Painting, Sawing, Sanding...and a Movie!

Busy weekend for me!  I think I've finished the painting for my daughter, after several more sessions working on it.  I spent time softening the lines of the horse, and worked on the stone wall, both adding detail and softening the edges.  The scene is meant to be a bit misty and ethereal and my original lines were too hard and dark.  I'm leaving it alone where I can see it for a few days, so that I can look at it and see if anything stands out as needing more work.  I do that with most of my paintings.  I'll either work on it more, or sign and varnish it next.  Here is the current version:

 

 I love a productive weekend!  Craig and I spent Saturday cutting out and sanding the pieces for my first Christmas craft.  I'm starting out with six of the wood gift baskets, which I will paint.  We made these baskets several years ago for family gifts, filled with wine bottles, homemade cookies, and such things.  They also look great with a potted poinsettia, books, a crocheted afghan, or other things in them.  Here is a photo of the pieces we will assemble next weekend, with one of the original baskets we made.

We did something quite unusual today...we took several hours off and went to a movie.  Going to movies used to be something we did frequently, but over the years it's less and less a pastime for Craig and I.  Both "kids" went with us...also unusual nowadays...and we saw "Brave".  

I really enjoyed it as a story.  The heroine Merida is a spunky, strong character, and her relationship with her mother has both the conflict and emotional attachment that many of us experience in growing up. I particularly noted the interesting choices the filmmakers made, in having the backgrounds so realistic that they often looked like real film of nature, yet the characters were cartoonish.  Their skin looked plastic, and they looked like dolls.  I wonder if that was to better enable merchandising of toys based on the movie.  Anyway, it was a fun movie and it was great to get away for awhile.

Best wishes for a good week ahead!