Night Run & Late Halloween Recap

I know it's a bit late, but here's a review of Halloween! The Turtle and I recently started watching the Walking Dead, and have both developed crushes on the character, Daryl, (me more so then him)

Mmm...mmmm.. Look at those eyes!

So, when the Turtle decided to dress up like him for Halloween, I was all for it! My 2 favorite men combined into one? Who would pass that up? I was more than happy to help him make his costume!

We bought a cheap sleeveless running tech shirt from Target's clearance rack, then cut it down the front to make it into Daryl's leather vest. Then I cut out an angel wing on cardboard to trace onto the back of the shirt. After using half a bottle of white acrylic paint...the wings were ready for lift off! I also flecked white paint onto the back to give it a kind of aged leather look.

For the final touches, I spray painted black a Nerf cross bow (Daryl's weapon of choice) and made 3 zombie ears out of cardboard to string on a necklace that Daryl wore in 1 episode.

Ta da!



zombie ear necklace

The Turtle's work had a Halloween party I was all excited to dress up as Tinkerbell for...but it was over before I got out of work. Not that I let that stop me from dressing up! Disney is encouraging people to tweet them pics of you showing your 'Disney side', and I was more than happy to oblige!

I can have a Halloween party all by myself!

Finally, this week my paranoia/hypochondria got the best of me and I scheduled a last minute skin cancer screening with the dermatologist (everything checked out fine!)...which meant a chance for RRB and I to charge up the headlamps and head out for a night run! We haven't gotten the chance to do this since I moved away!

And it was all great fun, until somebody got hurt. RRB rolled his ankle on a tree root, which is always my greatest fear when we run trails, day or night! Hopefully, he'll heal up quick so we can get back out there next time I visit!

2013 Towpath Half Marathon Recap

The Towpath Half finally took place on Sunday, November 3, after the government shutdown put the kabosh on the original October 13 date.

After spending weeks obsessively checking the weather and planning how to dress, I spent last week watching the forecasted low drop by 1 degree each day the race drew nearer. And this gave me an excuse to find crazy color combinations for my layers!

By some crazy alignment of the stars, my brother's family's schedule was clear and I managed to talk him and the kids into running the 10k. I was super excited since we didn't get to have our usual pre-race slap-happiness for the Air Force this year with the whole traffic debacle. Score!

Sunday actually turned out to be gorgeous! It was a bit nippy in the morning, but I never needed to use the handwarmers I'd bought. My gabbing with my new porta-potty line friend must have warmed me up, (and man was the line long!) My feet and fingers did end up going numb though, and didn't thaw out until about the 3rd mile...so maybe I should have!

And then I saw her.... For weeks I'd been stressing about competing with the "wench" who beat me in the Ten Miler in June (who, coincidentally, stumbled on my review of the 10 Miler...woops..if you're reading this I meant it in the most complimentary way! It means your fast!) I knew she would more than likely be there and I dreaded the idea of running 13.1 feeling like I was being chased or chasing her. Memories of racing RRB to the death  in the 2008 Towpath Half still haunt me. I'll never forget seeing how close he was behind me at the turnaround that day, and imagining him breathing down my neck for the remaining 5 miles...(I won!) We've sworn never to enter the same race ever again. I feared that thats what yesterday would become.

"Run your own race, Tink", I kept repeating to myself. Ha, like I'd buy that garbage for a second.

I'm thrilled. Really.

Anyway, she showed up at the start line and I felt my stomach drop. Grrrrrrreeeeeeeeat. I wished her good luck and she said she wasn't going to be competing with me. This is when the start of an entire 13.1 of delirium began. I thought she meant she wasn't planning on trying to beat me, ya know, to take it easy. It didn't occur to me until the race results came up and I couldn't find hers that she was wearing a 10K bib. We weren't even in the same race!!!!!! Ohhhh... information that would have been so useful to me at the time.

So, the bell went off a min or 2 after 8 and off we went!

I'm especially proud of my tights/sock combo

Mile 1: I pass my nemisis and then she passes me and takes the f off in the first half mile. She put so much distance between us I was actually relieved. There'd be no way to catch her so I could just forget about it. Then 2 more women pass me...After a quick age check, I was cool. They were definitely a group or 2 above me so go on ahead..Knock yourself out by sprinting the first mile dumbasses, (like I'm one to talk!)

Mile 2: My left foot is so numb the ball is starting to really hurt with each step. Please God, please make it just be cold and not an actual problem! A quick Our Father and some begging and I tried to ignore it. Then I attempted to subtract 2 from 13.... that was a fun game. I was pretty sure it was 11 by the 3rd mile.

Mile 3: Man, I can't wait for this thing to be over! Shit, usually this thought doesn't hit me til around mile 8...well this is certainly going to be a fun run. At least my feet and hands have thawed.

Mile 4: Mile 4? Mile 4? Bueller? What do all races have against Mile Marker 4? I never ever see them! Approach signs for the Akron Marathon....ummm...maybe I'm not in the right place afterall...

