I have a mad desire to just paint portraits. I have tired my photographs of family members and have decided to have a go at painting my facebook friends. It has turned out to be a pretty good idea because most people have a decent profile picture, certainly one they are not ashamed of and I can also see them in the flesh as well. This is the first one which is 'Jo'. I have returned to my oil pastel love and it is going well. With this particular one I used a very light flesh undercoat which worked out so much better. That way dark colours were applied in relevant patches. She is really pleased with it and is still speaking to me - which is a bonus. I am going to my art club this afternoon and will take along a current portrait of a man. I don't think I have painted a man before (certainly not with a moustache) so its a challenge in itself. The photo is also pretty poor but I am improvising. Life ticks on in other areas. The children are busy busy busy and I have a netball tournament to attend this afternoon. My team, we are pretty sure, managed to win the league and if we do well this afternoon we may do the 'double'. Team squabblings however threaten to knock their momentum so if I try to keep them focused it will be a miracle. Frictions continue in my personal life with my estranged husband, who still fails to grasp communication skills, turning up to see the kids without any notice and then expecting we'll jump through a series of hoops to please him. Every week is a battle, getting him to pay his fair share is a battle. Yet despite all he does why does he still make me feel so guilty that he is the 'outcast' as he calls it. I have a postman who stands on the other side of my road each day leaning against the telegraph pole. He waits there to collect his next bag of post from the red van. Unfortunately his timings always coincide with me leaping around the front room doing my exercise dvd. I am torn between feeling very subconcious about how it must look from the outside looking in and then feeling that its my living room and i'll do what I please. I have never seen him looking in directly, he is usually tapping away on his mobile phone but despite me carrying on regardless my peripheral vision always has a flash of orange in it. Then when he has collected his new bag my house is the first house he comes to, so I also have the added interruption of knowing that the post is coming through the door at any minute. Traumas!