busy bizzy dizzy

I haven't been posting to el blog much lately, because I have been working...fiercely!

In the evenings, I work on black and white pencil portrait commissions, because all I need is light...not necessarily perfect light. I have two portraits to finish up that are in colored pencil, but I really can only work on those during the day, so I can have that wonderful natural light. It takes correct lighting and a lot of time to get the flesh tones correct for a colored pencil portrait. It is very slow going. I feel guilty that I can't punch it out really quickly, but I want it to be good.

I work on the two colored pencil artworks when I have my littlest one napping. You can imagine, that doesn't leave a lot of time. It can get frustrating. It seems like as soon as I set up to work it's time to quit...either those naptimes are really short...or maybe that just means I really enjoy what I'm doing and don't want to stop! I think it's a little of both.

But considering the demands that I have - 2 children under age four, two 13 year old girls (who should help more...I need to get militant on them!)...laundry, dishes, vacuuming, miscellaneous damage control cleaning, getting the bills paid, running errands, going grocery shopping...helping my daughter study for math Gateway test retest (summer school homeschooling basically)...whew...again...considering the demands I have, I actually get quite a bit done. It is like a challenge. I finished a portrait of a baby yesterday, a portrait of a little girl today, I have a stillborn baby portrait to still work on...I haven't gotten it quite the way I want and I'm looking at it over and over to decide what else to do - and a little boy's portrait that just needs a bit of tweaking and I will be done with that one.

I bought some One A Day vitamins that say they add 'energy.' I get sooo sleepy around 3 pm it's ridiculous so I thought this would be good. I looked at the label, and it has caffeine in it! Can you believe that?!? It has equivalent of about 1 cup of coffee. I'll let you know if it works.