Positive feedback from satisfied customers

Dear Fawn,
I'm writing to let you know that "Endless Song Too" arrived today and in great condition. I'm very pleased and it's everything you said it would be like.
I'm very excited about this next painting too.
Take care,
Mike


Fawn,
I got the painting and it is beautiful! Thank you so much.
Rob Allen


Thanks so much for the beautiful painting!!!!! It arrived last Saturday safely and without problems.
Rhonda


Hi, Fawn:
I just want to let you know that your paintings arrived in perfect condition and that I'm delighted with them, as usual!

Thank you so much!
Barbara


Hi Fawn!
We had a beautiful Christmas and trust you did too. I had the lavender paintings framed with double matting, dark purple closest to the paintings, and light lavender for the dominant mat, with a bold rich rounded cherry/mohogany frame. I had them framed together as a themed piece. It sits against our Dove Gray walls beautifully. My hubby was surprised and thrilled and that makes me very happy.
Happiest of New Years to you and your family. May The Lord continue to have mercy on us all.......God bless you,
Ceci

Hi Fawn!
Just a note to let you know the painting arrived today and it is absulutely stunning!!! The colors are fabulous! We will treasure this painting forever!
Take care, keep in touch, have a wonderful holiday season!!
Pollie


Hi Fawn,
I received the painting a few days ago and had it framed already. It is BEAUTIFUL and I am so excited to give it to my husband. In fact, it has become difficult not to give it to him early. The oranges look so natural in the painting, like they were always there.
Thank you again for doing the touch-ups and for shipping so very quickly. I will definitely keep your work in mind for future gifts and pieces for our home!
Avian


Hi Fawn,
I got the painting today and it is just as lovely as I knew it would be. You really do potential buyers a favor by offering nice high-resolution images of thepaintings on your site!
I will definitely keep an eyeon your site. Thanks for sending the painting so quickly, and have a great summer down there in Florida!
--Katherine

Grace happens too

So my sister has been upset with me, my car is not running, and my days are filled with painting porches and signs instead of my daily paintings to post for sale.......

I got kind of down for a few days, and then my kids kind of disappointed me. So I am planning nothing for mothers day, and I guess I was feeling unloved. Robert let it get to him too, my downward swing. I felt bad about that because he has been doing so well now.

So today I began to thank my Father God for all the good things and started feeling better. Then I asked Him to help us get through this rough financial time, to have the money to fix the car, and finish some of the major projects around the house. This evening I got over $500.00 in the mail, for art related endeavors, and will be able to get my car up and going again!

I took the time to finish a couple of paintings too, and now I am looking forward to what good things are on the way next!

Life is good

Nothing like walking through death valley for months to make you see how wonderful things really are. Every little thing is a big thing now. A smile, a walk for only half the distance you thought you could go, but we got out and walked! Or a message on your phone from a voice of someone you love. The voice of someone who couldn't even use the phone.

Robert is full of wonder and everything is something to talk about. He says, "what has gotten into me? I just keep rambling on. I say, "please keep rambling!" After months of silence, now I hear every word and understand the deeper meaning behind it all. He is just so expressive now! Everything is beautiful to him, everything is funny, everything is appreciated so deeply. He feels so intensely, hurt as well as pleasure. Hot and cold too. Used to, he was not affected by very much.

It all amazes me. Like reliving when we first met, and the world was such a happy place. I know, it will get old and it will fade, most likely, but I am enjoying every minute of this part of our recovery!!!!!

We have had a cold, a cough all night kind of cold. We have never been sick at the same time before, and we have never had a cold that we didn't just shake off. This cold is really tough to get rid of. More than a week now, and Robert holds his head and hollers when he coughs. He says it feels like he is blowing the top of his head off! I can't imagine how much it must hurt to sneeze or cough with a shunt in your head. My head hurts these days, especially after a coughing spell. I wish I could take it from him.

But in spite of all that he is still in a good frame of mind, still not back to depression and heartache. I pray that is gone for good!

Freezing in Florida!

Yesterday morning I looked out my kitchen window, and to my surprise there were 4 men in a small boat huddled up with fishing poles in hand on the canal. It was 30 degrees out! I got my binoculars to see what kind of brains it took to go out at sunrise in freezing weather! These guys had on big heavy coats, winter hats, gloves, leg warmers . . . I laughed. I thought " it must be pretty bad at home or these guys have no common sense at all." The fish live out there all day, you do not have to go early in the morning to catch them. We catch them at noon, or late in the afternoon . . . These poor guys, 4 of them, not one or two as you might commonly see, 4 freezing guys hunched over with coffee thermoses and fishing poles (and no room to move around), sat out there in one spot for five hours! Most fishermen keep moving, they go up and down the sides of the canal and keep finding new places to catch fish. I never saw them pull up anything! Every time I looked out the window I just laughed again. You know they went home to tell a miserable tale!

