Just had to share this site. I love this guy's work, Keith J. Hampton. He is unashamedly diverse in his styles, which I can relate to, and I really admire what he does with them. He shows an example of how he works with photographs on his more realistic stuff and it's kind of interesting how he uses Photoshop to simplify the design and help with his layout, but also his internal dialogue as the painting unfolds is insightful. I somehow thought only green artists like me had the type of fears, reservations, etc. he expresses as the painting progresses. I guess it's something that never goes away, no matter how successful you are. Another good link from his site discusses his process of creating a painting from a canvas with a good background but without a focal point or an area of interest (I can especially relate to this as I seem to relish creating lovely backgrounds with luscious layers of pretty paint that don't really seem to resolve into a finished painting). Check out his video here. I'm inspired to take one of my canvases out of the closet and try to finish it. I guess that'll have to wait until tomorrow since today was so hectic. Jerry and I took care of the lawn in the morning, took "Little Gray" (but I'm thinking of naming him Sean to go along with Seamus) to get his shots from Spay 'n Save. I would much rather give them a donation because they do such good work trying to save all the unwanted cats. They're remarkable--all volunteers doing it for the love of kitties. After that we drove to the coast to look at our house. The crazy people finally moved out! Yeah! I wasn't sure what to expect and was afraid to walk into the house, but, surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I thought. A couple of days of cleaning and painting and repairs and it should be pretty presentable. The only problem was our keys didn't fit because they had changed the locks (without telling us, naturally). Luckily, they had dropped a key off with the realtor and we managed to get it from him, although it was kind of iffy since he had apparently locked up early. I banged on the door until someone came and opened up. I wasn't going to give up after driving 75 miles from Orlando. We'll plan on going back over on Wednesday to get some of the work done, so that day will be shot for anything else. The tenants were thoughtful enough to leave a couple of plaques with some biblical scriptures on them for us. However, they must not have bothered to read them because I didn't detect that they possessed any of the virtues extolled on them. A number of the neighbors came forward after they left and said "Thank God they're gone." It looks like the only spirit these so-called Christians spread in the community was an ill spirit. "Thank God they're gone" indeed, but I'm not sure that's the end of it after reading some of her hateful mail. (Shudder)