Mile 5: Get so excited as I reach the clearing where my mom is waiting. I toss my gloves at her as she takes my picture...and she is so intent on getting the shot that she doesn't notice the gloves flying at her.

Proof!

Mile 6: See Aid Station signs....no aid station. Lies! All lies!

Mile 7-8: Feeling good, pass a sign that says "You're running better than the government!" Awesome! Run under the Station Rd. Bridge, which is the subject of my next painting, as I approach the turnaround.

Mile 9-11: And then it allll falls apart. I see at the turnaround that there's an ok gap between me and 2 women, and then a huge one until the next. And none of these women are near my age. I'm pretty sure I'm in 3rd place overall female, 2nd in my division at this point..with no hope of catching Ms. Nemisis. So, I can just put it on cruise, right?

Not so fast, says my lungs. That would be just too easy. Suddenly, I notice that I can't get enough air. My throat feels closed up and I can't take deep breaths. WTF. I can barely breathe. Did I suddenly develop asthma? Ever since September, I have battled off and on with this problem, whether running inside or outside. Never in my life have I had allergy issues so bad than this year.

Also working against me? Friday night I took a knee to the face when my neice and nephew decided to wrestle their Auntie T. 2 minutes after the attack, blood was dripping from my nose and teeth (not that you could tell from looking at me today, hmph)...so I had some decent swelling going on in my nose too!

I got my ass kicked by an 8 yr old

Mile 12: The battle for air continues. I'm so proud of myself for making it through this far. My speed has slowed down to between 7:15-7:40 pace, depending on when I get a good stretch of oxygen. As I finish the. longest. mile. ever., I think happily about how I have almost 2 full months ahead of me until the Disney Half. 2 wonderful months when I don't have to torture myself with 13.1. Oh, race delirium is a wonderful thing.

Mile 13: I see the crowd as I come out of the trees and am ecstatic when I see the clock read 1:36:00! I forgot we started late! Here I was thinking I'd be coming in a full 2 minutes slower. Wahoo!

Finally! Now give me some cookies!

Finish time: 1:36:15, 3rd woman overall! And totally squashed my age group. The woman who came in 1st in my age group finished a full 10 minutes after me. Shweeeeeeeeet!


When they called my name for 3rd place, I was thrilled! I've never placed in the Top 3 overall in a Half before! This was sooo beyond anything I ever expected! I can count on 3 fingers how many times I've happy cried in my whole life, and 2 of them have to do with races....this was one of them.

Annnnnd, my 2008 record for the Half in the 20-24 division still stands for another year. Mwahahahaha!


Yesterday was a good day :-)


Meanwhile......The woman who won overall will be in my age division next year.... a new nemisis emerges!

Borgas Shmorgas

Who doesn't love the Swedish Chef? And what better place to have him displayed than at a restaurant? Here's his debut:

......and then I decided to repaint everything I'd already done because I thought he was boring and needed more shading for depth. Cue the swearing...

Ok, now I can breathe, much better.

And finally...........

"Bork"
18" x 24" original acrylic painting on canvas

Next up, I'm paying a tribute to my favorite place, the Towpath, where I will be freezing my ass of this Sunday in the Towpath Half Marathon. Yippee!

Iron Man

A recent dinner at Grumpy's gave me the chance to size up my soon-to-be-display space even further, (and gave me an excuse to try the most delicious pasta ever). Upon further inspection, I decided I would need a few tall paintings to throw in the mix. Which got me to realize that most of my paintings are wide loads, and not tall glasses of water. OMG, what did I just write.

Anyway, I spent the rest of dinner trying to come up with ideas for tall, narrow paintings and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to appeal to my male audience and show that I don't just paint princesses, butterflies and unicorns
(tho, ha! I haven't done a unicorn yet......but that is a good idea....).

Trying to think of stuff the Turtle would like hanging on a wall of a mancave (have I mentioned there's a light sabor hanging on our living room wall?), I came up with a few ideas and first up is Mr. Tony Stark himself.

I give you, Iron Man:



 A few years ago, I discoverd I have a nack for sketching robots. On a whim, I sketched Master Chief as a birthday gift for the Turtle and was surprised at the result. While robots don't exactly inspire me, they can be pretty easy to do (at least for me), because I can look at it as just a bunch of straight lines instead of curving, swirling fairytale whisps. Robots are pretty black and white, and you can forget the big picture of what you're trying to be drawing and just isolate it, line by line.

I painted black over the pencil so I wouldn't lose my lines if I smeared color when doing the yellows and reds

And finally.....

"Iron Man"
18" x 24" original acrylic painting on canvas

The Turtle is already begging me to overprice it so no one will buy it and he can have it all to himself. He's also threatened to poke a hole in Iron Man's chest and put a real light there. I'm going to have to keep my eye on him!

Sunset on Cinderella's Castle

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm going to have about a dozen paintings displayed at a local Cleveland cafe this winter. It took me hours to come up with the perfect idea for the main piece that would be in the center and really sum up who I am as a painter and where I'm coming from. It didn't take long for me to choose Cinderella's Castle in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World..and then I realized this will be my 3rd piece showcasing my favorite building in the world.