We have had cold spells, once it even got in the lower twenties, ice and all! It was Christmas eve and Christmas day and everyone hoped for snow. The power company had to shut down every hour for 20 minutes or so to keep up with the demand for heat. That was back in 1989!

This past October, yes I said October, we had the first round of frost warnings, and again in November, for most of the month off and on it was in the forties most mornings. Sometimes the thirties. The week before Thanksgiving we had frost and freeze warnings again. It warmed up some for Christmas and New Years, This past week it has been in the forties most mornings. Now it is very cold, upper twenties this morning, thirty degrees yesterday morning and tomorrow it is to be in the upper thirties! For Florida this is just way colder for way longer than usual.

Not complaining, just wondering what happened to the global warming I keep hearing about???!!!!

Painting Violets, step by step

Prep:
Prime a small piece of hardboard, at least two coats then sand lightly with fine sandpaper. Or use a primed canvas and sand it lightly with fine sand paper to make it smooth. Take pictures at different angles of the flowers you want to paint.

The sun was coming through the window on these violets in my kitchen. It made vibrant colors and strong shadows, so I thought it would make a nice painting. I put the image on my computer, zoomed it in and cropped it to this format.

Draw some rough thumbnails on scrap paper to get compositon ideas. I placed the flowers a little off center for a stronger composition. The photos had the flowers too centered which makes the painting less interesting in most cases.


I am using acrylic paints.

(Click on the images to see a close up)



Step 1: Rough in basic shapes with a medium to large flat brush. Use water to make the paint thin and easy to apply.

Step 2: Decide on a background. The photo was pale orange and white and the leaves did not show up well, so I went with blue. I also strengthened some of the colors in the leaves.

Step 3: Make corrections. I changed one of the leaves in the background and put some base color on the violets. I used redviolet, purple and ultramarine blue with white to get varying shades of colors.

Step 4: Lay in thick paint. I used thick amounts of color, first in the back ground, then on the leaves.

Step 5: Add details. I start using a small brush when I add details, but I am still using thick paint.

My attention here is on the violets. I want them to stand out the most and be the focal point.

Hint: Take a break when you think you're done, look at some other things and come back with a fresh eye. Turn the painting upside down, or look at it in a mirror to see the overall color balance.

Almost finished, but I need to fix the leaves on the right and the one just below the bottom flower. I also want to finish up the flowers with more details. After the corrections are made, I use a very small brush to add a few extra details and sign my name.

I put important information on the back (copyright, full name, date, medium used, etc . . . ) and keep the front with a small signiture using a color that goes with the painting.

Here is the finished painting:

"Violets"

6 x 6 inches

Acrylic on hardboard

By Fawn McNeill Barr

Click here for more painting tips!  Happy painting!

Doctor's report

Robert had a good series of scans, the shunt is working and the headaches are easing off. The Doctor told him he could wait until he is fully recovered to begin any radiation therapy or radio surgery. The tumor in his inner ear is very small and non-cancerous, and is growing very slowly.
In the meantime he is trying to get his strength back and keep food down. He has lost more than 13 pounds the last three weeks, because the headaches make him nauseous.

The shunt was put in November 21st, 2008. It has a valve that regulates the pressure in his brain. If the ventricles in the brain swell to much the valve opens and the excess fluids drain through a small tube that runs under the skin from the top of his head down into his abdomen, where his body absorbs the fluid. The valve makes a bulge under his skin on his head, and the tube runs through a small hole they drilled in his skull and through his brain into the ventricles.

It is all very amazing to me!

The ventricles usually drain fluids away through small channels in the back of the head. The tumor in his inner ear is close to this area and next to the brain. It can cause swelling that shuts of the normal draining process. This causes the ventricles to fill with excess fluids and the brain swells too. It shuts down the nervous system.

In the week before the surgery, Robert lost the use of his legs, his bodily functions, and his ability to communicate. I thought the brain damage would be permanent, and I am so glad I was wrong! He is making a full recovery! He does have tremors in his hands, which started about a year ago, but were very mild. now they are much more prevalent. No one seems to know why.

Some headaches are expected from the shunt surgery, (after all they drilled a hole in his head!) but these usually don't last so long and get better not worse. The other factor is that when they do surgery they tip your head way back and put a tube down your throat. Robert has an old injury to his neck that is really hurting now, and the headaches run up from the back of his head to the shunt area, then spread out.

The Doctor said they will probably come and go, but they should get better now, And his chiropractor has been helping with the neck injury.


On top of all this Robert has had shingles since September! I have never seen a more miserable thing happen to a person. After the blisters go away the nerves inside his body get easily agitated and he said he feels like someone has hooked him up to an electrical current. If I hit a bump in the car and don't slow way down, he grabs his chest and moans.

So I keep asking God, how much can one person bear? Why does he have to suffer so much? Well, my mother sent this book to me, called "The Shack," and there it is!!!! The answers to so many questions. It opened up my mind to new ideas and new understandings. I thought maybe Robert was so hard headed and so stubborn, that God had to let all these things happen to teach him a lesson. I am sure he will be forever changed and learn many things from all this, but my understanding now is that our own choices, our own independence that we value and declare to God so often (that we can do things on our own) can cause us to reap the painful consequences.



