmas to work on it and fortunately was able to finish it in a day and a half. Below are the pictures of the progression. I did brighter colors for this one and made it 16x20. I wish I had done two of them because I really like the vibrancy of it. I'm very partial to trees but at some point here I'm going to have to figure out how to do some other type of focal point or maybe no focal point at all.

It also just so happens that my niece drew my name. I have an Amazon wish list with at least twenty art type books that I want so she gave me a gift card to Barnes & Noble. I headed over there yesterday and picked up one that I don't think was on my list but I absolutely love it. It's Collage Journeys by Jane Davies. It goes through various techniques and has about seventeen projects to do. I can hardly wait to start playing.

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas full of love and laughter.