I knew I wanted it to be big and colorful to really catch the eye and be the 1st thing you see when you walk into the restaurant. I went with a 30" x 40" canvas, and upon beginning the sketch was reminded of just how much more work and how much more difficult painting on bigger canvases is...

Wine bottles make the best iPad stands

Here's how it turned out....

I wanted to make the castle as uncartooney as I could (well, for me), so I tried to sketch in as much detail as I could stand. The plan was to sketch in EVERY detail of EVERYTHING: trees, bridges, water...but after the Castle, I lost patience.

And finally..............

"Cinderella's Castle at Sunset"
30" x 40" original acrylic painting on canvas

I'm so happy with how it turned out, I think its my best castle yet! And I feel immensely relieved to have my piece de resistance complete for my Grumpy's show. Phew! This took me almost a month to do from start to finish! Plenty more to come as I continue cranking them out!

My Gallery Debut!

I'm officially an artist! I had my debut last weekend at The Doubting Thomas art gallery in Cleveland! It was awesome to see one of my paintings hanging on a gallery wall!

The show was called, "Out of the Box" and the idea was for artists to hang a piece in the medium they normally work in, and one in a medium they're unfamiliar with, that's 'out of the box'. Going with the box theme, I decided to paint a picture of a puppy peeking out of a box. Here's how it went....

And finally.......

"Mischief"
18" x 24" original acrylic painting on canvas

I'd say it turned out well! For my 'Out of the Box' piece, I took a picture I had taken on our honeymoon on the beach of Maui and photoshopped it. I kind of found out last minute about the need of a 2nd piece, so this was a bit unexpected! And yet, from what I could tell at the opening, more people were looking at my picture than my painting! Grrrrrrrr! FOCUS people :-)

 

With my 2 pieces

"Mischief" and "Maui" can be seen at The Doubting Thomas at select times the next few weekends. And now its back to work for me...I am super excited to announce that my paintings will be displayed at Grumpy's Cafe in Cleveland this February & March! Grumpy's has absolutely delicious food and is located right in the heart of the Tremont area of Cleveland. I'm getting an entire wall to hang my work...which means I am uber-stressed with trying to pump out paintings. I think I can fit about 10-12 paintings up there, so I have my work cut out for me. So excited that I'm starting to get my name out there!

Eiffel Tower

Another painting, another serious case of "What the hell did I get myself into"

I was asked to paint the Eiffel Tower coming off my stint of painting Disney hotels, when my confidence in painting buildings was at an all-time high. Evil....they caught me in a moment of weakness!

Sure, I said. No problem. What's one measly little tower compared to an entire Boardwalk at Disney World? Piece of cake.

Ha.

Once I saw the picture they wanted me to do, I could feel the throbbing of a headache begin. I had been picturing a quaint little tower in the midst of trees and empty lawns (clearly I'm not up on my Parisian geography). How was I supposed to know that the dear Eiffel is surrounded by homes and churches and buildings all requiring my most favoritest of painting techniques, perspective. Blyyyeck. What have I gotten myself into? Why does everyone seem determined to get me to improve on my weakness?

Here's the picture I was given to paint.

Such an innocent and unassuming picture

And here's the picture after I photo-shopped it...

And that's when the heart palpitations started. Lots of black dots and undefined lines. Ooh goodie. Oh yeah, annnnnnnnd, they wanted it to be in shades of purple instead of blue, so I had to make sure I remembered that when I was mixing colors.

Here's how it turned out:

Wait, that's more aqua you say? Doesn't look like purple to you, or even a nice lavender? Crrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaap.....And I had been soooo happy with how the tower looked with the highlights. Back to the drawing board. Is it too early to start swearing?

Feeling happy...all curse words shelved

Now, all I have to do is the hard part. Nooooo problem.

It took me forever, FOREVER, to get the colors to blend smoothly for the background colors of the city/park. I think I went thru an entire bottle of blue and lilac paints. There has to be at least 5 layers on that side of the park alone.

Yup, painting the background for the other side didn't get any easier. My mom was visiting and when she'd walk by I would forbid her from even looking in it's direction. I think this is about the time I started cursing France and having a very colorful dialogue with myself about my newly discovered hatred for anything French.

But somehow, I got it together. Surprisingly, the black outlines for the buildings became the easiest, though tedious, part. And once again, I was shown that practice really does make perfect because I think this painting is even better than my Disney Hotel buildings.

Here's the final piece:

"Eiffel Tower" - 22" x 28" original acrylic painting on canvas

 

I'm really happy with it, and can't wait to hear the recipient's reaction when she gets it on her birthday.

Next up, I'm in my first art show! This weekend I'll be featured in "Out of the Box", a show at the Doubting Thomas Art Gallery in Cleveland, OH. So excited! If you're in town, stop on by! I was also supposed to be running the Towpath Half Marathon, but thanks to our lovely congress, the Towpath is closed with all the rest of the National Parks. So, now I'll be shopping for snowshoes for the November 3rd rescheduled date. Yippee.