Working Puzzles

We have 6 beautiful grandbabies. The youngest is about to turn 1, and the oldest hasn't turned 5 yet. We are blessed  beyond measure.

We love to have all 6 here together. There is lots of chasing and squealing when we do.

One family of three has blue eyes. The other family of three has brown eyes.  We call them our Browns and our Blues.

We love to have one family at a time here. We have routines that they know, love, and expect.

And we love to have time with just one by himself or herself sometimes. 

This little sweetheart is the 4th in our line up. She's my little puzzle worker.

My weekly-ish challenge was "Toys." Puzzles are toys, so I met the challenge... and added a little person too! 

 

Original Oil Painting on 10"x 10" Wrapped Canvas
[NFS]

Scattered Crayons

I love crayons.  
I love them pointy and new and smelling good.
I still love them broken and with peeled paper wrapping.

I loved coloring when I was little.  
I'd lay on the front porch and color the next page in a coloring book.
I stayed inside the lines, always!  And, I always used the right colors.
But, I never called them crayons; they were just my "colors."

I loved coloring with my kids. 
I think maybe I liked it better than they did.  I'm trying to remember, but I'm pretty sure they'd let me color in their coloring books while they played with something else.
Goodness, but aren't they the cutest little green crayon and pink crayon ever!

I like markers just fine.
I really like colored pencils a lot. 
But, I love crayons the best.

** Have you seen those new Twistables crayons?  
love, Love, LOVE those!

This is the second in a series of simple toys. (Unless, I don't ever get around to doing the marbles and whatever else I think of.  In that case, this is the other half of the pair of paintings of simple toys.)  The first one was "Jacks & Ball."

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 6" Wrapped Canvas.
Click "Scattered Crayons" if you'd like to purchase this little painting.

UPDATE:

I'm making this a special, BUY TWO, GET THE THIRD FREE!

**DEAL** Buy two, and I'll send third along for free! 

Crayons link: CLICK CRAYONS HERE

Jacks link:  CLICK JACKS HERE

Marbles link: CLICK MARBLES HERE

Jacks & Ball

I've been thinking about some of the simple toys and games that I played with and loved when I was a kid. 

One of them was Jacks.  I was pretty good at it, but my mom was really, really good.  She'd toss up the jacks, look over where they'd fallen, then bounce... grab one... bounce... grab two... bounce... grab three... bounce... grab four... game over.  It didn't matter how close or far apart they were.  Her bounces were always the perfect height for her to collect the jacks she was after.  

I don't think I liked jacks nearly as much when I was the mom.  If you've ever stepped on a forgotten jack in the carpet...Ugh... Worse than a Lego, for sure!

I'm thinking of painting a series of these simple toys from childhood... crayons... marbles... Any other ideas?

Original Oil Painting on 6"x 12" Wrapped Canvas.
Click "Jacks & Ball" if you'd like to purchase this little painting.

UPDATE:

I'm making this a special, BUY TWO, GET THE THIRD FREE!

**DEAL** Buy two, and I'll send third along for free! 

Crayons link: CLICK CRAYONS HERE

Jacks link:  CLICK JACKS HERE

Marbles link: CLICK MARBLES HERE

The Playroom

When is finished... finished?

I hadn't painted a child in a while, and I couldn't wait to start this little one.  It was one of those images that I knew as soon as I saw it, that I wanted to put the story on canvas.  

At first it came together quickly, and I even signed me name once it made me smile.  But, for some reason, I'm having a hard time calling it finished.

From the very beginning, I started making changes -- not a good plan for a beginner like me... She was wearing a whitish shirt,holding a whitish,  with a white rocking chair, in front of a white wall, so I felt ok with adding some color there, but it became like the domino effect -- each change required another change.  
Her bow was red to match the pattern in her shirt, but now I had to change the bow to match the purple shirt.  The string of Mardi Gras beads were purple, but now I had to change them to keep from overdoing purple.  I changed the book to yellowish, but then it looked just like her hair.  At one point It was "finished" but looked plain like a JCPennys portrait, so I asked the little one's mom to take a picture of the chair with some of her favorite toys scattered around, and she did send several choices.  That presented the next obstacles that no one but a struggling painter would need to fret over.  Since the photos of the toys weren't taken at exactly the same time of day, the shadows were all wrong to match the existing shadows on the painting.  Then where to put them so they'd look scattered not placed. (Well, I knew right away where to place the ball - right in front of the rocker that I never could get to look right anyway!) Of course, her favorite ball just had to be purple - oh well, bluish would have to be close enough. Why didn't I plan this out before I started? I could have given her a pink shirt!  Finally in a bold act, I got out some green and bright orange and made that book into Go Dog Go!  That's just a favorite of mine.
At that point, it made me smile every time I looked at the painting.  I signed my name.
Then I showed her to a couple of people.  My daughter, who is usually very helpful and spot on with helping me find errors that need to be fixed said, "Something's not right about her eyes.  Why are they closed?"  They're not closed!  She's just looking down!  Then another relative asked, "Who's the little girl supposed to be?" Not good... if the question has to be asked, then something's not right...
So... when is finished finished? 
I loved the story this image presented... a little one surrounded by her things... it made me smile.
But now, I've tossed the canvas onto the table beside all of yesterday's mail and last week's bills... sigh... Do I go back and work on it?  Or, do I go back to the time when she just made me smile and let her hang on a wall?

[SOLD]