High Winds and Big Trees Equal MESS

So...tonight my daughter and I had been in the driveway 10 minutes before what you're about to see. I was just getting ready to shut the back door to the house when we heard something. The kittens - whom we had all just rounded up and put on the carport - were looking freaked out. Then we heard cracking sounds...then we saw pieces of branches and then BOOM. This HUGE tree which is actually my neighbor's tree, landed in our driveway and nailed the back of the house. It shook the whole house!

We are very lucky...this tree - 5 foot further right, would have landed on my children's bedrooms! We have found all the cats except Mr. T....we haven't found him yet and I hope he is not under this tree anywhere!

Here's some photos of the damage - this first photo is looking toward the carport. That's my little car - one tail light is busted.

This next photo is looking from the neighbors house toward ours.

You can see my husband's truck on the left...no damage to it that we have seen yet.

The two windows you see there are my children's rooms. Like I said, we are very lucky!

Looking toward the front of the house...Notice Rowdy sitting there checking things out:

A couple more shots...I see my gutter in there!

We can't get out! Luckily a tree cutter is coming in the morning to start working on this mess!

HEART THUMP Original Squirrel Painting - Complete!

Isn't this little fella just adorable? :) He's sitting on his branch, looking lovingly down, and holding his paw to his chest as if to say "Being around you just makes my heart go thumpity-thump!"

Heart Thump, oil pastel on board, size 8x10" $150

Squirrel Painting in Progress #3

Still working on Mr. Squirrel - though I pretty much have HIM done, and it's time to do the branch and the background. I have fussed so much with this little guy...I hope I'll get him done sometime soon! I usually don't take this long with a small painting, but for some reason, I am dragging along with it. My goal was to get him finished today...I don't know if it's going to happen, but I'm sure trying hard!

Squirrel Painting in Progress #2

Here's another in progress photo of Mr. Squirrel. He's coming along very well! Below is a close up photo. I think this is all I'm going to get done today on his...my eyes are very tired.

Squirrel Painting in Progress

Mr. Squirrel is in progress! I always start with the eyes and face - if that area doesn't look right, the whole painting won't work. Here I've laid down the base colors of his face. Then I've decided it's time for some contrast, so I add tiny dots of black oil pastel. I love black...it really helps to set off certain areas. I don't need much though, as one little dot will go a long, long way.

In the above photo, I've blended my little black dots using a tortillion. His face looks smoother and more formed now, thanks to the contrast of the black in the right areas. But I still have some work to do. I need to lighten things up a bit. At this point, I'd normally let the painting sit for a while which gives the oil pastels time to cool down and firm up. It's hard to lay lighter oil pastel atop of darker colors when they're hot. Instead of layering, they tend to just smoosh (is that a word?) together if they're too warm. So it had to cool. Today, I didn't want to wait, so I popped Mr. Squirrel into the freezer for about 3-5 minutes. It quickly cooled him down enough where I could continue.

Here I've lightened things up more and used some white color pencil to give some tiny fur lines on this forehead, to show the variety of colors there. I still need to work on his nostrils, mouth and the top of his left ear a bit more, but overall, I'm quite pleased with how he's coming along...which means this painting is off to a good start!

I'm giving away 1 free pet painting! Drawing on Monday, April 6!

I'm feeling very generous today, so I've decided to give away 1 free 8x10" pet portrait on Twitter.

Entering is EASY...first you have to be a twitter member, and you have to be following me on Twitter. Look in the right sidebar of this page - you'll see a link at the top to "Follow Me on Twitter".

Second, after you're following me, simply post this in the twitter stream:

@jaisjewels I would love to have you paint a portrait of my pet!

Enter before April 6 - we'll be doing the drawing sometime Monday morning, April 6.

Good luck!

Today I'm Painting a Squirrel!

Allyson captured this ADORABLE picture of this squirrel yesterday. I think it's so CUTE the way he's holding his paw at his chest. I don't like the branch in front of him, so I'm going to do a painting featuring him today --> without the branch in front of him! Think I will call it "Heart Thump", as it looks like he's saying "I love you so much, you just make my heart thump with joy!" :)

Promotional Program

Just a quick update - we've started a promotional program at http://www.galleryjai.com to reward those (monetarily) who print and distribute our promotional materials to their network. Please go here to read more about this program and to see how you can earn money from sending pet lovers to us!