Fancy Feathers went on the back burner again. I did get a barn and a fence completed but, time has been very limited lately. One of my daughters and her family has moved to the DFW area and are with us temporarily. We now have two babies in the house! My granddaughters are 3 1/2 and 8 months old. They are precious, fun and a handful. It has been a life altering experience but worth having the grandchildren closer to us. There is energy in the house from the time they get up till they go to bed. Though they wear me out, I love every minute of it.

I have found a little spare time to work on sketches for the art that will go into a series of books I am writing for the grandchildren. I just hope I can get them done before they have kids of their own!

"Commit thy works to the Lord, and thy thoughts shall be established" Proverbs 16:3

Fancy Feathers

Copyright © 2009 Diana Figueroa

Fancy Feathers is an 16x20 oil on canvas and was started approximately 2 years ago. I dug him out and decided to start working on him again. I still have a long way to go. He could stand alone but, he needs more around him. Some more trees, a barn and some hens in the distance should do it. I think I will go ahead and put a worm on the ground so he can stop staring at nothing. I'll blog updates as he comes along.

If You Can't Stand the Heat, Get a Glass of Iced Tea

I have finally uploaded the slide show feature and added a couple more paintings. Getting the right lighting so I can take digital pictures of my paintings has been difficult. I usually take them outside. Outdoors I can control the natural light by moving to different areas of the yard. Big Problem!!!! The temperature here in Texas is ranging about 100-102 degrees with a heat index of about 104 degrees. Hey....it's hard enough to breathe in these temperatures, let alone move everything outside, set it up and take pictures! So! I am finding things to paint inside. Since right now my interest is in painting flowers and the flowers are on the outside, this is a difficult task. Thank the good Lord for cell phones! I get it ready, run outside, shoot and run back in. Only a small bead of perspiration! A tall glass of iced tea later and I am ready to check out the photos on my phone. I chopped off half the Cannas! I moved too fast on the Roses (big blur)! And, I zoomed in too far on the Lilies. Think I'll go get another glass of tea.

For The Love Of Painting

Hi! My name is Diana Figueroa and I live and breath to paint. I have been creative all my life; mostly crafting and did a few pencil sketches when I was young. As the whim would hit me I would pick the pencil back up. But that was about it. Years would go by and there was no whim. November 2006 I was suffering depression and my daughter saw one of the sketches I had done and said I should start sketching again. So I did a sketch of my Shih Tzu "Pudge". It was pretty good. I traipsed off to the store and bought a cheap watercolor set, a pad of watercolor paper and a couple of brushes. This was the beginning of blessing and healing.

My first painting brought tears to my husbands eyes. It was beautiful. I painted a few more and then changed to oil paints. My first oil painting brought tears to my husbands eyes again....from laughter. It was hillarious! I was attempting a painting of Monet's garden. There were at least 8 layers of paint, 3 paintings on top of each other and probably the heaviest 9x12 paper canvas painting in history.

Being self taught and a perfectionist, I have had to learn to be patient and not critical of myself. I have also learned, when I am not happy with the way a painting is looking just walk away. When I come back the next day it usually is exactly what I was trying to achieve. If I had known this when I first started I would have been spared the heaviest 9x12 canvas paper Monet's garden and my husband's laughter.

But, I never give up. I'll never stop painting and I'll never stop thanking God for this creative gift and for the healing it has brought to me.

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