dude, that's just too cute! And its soooo good, 2

==WildMage

Whoa, reminds me of UppityCracker's frog XD.That's real freakin' good though.I haven't looked through your drawings in a while....maybe I'll cruise through 'em tomorrow after I get back from school.Right now, I'm exhausted so....yeah^^;.Anyways, back to this one, I like the head the most with all it's detail and structure.The eyes are neat too.I definitely see more and more improvements in your skills as you submit a new drawing.I wish I could do that too....><

Frog-shine WOOT!

hey glo... I collect angels too! :) and turtles... ;) DBA... this one is just precious... did I tell ya that before?

Awww. SO very sweet. It is true, it is very much like an oil painting. I especially like the bow.

*pats her little blonde Shirley Temple-like head* :D

love the warm oil color.. good lighting but i think the hair could use some more highlights... very good XD
....way better than i could do

You're too late. I saw them, and it's time for them to die! Oh, and get better please dixie. I didn't know anything was wrong.

Oh crap! Run, lil flowers, run! IT's the Dinobeast! Run....!!!

lol, @ both of you...*giggle* (pssst, neither did i dino...LOL...juuust keeding) thanks again yall...the doc says it is hopeful i will make it through the night ;p

Thats really nice. ;)
You always have the smoothest coloring and colors!

(Hey, do you think if I mix the new perfume Paint with the old Obsession one I'll get it right?) lol

lol
lovely work as always! as soon as I saw that blue, I was just taken! I think you've done a wonderful job.

and naw, you prolly shouldn't mix the perfumes *laughs*

lol davin, they aren't all gonna get sharper, because I don't like everything sharp... I like soft. :)

dunno, someone might think you've gone soft.

lol, marcello...i guess thats part of the mystery of the great deadly one...she's still just an ol softy ;p

couldn't help notice how fast you cranked this one out. So beautiful with such ease. My favorite part is the telephone poles and the bird nest in the tree.

Another awesome pic. Uh...bird nest in the tree? Am I due for new glasses or just a new imagination? I guess either one wouldn't hurt, huh?

No, don't get new glasses laurael! Actually, I didn't intentionally put a bird's nest anywhere, but my daughter and I found a little bloop I must've done in one of the little mesquite shrubby things (I don't know.. I just make it up as I go lol) that could be a bird's nest. Thug is very observant!

They are exactly as they are supposed to be... they are able to cock their ears at that angle. It is something they do when they become predatory and aggressive. One of the fascinating things about them. In some photographs I have seen of them, one ear will even be cocked upward and the other outward. (In this one, his left ear is actually cocked up from the back of his head inward more than his right one... his right one is almost in between stages.) Strange, I know, but an accurate depiction.

I considered doing them the other way, but I thought it was more interesting like this... I couldn't decide if it would disturb ppl and take away from the essence of him.. perhaps it has, maybe I'll change it, I don't know. Does it bother anyone else? (It would be extremely easy to change if it is disturbing)

mountain lions are supposed to be disturbing! ;p;

wow...meow! This is neat. So real, I like the wiskers >:3

lol NOoooo they were both there..but after my long ride home in the snowstorm.. I had to take one....

lol Happy Bday Davin

thanks you guys..

Thanks yall. :)

Oooh, more pictures of the home of my heart! You have a real gift for rendering this kind of scene, Cindy! :) There are two points that I have to question, though, for future reference (again, not that I could do this myself, but I can tell that these two points don't look quite right -- my eye being better at this than my hands, as yet, at least).

First, the ripples in the dry wash of the path seem to me to be too consistently angled, instead of following the curves of the path, the way I'd expect them to, if they were caused by water running over the mud during flood time (which is what I think of when I see that kind of image). They'd make more sense if there were a way for the water to have acted on the land outside of the path, the same way, but with the wall there, I'd expect the water to be restricted to the path more, and curve to follow it, during flash floods.

Second, the tufts of greenery on the bush don't seem to have a correlary set of darker areas, within the shadow of the bush, so it looks to me like the shadow is of a bush that doesn't have as much foliage on it as this one does.

These are both fairly minor points though, which I offer only in order to point out directions in which you can continue to work on advancing your work, which is already spectacular, and VERY evocative of the landscapes you've been painting. <smile> As you may be able to tell, what I've seen so far has been enough to spur me to go back through the pictures in your user board, in order to see more of these pieces! <grin> But even great artists can still grow, and I hope I've offered some useful suggestions for your consideration, here. :)

sure, always, I appreciate all the helpful suggestions. (Actually, it doesn't rain often where this was taken from and it's very windy, so I assume the ripples were caused by the wind since the sand changes rapidly - although the rain does a number on this wash when it does happen)

<melts> Excuse me, I'm moving into your pictures. At least when I'm having dental work... ...I have favourite mental places I go when they're working on my teeth (I don't tolerate local anaesthetics, so I *have* to use those sorts of techniques...), and your pictures have now become the first paintings (by *any* artist) to make the list. You may take that as the high compliment that it is, and well-earned, at that, Cindy. <smiles with sincere admiration>

I've never looked out from the Mesa Verde ruins at sunset (those ladders are scary enough in daytime, and that's BEFORE I became acrophobic), but this looks just like the kind of thing I'd expect to see, so you've got the feel you describe, dead on, with this picture. *impressed smile*

I hope there are more pieces of this type coming... ...and at this rate, I may have to ask you if I can save some to my hard drive, as I'm not sure I can stand to part with them! *wistful grin*

On the useful suggestion side of things, I thought you might like to think about using a glow similar to the one you used on the horse and cowboy, to edge the ruins (should you work on this further locally, or do more pieces like this, since I see that this one is marked as "finished"), and give an indication of the light pouring up and over their edge, from the sunset, because I think it would have that same almost magical effect that it did in the cowboy picture.

And, as an extremely minor detail, there's a stone that appears to be sticking out toward us, about 3 rows below the bottom of the window on the viewer's left, beneath the middle of the window, which gives me the feeling that it's about to pop right out of the wall toward me, and cause the window to cave in. It could be intentional, it might not, and it's perfectly believable either way, but it gives me a loss of the feeling of tranquility that this piece otherwise conveys, and instead creates a sense of dramatic tension, as though something in me is waiting for the remainder of the wall and window arch to collapse. I thought you might want to play with that, in future works, since your paintings tend to have a very emotional impact on the viewer (to judge from my own response and that of others), making that emotional effect into one more tool in your palette, so to speak.

P.S. to thug: Cindy is not alone in putting in 3-5 hours at a stretch on a single piece of artwork; I do it too, (and though I don't compare my work to hers, so do many of the *other* artists whose work I like) and that's not allowing for interruptions. How did you think that her pieces got so good, anyway? *grin* Good artists aren't *necessarily* speed demons (though they can be); what makes a good artist, IMHO, is that they're just good at being expressive, whatever their medium of choice, regardless of how long it takes them -- which is reassuring to those of us who take longer on our own pieces, even when we aren't at Cindy's skill level. :)

I hope this comment has been useful, and not *too* long, this time... *worried look* I tried to cut out anything not directly related to *this* picture. I don't see anything left I can leave out.

About 5 hrs in one sitting is an avg. for me here... some I worked on for 8 or more at once, because they usually take up so much space that I can't get back in to edit w/out asking for more space.

Gee, thanks alwayslearning... maybe you should have a job as a writer? lol And yeah, the rocks that appear to be about to come out are intentional... these things are barely standing as it is and crumbling as we speak. I'm so glad that someone recieves the feeling I try to impart when I paint (or draw). That's what makes it satisfying. This place has inspired me to bust my real paint out again.

you always do the coolest skies. :)