Hello my friends thank you for coming here to my blog post. I hope you all have a thankful time at Christmas and hopefully able to be with families. Families are what is important isn’t it. And friends and the love you share with each other. On Christmas day I received some presents, all of which I loved and have needs for. But I know the happiest time during the holiday was when I have the chance to help someone or give someone something that they need. Those moments are not so easy to come by. But I truly enjoyed them. I guess the saying giving is so much better than receiving is true. It must be something that is instilled upon us from the beginning of time, I am grateful for it. And grateful for the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, grateful that He loves us and allows us to learn and to grow, so we can become more like Him. Grateful we can change and repent so we do not have to continue to carry the burden of our sin. Grateful we can through proper repentance try to change ourselves, to be a better person, and when we failed we can get up and try again. I reflected a lot on the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ this Christmas season. I have the time because I am mostly alone in the day, and plenty of time for reflections. Both of my daughters are in different part of United States now, they are both with child and so not so easy to travel. My husband and I had done a lot of fun things. Actually my friends in the neighborhood and church also did, we have so many dinners to attend and help set up. Book exchange, book reviews etc really occupied a lot of time, but I really enjoyed every minute, I even enjoyed giving little gifts to neighbors and friends and delivering them. Our neighborhood is a very fun and festive place. I love my neighbors. This year James and I put together Charlie Brown Christmas as our lawn display. He cut the wood and i painted the figures, I hope to enclose a pic here soon. It was fun doing it, I use acrylics and varnished them after, we snowed here in Utah quite a lot. Do you know that this year Charlie Brown Christmas is out of copyrights? That means we can use them for things, I decided to just follow some images and paint my own. That’s really fun as an artist.
Like I said in the video, I am willing to hold onto Christmas and cold weather a little longer. So I decided to paint these penguins. I was also looking for something that I can use Chinese ink. I love the ink and will use that more this year in the painting. So as to dispell the myth that black is not a good color to use. It actually is very good, with my chinese painting background I can think of many ways to use this. We will have fun this coming year. Also I mentioned somewhat in this painting, as much as we all enjoy painting flowers, we sometimes want to painting some animals and birds, especially animals will force us to focus more the the lines. The direction and shape are very important, as we paint and draw we will focus more on how we draw, because a little mistake will be very glaring to the viewer, whereas harder to tell on a flower painting. Balance and proportions are also important. So I hope you will try out more drawing and painting of animals, you will know as you try more, you will train your eyes quickly to see mistakes, and once learned the skill will be with you.
The color here are Chinese black ink, little burnt sienna, little burnt sienna mixed with magenta, couple drop of burnt umber on the feet, payne’s gray, yellow ochre for the stomach area, and royal blue(or any kind of bright blue of your choice). As you follow along if I missed anything you will be able to catch it.
Remember to subscribe to my channel and would love to hear from you. Thank you, Kathy

What a wonderful way to spend a grey Sunday afternoon! I love this painting and enjoyed doing my own. Thank you for all your tips about drawing.
Yes Lori, I used to just look forward to time set aside to relax and focus on painting! Looking out window especially on a blustery day!