Thursday, February 25, 2016

Pop-Ups

I realized that  I hadn't posted the results of my efforts to master pop-ups.  Although I can't say that I mastered them, I did get the idea and made a few.  The top two are my own design.  The bottom is the first successful one I did following the directions in the book.  My interest waned pretty fast, but these three sit on the back of the piano as testament to my effort.  I may at some point do more work with this since I am so enamored of paper projects, but for now I abandoned my efforts in favor of going back to pastels.  My new Sennelier pastels were calling, as well as the rough paper.  I've also been crocheting a lampshade, which I finished yesterday.  I won't live long enough to do everything I want to do.

Monday, February 22, 2016

A Day with Charlie

Kendall took this picture from her seat on Charlie's back. It was a surprise to me to see it on facebook, since I was completely unaware.  I love the picture,,,,,,.  I'm not sure how many people like horse kisses, but I certainly do.  The other picture is of course me riding.  The look on my face says it all.




Friday, February 05, 2016

A Couple of hours later........


What I learned about Pop-Up Books


Earlier I ordered a book about making pop-up books.  I unearthed it as I was trying to clear off the dining room table and decided to get my feet wet, so to speak, by giving it a go.  I found that it is both more simple and more complicated than I thought.  On the table is my first attempt at getting the concept.  So far, so good.  Then as is my custom, I decided I had it down and tried to do a couple of things on my own.  The flower is the result of this fantasy.  After that I decided to go back to the drawing board.  Perhaps page 2 will enlighten me enough to move on.  It's another way to manipulate paper, which is certainly a recurring obsession of mine.  The book shows some amazingly beautiful abstract creations done by experts.  They are a little like the origami tesselations, but cutting the paper is the main tool instead of folding.

Oh boy, another toy.

A Pretty Snow

After such a mild winter it's nice to see some of this kind of snow that sticks to the tree branches and makes the world look like a post card.  This is the view from my front door.  It's still snowing hard, though it's not obvious in the picture, and the wind is blowing in from the ocean (behind me).  I haven't heard that this is supposed to accumulate a lot, but time will tell.  In any case, the dogs, birds, and I are comfortable here in the house.  So, I assume, are the chickens out in their coop.  When I closed them in last night I made sure they had plenty of food and water, which doesn't freeze because it sits on a heated surface.  All's right with the world.

Tuesday, February 02, 2016

More Sandpaper

It's a good thing I don't expect to go down in history as a great artist since the archival quality of my work leaves a lot to be desired.  Here is another pastel on sandpaper.  The subject is from a photo I took at the 4th of July parade a couple of years ago.  Not much more to say about that.