Let it go, just let it go...

Hello dear reader. Y'know when you have something all planned out? It's all supposed to go perfectly, without a hitch and then...something happens that makes you want to stick a dull pencil in your eye?
Perhaps you'll recall my grand scheme of spending my rainy day indoors, clutching my coloured pencils and just drawing like the wind, the smell of pencil and eraser shavings wafting gently through the house. It didn't happen.

Wednesday is my grocery shopping day (yes, I really am that anal and organized) and this morning I knew I had stuff to get done before I could enjoy my drawing day. There were groceries to purchase, artwork to mail out, a trip to the bank and a trip to the art supply store to browse. Okay, to buy stuff from the art store, but that's not relevant to my tale.
It was 9:30 and time was fading fast as I had planned on being out by 9:00, 9:15 at the latest (did I mention I'm anal about stuff like this?). 9:38 rolled around and I was beside myself with anguish, I was falling behind schedule and that never sits well with me. I gathered my things together, told the dogs to behave themselves and the cat not to break anything, locked the house and plunked myself in the truck. Off we go!
Oh... wait... no. What was that noise?
The truck made a noise I have never had the displeasure of hearing and then the battery light came on and it rolled to a stop just past my neighbour's driveway. Did I mention that it was pouring rain today? No? Well, it was.
I tried turning the key to get the truck to turn over. Nope. Again? Nope. Please feel free to use your imagination as to what choice words I happened to utter at this point. For anyone that knows me, and how much things like this irritate me, they know that I can make a trucker blush so you can imagine what came out of my mouth. Nothing very lady-like, I assure you.
Anyhoo, after much kafuffling I called the dealership and had them tow the poor truck away and have it fixed up. Thankfully the dealership found the source of my anguish and fixed it post haste. By 12:45 I was on my way again and managed to complete my tasks, albeit just over 3 hours behind schedule. I left the dealership and as I drove into town it dawned on me, there are times when I'm so fortunate that I think I must have a horse-shoe up my hiney. Then there are times when I realize it's still attached to the horse. Today was one of the latter times. How's that for graphic?

Anyway, let's return to our regularly scheduled program, shall we? You'll be so kind to notice the update on the penning picture. The colours in this piece are mind boggling. I'm not really sure if that's a result of the actual picture and the light and all that other good stuff or if there's something wonky with my printer. Either way, it's working for me. I'm adding a cow to the picture but I still want to work more of the colour into the horse and rider so I can give myself a better idea of the values in this piece. The reference picture I'm using isn't the best quality and is actually quite dark in some spots so I'd like to improve that.
So that's where I am with that piece. I have gotten some more ACEO's done and while I know you're dying to see them here I cannot show you. You will have to go visit my eBay auctions and, for goodness sakes, bid dear reader, bid!