I have read The Fires of Heaven and needed a break from such big and loooong reading that I read some shorter novels, A ClockWork Orange and The Lord of the Flies and now A Spell for Chameleon of which I'm almost done.  I am also working on a painting, not very earth shattering, just a simple shell but I am playing with color layers in order to figure out how I want to do my major piece Green Man Wizard.  Doing small paintings of shells help me to focus on color and structure.  Usually monochromatic so I can see how far I can take a certian color and I usually like the results that I put it on my art site artid.com/celtfire

I'm almost done reading Eldest.  There is one thing that surprised me in its reading, it's the placement of a bad and oversused joke.  This won't spoil things for those who haven't read it yet.  But it has villagers trying to get a boat to sail and all they can get was some bardges and one guy said "bardges? Bardges! We don't need some stinking bardges!!"  It was funny but I wonder how many readers will get the reference.  I preordered the next book. I found out over the weekend that the trilogy is now a cycle because the last book was getting so long it had to be cut in half.  Others probably kept up with the news about the books but I'm a 31 year old mother of two young kids and no computer at home so I don't get to keep up with things and I had only just visited that alagaesia web site. 

I'm struggling on working on my art. I bought a book on Fantasy Illustration focusing on human anatomy and I'm working on female arms.  I'm working on my weak points and people are tricky but I ended up doing some sketches for future paintings.  I wished I had a DVD of Red Sonia though, I need something of a action reference and being able to still a pose to catch the muscles in action as it wields a sword.  The book I'm using has a few good pictures of fairies by the way.  I may not write for a while since I have little time to devote time to sketch and fix things in my drawing skills blogging will have to lay low for a bit.

I was not so happy with the guy they picked this year to do the judging.  It became very obvious that he let a lot of his own beliefs about what good art is rather than taking more of an objective view.  Though he did say some good things but the thing that rankled me was that he said that art should be 'happy' huh, ok, and he picked out a ceramics piece for first place and it was a plain bowl, it was a nice bowl and well made I'm sure (I've done ceramics before) but he said that he thought a good ceramics piece was typical bowl shape and not 'these big knobby things'  uh I kind of like the unusual knobby piece which looked like a rounded bowl like vase, kind of like walnut shells stuck together, and there were spaces between the shapes and THAT was impressive because doing a project like that is trickier than the simple bowl that won first place.  My painting did not win of course but I will get a pic of it.  I doubt anyone will buy it.  THe canvas was warped when I framed it.   THAT is the LAST time I buy a canvas from Wal-Mart.  I didn't noticed it wasn't square till I put it in the frame and it was irritating since I didn't have any other way to fix it but to staple it to the frame.  The bottom part of the canvas was still pulling away from the frame.  I knew it didn't look good but I hope to make a better presentation, I wish i can afford a real frame job.  The painting is called THe Fairy Tree and I think the colors and brushwork are great, of course I compare my new works to my old works and THAT is the ONLY measuring tool for an artist.  At least that's what I believe.  It's not fair to compare yourself to a DaVinci or a Monet, though Monet has some paintings I don't like. 

I wonder if thish site should have a kind of art contest, for fun at least, it would be a neat idea.

Wheel of Time series  OY!!  LONG books  LOOOOnger series.  A friend of mine said I should read this series, he's an RPG and I see a lot of influences from big books like Dune as well as Wheel of Time.  I had just finished the fourth book and I think it took me a few months to get that read. I need a break from all that.  I am going to eventually get back to the series and THIS time I will read only ONE book.  I usually am doing FIVE at a time which puts my husband in a tizzy.  'how do you keep track???'  simple, what I am reading is DIFFERENT I could be reading a romance, a true story, a food memoir.  I can read two fantasys at once when they are different.  When reading Renshi trilogy I didn't start on a Wheel of time till I was done, both were long and involved and I would get lost.  I'm reading Vahalla Rising, recommended to me by a friends years ago and NOW I am reading it.  I like the fast pace.  The Wheel of Time books tend to take some time to get into the action. I have to commit myself to reading 10 chapters in order to cement my interest.  I am also going to start reading Cannery Row by John Steinbeck, always loved that writer and I have been to Monterey many times so reading this will give me a history of it.  Love how he mentiones the stink of the place, now it's a tourist spot with dozens of gift shops and when you get to the warf there you smell the fishiness.  I actually like that smell.  Every time I was there and walking the beach there were always dead seals there... WHY?  You find  two or three carcasses, huge, looking like boulders .  I wonder if it was old age or pollution problems. 

Another book I will be reading soon is Eldest.  Now that I have waded my way through The Shadow Rising I can now relax with a more simpler plot line.  After that I have THe Sight lined up, can't remember the author's name but it's about a pack of wolves and one of them is a seer.  I love wolves and this sounds very exciting.