New Art & NYC

First up, I have finished yet another painting in the Birthstone series, Diamond! I'm half way done with the series now!

So my husband and I finally got to take a trip to NYC a few weeks ago. We've been planning on going for ages and just never had the time - or $$! First we stayed in Woodbury, NY (Long Island) for a few days and got to see several castles which was cool. The first was Co Hall at Planting Fields Arboretum which was really incredible. The story (if I'm remembering correctly) is that the guy who built it was from England and wished he had a title but didn't, so he came to the US to make his fortune - or rather marry his fortune, lol. So the whole place was totally extravagantly decorated with the most amazing carved wood and stone work. I wish I could have taken some pictures inside the house, but unfortunately they don't allow photography at all, even without flash. The photo (above) is only about half of the house. The grounds were amazing too with tons of flowering trees, fountains, and even a life size cottage-style playhouse for the kids!

The next was Hempstead House and Castle Gould at Sands Point Preserve. The website said it was open to the public for the dates we were there, but apparently this early in the year half of the park it's on is still closed to the public, and the castle and house are closed for tours! That was a bit of a bummer but it was still pretty neat to see them. Apparently the guy built the first castle (left) for his wife. But she didn't like it so he built another "house" (more like a castle/mansion) off to the side of this one... and then she ended up divorcing him! I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that if your wife doesn't like the first castle you build her, you married the wrong woman! Lol!

So then we stayed in Manhattan for a night. We only had one day to spend at the Met Museum, and it's so huge that it's pretty exhausting trying to cram it all into one day, but it was SO worth it. I got to see paintings by many of my favourites like Bouguereau (below), Edward Burne-Jones (right), François Boucher, Ingres, Klimt, etc. I was truly in awe. Seeing these master works in person is incredibly humbling. I never imagined how large some of them were. Even seeing the dimensions written out online doesn't really impress as much as seeing the actual painting hung on a wall in front of you.

We also went to two amazing restaurants, Red Bamboo and Counter. I would definitely recommend either to anyone in the NYC area. It was so refreshing to have such a huge selection of dishes that were all meat free, and amazingly tasty! NYC has 20+ veg restaurants so unfortunately we weren't able to go to them all. I can definitely see why NYC is considered the most veg friendly city in the US.

New Birthstone Fairy!

So I got a new computer for christmas which has windows vista (aka "the devil") installed on it and I had some issues with some of my old programs and hardware not being compatible with vista. It was a total pain and one of the issues made it virtually impossible for me to do any painting. Thankfully it is all sorted out now and I can get back to painting! Plus the new computer runs incredibly fast so I'm not waiting ten minutes for a painting to open or save anymore.

Luckily I was almost done with Aquamarine (March's Birthstone) before I switched to the new computer, so it only took me a few days to finish it up. I've also started on Diamond (April), and I have gotten pretty far already! There are several other paintings not in the Birthstone series that I am hoping to finish up in the coming months as well. I'll try to post some little previews of some of them soon.

my new obsession

I have become somewhat obsessed with listening to audio books lately. It started last year around september when I decided I wanted to read the twilight saga books, but didn't feel like taking the time to actually read them. I know this probably sounds lame... but if I have free time I only want to paint. So I figured audio books were the best compromise. Then I found that a local library offers digital downloads of their audio books. You just download a book for a week and then it expires. So ever since I have been listening to books non-stop, and I'm actually getting a lot more painting done too!

A funny result is that the books and the characters in my paintings are sort of...blending together. I think visually there would be no way for others to see this, but whenever I look at certain paintings I "see" the story I was listening to while painting it. For example, I was listening to the golden compass trilogy while I painted garnet. So whenever I look at that painting I think of Lyra. And I was listening to the host by stephanie meyer when I finished painting periwinkle. And I was listening to enchantment by orson scott card while I painted my most recent birthstone painting, amethyst.

As for what I think of these books, well, I'm pretty easy to please. I really loved the twilight saga, and I think the critisisms I have heard about it are silly. The writing is not the best, but the story overall really drew me in. Even though I'm not a big fan of sci-fi in general, I really liked the host. Not as much as twilight, but it was still good. And enchantment was really incredible. It's a very unique and extremely well written adaptation of the sleeping beauty story. I also loved the golden compass trilogy, but was a bit disapointed with how it ended. I keep hoping that phillip pullman will write a fourth book!

Next on my list is stardust by neil gaiman. Considering that I LOVE the movie, and own the book, it's just silly that I haven't actually read it yet.

Let's begin at the beginning...

So I've been thinking about setting this blog thingy up for ages...and I guess now is as good a time as any to finally get to it. I guess I'll start by sharing a new painting. This is January's Birthstone: Garnet. I have already finished Opal (October) and Citrine (November), so I still have nine more to go. I'll post more on the series as it progresses. Anyway, thanks for checking out my new blog!