I'm stressed!

Yesterday started out very poorly, to say the least. My 4 smoke alarms all went off at once for no particular reason. Two of them are in ceilings that are "cathedral" types--totally unreachable. The screeching was horrifying, poor Blitz tried hard to get into a closet, any closet. No one was home when I tried to call around to see if anyone could figure out what was wrong and take down the alarms. Finally a granddaughter and her husband arrived and he managed to pull down 3 of the alarms, luckily they all stopped screeching, even the one still in the ceiling. I didn't think the batteries had run down, the house was just built a year and 1/2 ago.

Anyway, I left a note for my neighbor who is a Portland City fire inspector. He came over later and checked the alarms and found that one was defective. Since they "communicate" with each other that caused all of them to sound off. So, I have to see if I can find a new alarm to replace the defective one plus he suggested I buy new batteries for all 4. He very kindly offered to place them back up when I get the batteries and new alarm since he has a 10-foot ladder. Thank heavens for neighbors (and granddaughters' husbands).

All quiet today, Blitz is catching up on the sleep he missed yesterday.

I think I have made some improvement to this--I punched up the darks a little more and corrected some problems with the jewelry. I also added more to her hair and braid. I feel better about the work and hope you all think so too.

Thanks for looking and commenting.

New Portrait

This is from a photo on the cover of Time Magazine 6/26/06. Rendered in graphite 2B .5mm mechanical pencil, using circulism, plus I did the jewelry in colored pencil. I wasn't too happy with colored pencil but I'm sure I need more practice with it.

All critiques and comments welcome and appreciated.

Update on Still Life of Kwan Yin

http://weblogimages.com/static/hBY495583DY1.jpg

Not sure if this will work, this is a link to an image showing the latest update of my still life.

I had hoped to add a new post showing another layer on my Still Life of Kwan Yin, but, unfortunately, I can't get the picture to upload from the image hosting site. I'll try again tomorrow. I stopped painting during the terrible heat wave we had recently. The odor of the mediums I'm using was just too strong for both Blitz (dog) and me when I had the house closed up. No a/c in this house so we had to keep cool as best we could and it was quite a struggle. Weather changed at last and it is so nice to have covers on the bed again. I even had to put on a sweater yesterday for a while.

I'm trying the pic uploading feature again but it just hangs up and does nothing. I'll try again tomorrow.