Need Help with a Sky
Periodically, I try to do a "dark" painting. I love "Goth" artwork (and music!! and clothes!! and hair!!), but have never been able to pull off "dark romantic" myself. So... my little bat fairy is... well... pretty cheery and not at all edgy-cool. Oh well. I can live with that.
What I can't live with is the sky. I was inspired by Tina Thomas's cool cloud-scapes to try and pull off a fancy stormy moonlighty sky. I failed utterly, and I can't figure out how to fix it. I've poured over my art books, and none of them cover "how to paint clouds." Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can fix this sky? Or does anyone know where I can get a good sky tutorial?
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The personal life is settling. I worked nearly 40 hours the last three weeks, but this week, I am only working 24 hours. Homeschool starts up again next week, and this year, things are going to be really hard. First of all, the state has decided that homeschool kids who are using the program we are using (K12, a state-funded homeschool program) have to log 6 hours a day of study, five days a week, no days off or flexability. The second problem is that Oldest Son's testing scores took a nose-dive. Since we started homeschool, his scores rose dramatically, and he was "on grade level"--he was doing as well as other kids his age. The end-of-year 2007 test scores, however, were all seriously below average. He got 0 correct on several math tests. So the extra hours of schooling are going to be good for him, but... ugh... this is going to be HARD.
Youngest Son is off to "building school," and is really looking forward to being with all his friends again. I'm doing the mom thing and am really worried that he'll be hurt and will struggle and all that. My memories of middle school are all dreadful. But Youngest Son is not me. I have to keep telling myself that!