oh they are super cute, i wish i hada a name

hehe, these are just adorable! and i life the bg too! nice work

I like these alot. Much more character to them than mine. Disney/Warneresque feel to them. Could look better with cleaner thicker line quality but well done.

You did a great job on the glass - doing any glass at all for me is a nightmare! This is wonderful.

really amazing glass!!

Eep! If you're posting on the beginner boards, maybe I should just take my tools and shuffle off... <sigh> No, seriously, this is stunning, and I wish I knew how you had mastered drawing glass so believably. <smile> The background is wonderful, though the one thing that seems to detract from it slightly is the lace(?) runner on the chest of drawers - it seems to be done in a different style from the rest of the piece. Regardless, the piece is gorgeous, and makes me glad I decided to browse your user board -- I'm really enjoying seeing more of your work.

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. :)

Very nice underwater view of a skate! <smile> It makes me want to experiment with more drawings of this type -- very nicely done, but also very inspirational, and that (to me) is one of the hallmarks of a good artistic creation.

Pretty cool man, those things are wicked. Gotta take a break from programming sometime :)

this is ancient

this is very beutiful!!!!

=3

This is quite pretty, and though I do agree that there's a bit of difference in feel between the background and the foreground, to me it doesn't come across as being quite as extreme a difference as it apparently does to Turtlebuster. I particularly love what you've done with her hair!

My one question is whether her right (farther) shoulder is a little high, or whether it's intended to suggest that she's picking up her skirts on that side, and that's why her shoulder is lifted a bit out of true? Either way I try to interpret it, her neckline seems a bit out of true on that side, and so I've been wondering what you intended.

I've been trying to master poses similar to this one, and my eye for them seems better than my hands can execute so far, but I find it helpful to learn from others' work. As a result, I'm particularly interested in details of the pose, and how to make it convincing to the eye, that's why I ask.

Regardless of the answer, I still think she's quite pretty and eyecatching -- she really stands out, even at this small size and amid the assortment of other pictures in this portion of your gallery. <smile> I'm browsing through your pictures in chronological order, to see how you got to your present skill level, and seeing your earlier works is encouraging -- it gives me hope that with practise, my own work will likewise progress in skill, from the "merely pretty" (no insult intended) to the "truly stunning", as yours has. <smile>

its Mizz Dixie outside her castle!! very purdyful