Why, it could be Grease Lightning!!!

Yesterday I spent the whole day working on a John Travolta painting.  I think I am going to be stuck in this "pop art" phase for a while because I really like the results. =)  I found a picture of John Travolta from Grease and decided to try it.

Here is what it looked like once I got it drawn out on the canvas:

Again, it doesn't really look like much when you just have the lines drawn, but once you start filling in the colors into the blocked out areas it starts to look pretty neat!

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of each step this time....FAIL.  But here is a picture of the final product:

For some reason Blogger is fighting with me and won't put the photo the right direction. But you get the idea!!

I don't think it turned out as nice as the Marilyn Monroe painting did but I don't think its too bad.  At least you can tell who it's supposed to be (i hope!)! 

I had a little bit more trouble with this painting for two reasons:

1. I had more shades of color in this one.  With the Marilyn Monroe painting I used only grey, black, white, and the background color.  With this one I added an extra shade of grey so that made it take a little longer than expected
2. The main reason I think I had more trouble is because I used a different brand of paint than I usually do.  Normally I use Utrecht or Liquitex but this time, my husband and I found a black and white on sale for pretty cheap so we decided to give it a try.  I learned that things go on sale for a reason.

This is a picture of the kind of paint I normally use, just in case you want to try it out for yourself.

Here is a picture of the "Sale" brand paint that we bought.  Maybe it's just because I am so used to Utrecht and Liquitex types of paint that it just didn't work to well for me.  It just didn't seem to want to lay right for me.  I had to continually go back and repaint sections because it was too thin...and other areas seemed to get a glossy look.  It made me pretty grumpy to say the least.

Monroe

For the past two days I have been trying to do a painting of Marilyn Monroe...and guess what?!  I just finished it!!  I decided to try it using only grey, black, white, and a random background color to make it pop.  I took photos of each step just in case you would like to try it at home.

Step one: Map out where you want it to be on your canvas...and start drawing!!  Block out the areas that you will be putting the different colors.  It doesn't look so pretty at this stage but it will look nice in the end!!

Step two: Paint your first color into your shapes.  I usually start with the shadow color (black) and do the lighter colors last.

Step three:  Add your second color (the middle shade)

Step four: Add a bright background color to make the portrait really "pop" off the page.  I used a peachy orange color.

Step five:  Unfortunately I don't have a picture for this one because it would look practically the same BUT  Now is when you would go back and erase all of your pencil lines and smudges that you may have made.  I went over the white space with white paint just to make it brighter. =)

Artsy Fartsy

I don't know if I've mentioned before that my husband bought me a Cricut Expressions machine for scrapbooking but it is absolutely amazing!!  It basically looks like a printer but it is used for cutting out shapes and letters for designing pages (that way I don't make to waste so much money at Michael's or Pat Catan's on stickers and embellishments).  I used it to cut out all the shapes (swirls, beach chair, umbrella, palm trees, etc) and the titles on these pages:

 This was the past Halloween when Chris dressed like the Mad Hatter.

 This one is from our vacation in Daytona Beach this past May.

 I decided that I am doing all of my wedding photos over again because I can make them look so good with the Cricut machine.  I am obviously in love with this thing!! haha!

I, also, have been trying to learn how to use watercolor paints...It's A LOT harder than it looks!! LOL  My first attempt was of Pocahontas from Disney.  I wanted to do a picture of her with her hair blowing in the breeze and a bunch of colors in the background blending into it. You know, "Paint with all the colors of the wind"...yep, I'm a dork.  But here was the drawing/painting:

 After I got about half of it done..Her nose ended up a bit crooked and her skin ended up looking really patchy....I'm not a huge fan of that but I kept going and ended up with this...

It didn't turn out as good as I had hoped but I guess it's not so bad for my first try.  I wanted to add a lot more colors in the background but I didn't use thick enough paper so it started to absorb into the paper and bubble.  I guess I'm just used to acrylic...but I think I will try another one soon. =)

Ocean City vacation/ Cahall family reunion

As most of you know, Chris and I got married last year in Ocean City, MD on the beach.  So, for our 1 year wedding anniversary we really wanted to go back to the beach.  Instead of going back on the actual weekend of the wedding we decided to wait until the end of the month because I have a family reunion in Delaware (40 mins from the beach) on the last Saturday of July.

We ended up renting a condo for a week with my best friend and her boyfriend so we could save a little money.  The condo was only a couple blocks from the boardwalk.

Anyway,  I thought I would share some of my favorite pics from our vacation and family reunion.
The next 3 are from a bar called Seacrets on the bay side of Ocean City.  It was a pretty cool place!  They had tables and rafts set up outside in the water for you to sit and and had waitresses take your order there.

 And of course chris and I found these statues at the gift shop and had to molest errrrr....pose with them. LOL

This is my best friend Nikki and I at the outdoor bar...pretty cool!  The only bad thing about the outdoor bar thing is that it was on the bay side so the water was really warm and kind of smelled a little. LOL good idea for a bar tho!
The next two pictures have a teeny bit of a story with it...  Chris's mom passed away a few years ago and Chris spread her ashes in the ocean at Ocean City (which is why we had our wedding there).  Dorothy's favorite flower was a Tiger Lily.  One day as we were walking to the beach i spotted a bunch of pretty flowers and there just so happened to be a Tiger Lily there.  So, I picked it and we decided we were going to throw it into the ocean for Dorothy....

 Here is a pic of the pretty flower <3

This is right before we threw it out for her. =)

If you know my husband at all then you know how obsessed he is with Spiderman.... 

.... so, that is why we HAD TO get a picture of him with a "Spiderman" on the boardwalk.

Here's a couple pics of us on the beach...

And here are a few from my family reunion...

 My dad and Chris get along really well.  They played their guitars and sang for hours!!

This is my grandma. <3  I love her SOO much!!  She is the one in the family that I look like.  Can you see it?  =) I wish she didn't live so far away....  I miss her so much already