Our Artsy Fartsy Family

Painting Class #2:
My new Thursday painting class started yesterday. Its in the same location with a different instructor. So now I will be going to painting twice a week. NICE! The new class is more formal and a crowded mix of wayyyyyy retired people and middle-aged women (like me, I guess). The instructor is Leslie and she is a working artist about my age (I can't tell). But she knows what she is talking about. This is both good and hurts my pride a bit. ME? Pride issues??! Oh, shut up.

Here's the thing, Leslie KNOWS what she's talking about --- all the art terms and so on. But what she doesn't know, is that I, too, already know them and it makes me feel like she's talking to me as if I am painting for the first time in my life. That's not her fault, how could she know I have a lousy B.F.A. in painting and art history? Any who my pride hates the thought of being thrown into a category of the rest of the class where painting is a recent hobby.

I will have to admit, I am a little fuzzy on my brushes. Yes, did you know that brushes not only come in different sizes, but shapes and lengths and the material of the brush whether natural hog hair or synthetic fibers all play into the application of paint. I think I just earned myself another B.F.A.!

I showed up to class with a brand spanking new 3' x 3' canvas. My intention is to do a color study of red. an abstract. It will be about the joy of experimenting with color and composition. I think Leslie was excited about this because she is an abstract painter and everyone else in the class as usual is painting sailboats and flowers and landscapes and apples. She actually spent a lot of time with me and I admit, as I got started gave me a lot of good things to keep in mind. The truth is, she is exactly the kind of person I need to be around regarding my pursuit of painting.

I know I don't have to agree with everything she suggests, but I am thrilled to be exposed to someone who's critique and knowledge I can trust. Besides, how could I resist her when she dropped the name of "Rothko and pure color field painters .... " blah, blah, blah..... ?

I suppose I won't be getting a scarf out this chick, eh? P.S. I will post an image of the my new painting later.

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Poetry Slam
Some of you may remember the post I did on Lauren's poetry slam she wrote awhile back. Last night she performed it at the Creative Writing Poetry Reading at school. It was a well attended crowd of mostly angst ridden black wearing attitudinal teenagers in a dimly lit corner of the library of the high school. Ahhh, yes, angst ridden creative types in their teen years. My favorite. Thank God they will all grow up and get smacked by the real world, cut their hair, and apply for real jobs one day. And even remove their black fingernail polish -- the girls and the boys.

It was actually great to see this group of about 70 kids (and some parents) be so supportive of each others poetry and having the guts to get up in front of your peers to bear your work. The subjects ranged from lost love, to teen frustration with parents, to creepy shadows to rainbow trout. I lie not. The rainbow trout poem was quite amusing.

As expected Lauren's performance --- and I say performance because she did not read from a piece of paper --- was stellar. There was healthy applause when she went to the mic, and roaring loud thunder of applause and calls after she finished. She beamed. And so did I. That girl rocks.

The "success" of raising a child is measured by, what? Their grades? Their attitude? Their relationship with Jesus Christ as their Savior? Their character? I'm tempted to say their sense of fashion, but that would give away my true character. I don't think a stellar poetry performance is any indication of me raising a terrific human being. But having said that, as a good friend of mine reminded me, its good to celebrate the successes of our children too.

Evolution of "The Hair"

In addition to being a talented actress, some of you might remember I am also a talented untrained and unlicensed hair stylist. Well, believe it or not, Michael trusts me to cut his hair. And Michael is very particular about his hair. Any woman would kill for his hair (if one didn't already have hair like mine, or course).

Anyway, he has been growing it out all fall and a couple of weeks ago he went to an Anime Convention and wore a costume of one of his favorite characters. He died his hair a chocolate brown and I got to cut it for him and style it based on a picture he provided.

I introduced him to the wonderful world of hair mousse and helped him make these huge "spikes" to fit the character. It was fun and a gross mess of mousse, TONS of Aquanet (the hard core stuff) and more mousse.

He was not concerned with the strange cut for the character because he announced that after the convention he wanted all his hair cut off for a nice clean look. So last night I cut almost 4 inches of hair off and gave that boy a nice do even if I say so myself. We all agree he looks a lot more like Danny again with the short cut! So many handsome Dulins in my house!

Painting Class #8: Are You My Husband?

Painting class was pretty uneventful today. I got a lot of work done and think I am close to being done. I started by avoiding trying to paint Danny's face and painted in a detailed bee flying in the top left area. (See detail at the bottom of this post.) I need to wait until next week for the bee to dry so I can paint in the fine details of it.


After the wee bitty bee was painted I knew I had no choice but to finally paint Danny's face. Here's the thing, painting someone you love (with all my heart I might add) is very difficult. Especially if its a face you know well, but have never painted before. I will be the first to admit, it does not look like Danny. The dark hair makes him look like Elvis. Again, once the hair dries, I will put in the gray next week. The eyes are not done either --- they are just a flat green right now. Okay, I guess that was a big fat lame disclaimer as to why I don't have the skills to paint the face of my own husband!




Well, I do plan on trying to paint him to look more like Danny next week.......

Painting Day #7

Painting day number 7 was terrific! I have been avoiding doing much detail work on my painting as I was in need of smaller brushes. I thought I had some but couldn't find them and have been tempted to go purchase more. BUT Danny found them in the storage room and I have brushes galore!! There are like 25 brushes of all shapes and sizes for just the small detail work I need them for. PRAISE GOD!!! Plus they were practically new!

During this class I finished up my portrait mostly concentrating on my eyes. I am very happy with the results. I also darkened the background and love the overall color/texture effect. In addition, I started filling in Danny's face. I am feeling pretty good about the direction of the painting now. I'm sure that will change next week.

