Painting In Progress – and some other stuff

I’m working on a new painting. I’m at that point where I have a few more ideas, but I’m afraid to continue for fear of ruining it. One thing I was going to do was a semi transparent layer of white over the clouds. The other thing was to give the blades of grass a border shadow so that it makes them pop out more against the background. I think this picture deceivingly makes the grass look like it stands out more than they actually do in most light.

While I’m posting, I might as well share a couple other inspiring items.

The evening of the hot air balloon flight my brother had a bonfire and it made me think of floating paper lanterns that I’ve seen online before. Now I want to make some myself. They are so beautiful, but don’t you think that is a little scary to send a paper and fire “package” up into the sky? I wouldn’t want to be responsible for some forest fire. Smokey taught me well. There was a girl at the bonfire that said they made paper lanterns in elementary school and if one started on fire it would just burn up but be put out before it would land. I guess it makes sense. I’ve witnessed dozens and dozens of bonfires, and they are on the ground and you see embers constantly fly off, but never have I seen another fire started somewhere else. There are several tutorials online, and they all seem to use flame retardant papers or spray.

Check out this article on Design Sponge about hosting your own “design swap”. I thought that was a great idea, as I’ve been recently wanting to get rid of the extra stuff that I don’t need. I filled up a couple garbage bags full of clothes and shoes, but there were plenty of things in there that were still in great shape. But, the thing I liked about the article is the idea to swap not just clothes but home items like home decor or kitchen items as well.