What's going on

I haven't written anything lately because my camera has ceased to work. I hate to post anything without a picture to go with it. If only I could show my front door strewn all over the lawn, blown to bits by the wind. If only I could photograph my new bathroom floor, my new driveway that I dug up. If only I could show the dogs after they all had haircuts and shampoos, clean and fluffy and sweet-smelling. And how about that last pastel I did of the sunrise?

The weather has turned awful, with torrential rain and very high winds (hence the missing door). One day I was working outside wearing a t-shirt and the next I had to take my winter coat out of the closet. Well, we all knew that Spring made a mistake coming so early. I guess we were just hoping it wouldn't notice.

I have to send the camera back to the company for repair.......the second time I have had to do this. It's a Canon, so you'd think it would be good, and really it is. But my Kodak worked for years without so much as a blurry picture.................

Today's Effort

Continuing with yesterday's idea, I did this today. It was actually a lot bigger, with more abstraction to the right, but fooling around with it on the computer, I found I like it cropped like this better. Now I can use the other half of the paper for another painting......This is called "Good-bye."

Experiment

After looking at Elizabeth's abstract paintings, I was inspired to do something different myself. I meant to make something about fish, but after a lot of hoopla about what paper and paint to use, I settled on this piece of Yupo. As happens many times, my original idea went out the window. As I worked, I remembered how the paint can be wiped off the paper, and how I decided to use it like a monoprint plate. So, after messing around with the ground, I wiped out the image the way I would if I were making a print. I like the results and may do it some more. It's something different......

New Gate

Over the winter the old gate to the chicken yard suffered irreparable damage. I've been meaning to build another one since the weather got warm enough for the girls to go outside. Today I finally did. I can barely lift this one, so let the wind blow to its heart's content. It's also hinged much better than the old one and opens smoothly. I buried the edges of the chicken wire behind the wood, too, so that I wouldn't constantly be getting caught on it. With practice everything gets better, including my carpentry skills.

Another Spring

It seems impossible, but Spring has already begun. I can't remember when March was so warm and free of snow. I pushed away some dead leaves outside the front door, and there were the tulips already sprouting up out of the ground. Some of the Seedum has sprouted, too, and the lilac has some beginning buds. I took my obligatory "before" picture of the garden, and then began to pull up the dead stuff that I didn't get last Fall. Thinking that the dogs would enjoy being outside with me, I installed three separate tie-outs for them. They were thrilled at the idea of going out, but then couldn't seem to get the point of staying there in front of the house. They went to the end of their ropes and just stood there, totally confused. Passers-by broke their paralysis and they began barking and snarling, racing around and tangling themselves up. Shortly they were bound together in a tight package that took considerable effort on my part to untangle. Benny, the biggest offender, was the first to be put back inside. Then Patrick. The two of them whined and barked from inside the house while Lytton stood and yawned, looking bored and bewildered while I worked in the garden. Their lack of enthusiasm sort of ruined my mood and I cut short my labors to go back into the house and read, dogs happily sprawled on the couch beside me.

Not Lytton's idea of a fun time...........

Failure and Success

I started this yesterday at Art Group using watercolor and gouache. Never having used gouache before, the results were ghastly. Not one to give up, I went over it today with pastel, that wonderful medium that covers all disasters. I like this one better than the male dancers and I might work more on that to bring it up to the standard now set by the women. There must be a hundred layers of pastel on this.

I'm thinking of making a book of the pictures that will be in the exhibit Thom and I are having. On Blurb you can do that and order copies. I'd put the photo on one page with the painting on the page opposite it. I like the idea, but can't think of a good reason to do it. I'll keep trying to think of one, though.

The Life of an Apple Pie

Stage II

Well, I colored the dancers.........

CHickens in Winter

I haven't taken a picture of the chickens in awhile, but here they are. I had just filled their water up and they all wanted to be the first to get a drink. That was last night, and today they were out all day for the first time in a long while. It has been very cold and windy, but Spring certainly seems on the horizon. The snow has all but disappeared and the temperature is rising. The dogs and I took a fairly long walk in the sunny, 40-something degree weather this afternoon. The fields at Dog Island are comparatively open this time of year, before the trees leaf out and the underbrush takes over. We walked across one of those fields to the end of the island. The land dropped off suddenly and plunged down to the water, hundreds of feet below. There is nothing there to warn unsuspecting hikers that the world is about to disappear, but I have never heard of any accidents or suicides there. The dogs walked to the very edge without any fear, sniffing. I don't consider myself afraid of heights, but an uncomfortable feeling in my knees kept me well back, hauling them back by their leashes. I tiptoed close enough to look over the edge and saw a perfect little beach below me. Huge cliffs rose up on both sides of it, making it inaccessible by land.

It occurred to me on the way home that kids have probably found a way to get down there, though I can't imagine how. And if they have, how on earth do they get back up? In any case, it is a piece of wild, wild land and ocean, not a quarter of a mile from my house, doing what it does pretty much unnoticed by us human beings. The water most likely is carving away at that cliff with its coming and going, making infinitesimal headway under the rock. It's too much to contemplate........the relativity of time....

Dancers

I subscribed to a magazine about drawing and got the first issue yesterday. It inspired me to draw, and I chose one of Thom's Hawaii pictures as subject matter. After seeing Rembrandt's ink and wash drawings, which I have always loved, I decided to try to do a reasonable facsimile. As usual I didn't have the right materials, but I used a regular pen and some watercolor for a similar effect. I enjoyed doing it, but it didn't take long and I had the whole afternoon ahead of me. So I did a charcoal drawing, too. The photo doesn't show the whole thing........I didn't notice it until I put it on the computer.......but the idea is certainly there. It's amazing how different they look. I have to say the charcoal looks pretty mundane. I really enjoy getting into the flatness of the paper and livening things up a little. The charcoal looks like an advertisement for how to create form, which is certainly my forte. Nevertheless, let's have a little imagination here..........

Cucumbers

Thom said these are the only cucumbers he got from his garden last year. He photographed them next to a fork to show their size and it makes a beautiful still life. I have run out of white paint in every medium, so I decided to tackle this in pastel. I thought it needed too much detail to really come across, but it's all I had. I actually love the results, though not as much as I love this picture of it. If only the original works were as good as they look on here..........

I framed some of my woodcuts and hung them in a show at Lisa's gallery. The opening (and closing) were Saturday night and no one but other artists were impressed with them. I did sell one of the watercolors I put in the last show that was still hanging on the wall. It was better than nothing.