I have truly been challenged to the very core of my faith. I am selfish and demanding, and very impatient. I am so wrong to think that God wants us to suffer. Father God is faithful in spite of it all. He may answer "No" sometimes, and even worse, "wait." Yet so many times he does answer "yes" too!!!!

Robert update

My husband, Robert, did very well the first two weeks after his major surgery. He was doing physical therapy, and regaining his balance and his strength. then he began to get severe headaches, the 'sick at your stomach' kind.

He has battled them for two weeks now, and we went back to Shands Hospital for more tests. The shunt is doing it's job and is not the cause of the headaches. They are coming from the back if his head and his neck. His docter said an adjustment would not hurt anything and would be worth a try.

He has been given pain medication, which in turn just makes him sick at his stomach . . .
So he has lost over ten pounds, and is still having terrible pain.

Today we saw a chiropractor, who is into holistic medicine. I think we can see light at the end of the tunnel! Robert ate almost half of his dinner, and later had a little pie. He kept it down, and only took half of his pain medicne . . .

Maybe we can get to the root of the problem, instead of just treating the symptoms.

Happy New Year!!!!

Thanksgiving for surgery

So very much to be thankful for:
No more wheel chair for Robert-- he is using a walker now.
He no longer sits in silence, he reads the paper and talks on the phone.
His hands no longer shake and he can do most things for himself again.
He tells jokes and laughs at those that are told to him.

What a miracle!

Turned out that the bigger problem was excess fluid putting pressure on his brain, so much so that he lost mobility and dexterity, not to mention speech and normal thought processes. The last week before the neurosurgeon put the shunt in his head to drain the excess fluids, I thought I had lost him forever. Last Friday was the surgery, and we came home Tues. just two days ago.

Today is Thanksgiving day, and I have not been so grateful for anything in my whole life as I have for this. To watch someone so strong become so helpless, and to watch them fade away and become so vacant . . .there are no words to describe the agony and helplessness I felt.

And now to watch him come back to life, back to his personality, back to finding hope to go on . . . Wow. God is good, and I thank him over and over for using the doctors to save my husband.

Now we have to see what can be done about this little tumor in his ear . . . I am sure only more good things are on the way.

radiation?

So we saw the surgeon about an acoustic neuroma that Robert has in his inner ear, it is pressing on his brain and we must do something.

The surgeon does not want to take it out, Robert is diabetic, and has just gotten over pneumonia.
He is referring us to a Neurosurgeon that does Gamma knife surgery. (please excuse my spelling! so many new words, and I have a hard enough time with everyday words!) Anyway, it is not like regular radiation, very precise rays converge at the tumor to kill it.

Risks are high no matter what we do, so we are getting more tests run and talking to more doctors. Robert has to decide on something, and he doesn't want to do anything. They tell us that is not an option, as blindness and paralysis is next.

I believe God is greater than all this, and no matter what Robert decides to do he will be fine. God can shrink tumors, and He can dissolve them too. Already the neuropathy in Robert's feet is fading away, they said that wasn't possible too! But he is ticklish now in his feet! Just a few weeks ago the doctors ran tests and he had no feeling on the bottom of his feet! I believe it is the first of many things God will do. He is letting me know he hears our prayers and He cares. Can't tell you how much hope it gives me!

Thanks for your prayers and thoughts!

Robert

Life is so up and down these days. I have to keep living. Everything says that nothing matters anymore. Some days my husband, Robert, gives up the fight and just wants to go on to heaven.

He has been diagnosed with a small tumor in his inner ear, pressing on the brain. It is not cancerous, Thank God, but his balance is off these days, hard for him to walk straight now. Next month we see a surgeon to find out if they will be able to remove it.

The headaches are worse, and he sleeps a lot now, at least in the day. The nights are long, sleep comes in small doses. It is as if time has stopped for us. Schedules do not matter, food doesn't get eaten, even favorite dishes are stared and poked at.

I am selfish. I hang on, I know he is in pain, but I can't let him give up, I can't let go of hope that he will get better. I counter every hopeless suggestion with God's word and truth, I will not let him speak death . . .

Am I wrong? Is death merciful? At least for him I am sure it is. I am too selfish. I cannot go there. I freak out just thinking about it. So I pray for healing, I search for remedies, I sit with him for long empty hours. We wait.

Next month we will see.

I try to live, I try to paint my pictures, I try to smile and say the right things. I try to find reasons to laugh, to get him to laugh. I miss his laugh.

Sometimes I just sit and stare at my canvas, I can't think straight, I can't focus. I know it is there for me. Painting has always been my way to cope, my escape. But for now I have to force myself to create something, anything. I just don't see that anything matters anymore. I know better, but some days I can't get there.