My plans of painting women I admire got put on hold :-(  
​This is this weeks DPW Challenge which is my main stay for now it looks like!

There is a lot written about this person.  Some say she died at age 25, the Native Indians say she lived to be 100 years old.
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I have downsized my web sight for a short while,  
For now I'm just using my blog so it's here to follow!
This weekend DPW Challenge was to take a black and white photo,
or use theirs (which I did) and give it unexpected colors.  It was fun, I'm
not sure if I did what she wanted, but I do try to follow instructions!
I keep telling myself to paint more neatly,  I always start out really neatly!  But, somewhere along the way I start needling and needling neatly is impossible!

This is a preliminary sketch.   I wasn't sure where to begin since there are no known photos of this very special and famous person and very little accurate information about her so  diving in helps.  This way I can see some things that might be really fun to paint.  This is my made up version.  I'll share more as I work on her.  If you haven't figured out who she is already you can always check back to see as I go along!  It's fun to cut loose from the 'always trying to learn how to do something' direction and just be creative!

I painted cups, just because they are the hardest things for me to paint so it never hurts to get in the practice!  I also love it when The DPW Challenge comes out on a Friday or Saturday! Then I can work on it during the weekend and paint other things during the week! It somehow seems less stressful that way!

Carol Marine gave us a mountain scene she had taken and asked us to change some things in it.  Such an interesting challenge, I loved it!  I only wish I had more time to work on it, do another one a little neater but this is this weeks so here it is!

I really wanted to get back to doing people.  This was supposed to be A Chunky Challenge for DPW.  Chunky meaning simplifying the values and colors but I got all caught up in painting it and didn't stop when I should of!

I wanted to practice some more with the DPW Challenge to paint something black and white and maybe gray. 
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This challenge could really be fun if I hadn't chosen such a 
hard still life to paint!  I actually painted three of these!  My limit, I used to paint over and over until I finally figured it out!  It's better to move on, I do love to paint animals and people though.  For some reason still life is really hard for me and I admire people who are good at it!