A Study in Green

As I was trying to talk on the phone my husband interrupted to tell me I really needed to come outside and to bring my camera. To take photos. Of a frog. Yes, a frog. I am sure if you know me well you know how quickly I jumped on that, or not. A frog? Ok, ok I'm coming....

Ok maybe he's not so bad. But I'm still not holding him. And he'd better not jump on me.





Ok, maybe I'll even get closer...




"Wait, wait, wait. That's not my good side"





See I knew I didn't like frogs...



"Could you at least wait until I've had a bath???? I'm awfully dirty! I even appear to have cobwebs stuck to me!"





"Oh goodness! Not THAT close, the WRINKLES will show!"




"Seriously, after your husband scares me off the stump and I'm even DIRTIER and still you're here with your camera? Oh the humanity!"





"Look, I even now have trash on my face."



"Leave me with a shred of dignity and be off with you now!"

Murals

When I first moved to Texas some friends of mine at church discovered that I paint. When they were expecting their first child, they commissioned me to paint this mural for their baby's nursery. Cheney has since moved into another room and given the room with the ark to his baby sister Chandler. Meet Cheney and Chandler here. Before this I had never taken on a painting task quite as large!

Soon after, the president of a company for which another friend at church worked, needed a muralist. I don't consider myself a muralist, but my friend talked me into speaking with her boss. He hired me to do a sample wall inside an old old building in Seguin that he was planning to turn into an amusement center. This job came along just as I was beginning my job as the secretary at church so balancing time between the two and running Heather to dance classes constantly became a challenge. It was mid-winter and the building was not heated and crews were just beginning remodeling. They set up a makeshift room around my wall so they could try to heat my space a little and it made a huge difference. It still got quite cold very quickly so I painted in fairly short sessions.

I started with the waterfall and the area to the right.

I then worked on the jungle greenery and added some monkeys and a river:

There's a tree on the far left with parrots sitting in it. Here are the parrots before the branch they're sitting on was painted:

For some reason that I'm still kickin myself over, I did not take a final picture upon completion. I obtained permission to go back a few months later when my favorite aunt was in town so I could show it to her and snapped this picture. As you can see they were still in the midst of a lot of construction. Today, the amusement center is open and is called ZDT's Amusement Center. I have not yet been inside to see how it all turned out but I'm told there are many many murals throughout. This is the only one I did. I did not even try to take on painting more with the schedule I had at the time. I'm still thankful for this opportunity.

My daughter has always loved frogs. I painted this frog on her playroom wall several years ago:
FROG (Fully Rely On God)