Welcome Home Retreat Neighbors

We wanted some photos of Welcome Home Retreat with the evening sky behind it, but the longhorns who live in the field across fence were stealing the show for me. I may have taken a few... dozen... photos of them. 
But if you can take your eyes off these five gorgeous lady longhorns for a minute, look in the background.  There it is!  There's Welcome Home Retreat! It officially opens October 1st, but my sisters and I got to spend a weekend there working (and playing) to get it ready.

 ~~~A women's retreat to inspire creativity in an environment of beauty.~~~

It was absolutely breathtaking... I kept asking my sister, "What if I want to book a weekend, but not craft or paint or scrapbook or quilt... Could I just come and "be" here?"   Ha ha ha.  I guess the answer is yes, but I'd miss out on the opportunity for creativity.

Click and have a look for yourself.

Or look see what's happening there on their Facebook.

If you're wondering about the painting... It's a big one!  The hard part about painting on such a big canvas is that is stays in that "ugly" stage for a really really long time.  Also, it was so far from one end to the other, I worried that one end wouldn't match the other end.  
But... LOVE it!  I loved working on it.
And... I may have secretly named those five cows after myself and my 4 sisters... matching each personality with a certain cow attitude... Hmmm... :)

Original Oil Painting - 24"x 48"
Giclees or Prints can be purchased from my Etsy Shop.
Giclees, prints, phone cases, pillows, shower curtains, etc... can be purchased through my Fine Art America Site.

First Home - David

As I was working on this, I thought of the different homes we've had and the quirky things that made each one special.

Our first home was a townhouse apartment; The kitchen was so narrow that we couldn't pass each other.
Next we got our first little house.  It had wonderful low windows that my babies could pull up on and see outside.  
Then we moved to a bigger house on a cul-de-sac filled with kids. I made some wallpaper choices that were ridiculous quite popular at the time.
Our next home was temporary while we were building our current house.  We were about the only family living in a development for college kids. Yikes!  Our entertainment was to peek out the upstairs windows.  There was always something crazy happening on the street.
Finally we moved into our forever home during the week of 9/11 back in 2001. 

I painted this for a friend's son who'll be moving into it (the house) very soon.  And that son, that grown man, was once a fourth grader in my classroom.  I love when connections circle all the way back around.

Original Oil Painting - 12"x 16" 
[SOLD]