Valentine's date

Saturday night and our plans to go out with a group from work kind of melted. We decided to go out on our own for some early drinks and appetizers. We have wanted to try Touch since it reopened under the new name (formerly Chardonnay). It turned out to be an excellent choice. The drinks were potent and generous. The food however, was off the hook delicious! Some of the best we've had in Springfield, or anywhere for that matter. We chose a Mediterranean sampler platter and the baked goat cheese. The sampler had some bacon wrapped dates that were terrific. The dates were so good, you didn't really want to swallow them. We like to go out and try different places that we read about in the paper and local magazines. We've been disappointed by some of our choices. It seems like when the food is good, the service is poor, or the atmosphere isn't what we would like. Touch had it all. Live music that wasn't in-your-face loud, an excellent waitress that helped with recommendations, and very nice furnishings. It is now our new favorite.

Atlanta is this weekend and I'm still working on the Marine. Watch this space, I gotta get it done today if at all possible. I'm going to try to get back to at least semi-weekly entries. We'll see.

Winter Saturday

In the middle of the Saturday routine. I just dropped off the dog to get a haircut and tuned in to Bob Ross. He usually puts me in a relaxed and creative mood. We had an ice storm this week that was almost as bad as last year's. I think there was actually more ice than the last one, but the damage was not nearly as bad because most of the trees that were a problem had already been broken and trimmed back. Tornadoes a couple of weeks ago and an ice storm right on its heels has created a bit of mess in most of the yards around the neighborhood.

If you look at the photo above and compare it to the last installment you'll notice that the coat is markedly different. After posting to Timelines on the progress on this dude, I was advised privately by Gary Dombrowski that the Continental Marines of the period wore green coats instead of blue. If I had done the slightest research on this guy beforehand instead of relying on the boxart for a painting guide I could have saved myself the embarrassment and trouble of repainting. I considered leaving it blue as the whole reason that I chose this figure from the gray army was because I wanted to experiment with some blues. The more I thought about it, the more I decided that it should be changed. This figure is to be donated to the Artist's Preservation Group and I felt I owed it to the group to do it right. Of course a change in title of the piece would have worked as well, it didn't ring true to me. I was able to create a mix using the shadow colors of the blue to create the green. The result was very pleasing and I'm glad I went to the effort. It really is a better figure after the repaint.

I'll be attending the AFMS show this coming weekend in Atlanta. It's always a good time and I look forward this show every year. It kicks off the season nicely and provides the inspiration to get work done for my second show of the year in Tulsa. If you've never attended a show, you should. Viewing the work of others is one of the best tools to get better yourself.