The instructor Don will be making me another scarf --- a skinny one like I had hoped. He will be making a green one for St. Patrick's Day. Furthermore, he is on such a knitting frenzy, he will make a matching green scarf for Danny too! How cute!

In this post, I have included more than just a pic of the painting as a whole but also some of the detail.

(I love this detail. I wish this were a painting all by itself.)

Friday the 13th and Valentine's Day

What a full weekend we had! Michael headed to VA and Lauren shut herself in her room due to large amounts of AP U.S. History homework. Ahhhh......

Danny and I are not big Valentine's Day people but since we are newlyweds we embraced the 'holiday' appropriately and enthusiastically. In honor of Friday the 13th I made heart shaped brownies for Danny and Lauren. And yes, I even dusted them with powdered sugar.

That night Danny treated me to dinner at Bonefish Grill. If you have not been, I recommend highly. Its sorta comparable to a seafood P.F. Chang's. Its a chain but you can always count on it for a great meal. It was wayyyy yum and my hubby was smart enough to know that reservations on the 14th would be crazy.

On Saturday we had a wedding to go to at church for a young couple in our SS class. It is his first and her second. This was suppose to be 'low key' and casual and simple and for the purposes of just getting married. Their plans are to have a larger ceremony and reception in May. Anyway, congrats to Kozue and Keagan! The bride is Asian --- how could he go wrong???!

(Check out Danny's tie; it was my father's!)

Lauren got me dark chocolate for V day. But not just ANY dark chocolate. Its Lindt Chili dark chocolate and its FABULOUS! I'd been wanting to try it for a while and can't believe she was thoughtful enough to get it for me. The taste is dark chocolate but then this KICK. N I C E ! The best part was the note she attached with it that read: "To the woman who taught me to be a little sweet, a little spicey and a child of God. Happy Valentine's Day!" I feel so loved :)


Saturday afternoon Danny and I went to see the movie Defiance. It was a GREAT movie, and definitely worth checking out on video if you miss it in the theatres. If you like Holocaust history, this is one movie that is "uplifting" considering the subject matter. I don't know what it is, but even after working at the U.S. Holocaust Museum and knowing much more than I wanted to about this subject, when you haven't been around if for awhile, its still shocking to relearn the horror of those atrocities.

On a side note, when I was checking out the Defiance website, I went to the bottom of the site and clicked on the link "Resources" and no surprise was a blurb about the U.S. Holocaust Museum. The cool thing is they grabbed a graphic from the Holocaust site that I designed. I know, it seems dumb, but I immediately recognized it and knew my work. Its just kinda cool. Or perhaps I am so pathetic that I am living in my past gory. I mean glory.

Team Dulin Rocks Again

In lieu of our regular Marriage & Family Wednesday night group at church, they had a Valentine's Day 'event.' Danny and I volunteered to be one of the couples to play the "How Well Do You Know Your Mate?" game. I'm proud to announce we kicked some serious butt.

We were the newlyweds. We were up against 2 other couples. One being a couple married for 19 years and the other over 40 years. The oldest couple were hilarious (not on purpose). One of the questions was "Who was the first person to say 'I love you' ?" The husband wrote down on his dry erase board: "Adam." Um, no. That was not exactly what we meant by the question......He was also the same partner that said his best friend was "Charlie Smith. She hates Charlie" when his wife answered, "I said it was ME."

Danny missed only one question -- what was my mother's maiden name. He answered: Lin. Are you kidding me?

I missed one too. The last question was "What get's your spouse in the mood?" Danny said candles and I said "Valium" which got a nice laugh from the crowd, but then said, "Your kisses."
I know, try not to gag.

The best answer was from the oldest couple. The wife answered: "In the summertime when you get a tan." WOW. The house fell down.

Anyways, we won with 40 pionts and got a nice $50 gift certificate to Carrabba's -- woo hoo! Nice! That's right, Team Dulin Rocks!

So the truth is we actually PRACTICED. Yeah, that's how competitive we are, we practiced in the car that afternoon. My hubby was so smart and quizzed us. Never underestimate the power of preparation.

Painting Class #6

Today Don the instructor and Van the man I originally thought was the instructor brought in 2 boxes of Duncan Donuts. I'm gonna get fat from painting class.....

Today started a new session and two new people joined us. Another older woman - Adele, and a recent graduate student Jenny (she looks like she is in her early 30's). Jenny had her iMac laptop in class to draw from the image. I would NEVER do this. Are you kidding? There is paint and crap all over those tables and you want to put your Mac laptop on that??? Blasphemy!

Its official. I hate my painting but have loved the process and learning how to even struggle through the process again. Today, I mainly worked on my face. I know you will find this hard to believe but I am having a hard time looking at myself so much. No, shut up. I mean it.

Take a look.....

Painting Class #5 & The Red Scarf

Well, I got my new red scarf Monday in painting class. Who knew Don the instructor was such a wiz at knitting? During class he had his huge thing of red yarn and was knitting away at another red scarf.

I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but I'm wondering if I could trade my scarf in for a different style. I think I'd like it to be half as wide and 1/3 longer. I like that skinny scarf look.

I'd intended to focus on the faces in my painting, but only managed a meager attempt on mine and that was at the end of class.

I'm feeling frustrated as I think my desire to keep painting versus being patient and waiting for the paint to dry between classes to continue is potentially going to ruin my painting. I was going to incorporate a flower in the painting but compositionally it just didn't work. I tried it 3 times before I gave up.


I added more large areas of color which I like. There's texture there too but you can't see it in the pic above. The type treatment was an idea I got and wanted to see how it would work. Basically, I have a set of alphabet letter cookie cutters. I put paint on the edges and stuck them to the canvas to make the imprints. Once they dry, I will paint in those areas.

P.S. -- The woman who fell last week was not in class. Hope she's alright.....