Happy Birthday Teri C.

Teri C., this Daisy with Bee is for you on your Birthday! Have a wonderful day, celebrate and have fun. Wishing you many, many, many more years of creative happiness.

Wednesday's Walk on Thursday and I am such a Winner!

As I told a blogger friend today about her photo card order any of my photos on my blog can be turned into PHOTO CARDS. So if you see something you like and would like me to create a card using it just let me know. Each card is $4 on sturdy card stock and includes an envelope. Ordering guidelines are on my side bar. #30 Hinged Gate #31 Greens on Bricks #32 Battered Mail Box #33 Watering Can, Milk Can and Bucket #34 Webbed Fence Another blog friend-artist, Tequitia of Tequitia Creations http://tequitiascreations.blogspot.com, has had a give away of a print of her Mixed Media art. And I was lucky enough to win it! Thank you Tequitia! I will hang it up in my gallery of BlogFriendArtists Art in my home. Enjoy your day, the weekend is almost here! Do you have plans for yours?

Pictures Speak for Themselves

Happy Animal Wednesday

Happy Bloomin' Tuesday, Friendship Doodle for Patty

These first five photos of flowers and barn are photos I have taken over the past year or two. I am adding them to my Photo Card collection for sale. I must say that today after putting a batch of ten cards together that I sent off to a Blogger Friend in Canada, I felt good about how the glossy photos looked in their clear plastic envelopes on sturdy green and/or white card stock! I felt proud to be an artist who is selling her art! #25 Mimi's Flower #26 Mimi's Bud #27 Yellow Daisy and Bumble Bee #28 White Iris #29 Red Barn Roof For information on ordering Photo Cards see my side bar to the right of this post. *************************************************************************** This doodle is for my childhood friend Patty. On Sunday we had a long talk on the phone and I found myself in the evening remembering so many things from our childhood together. Once I started to write a few down the rest just flowed like water. We've experienced a lot of life these past 67+ years. Love you Patty! If you were born in the 1940's some of these words might hit home for you too. And if not, well note them as history! ;-)

Colorful Joyous Sunday

My creative juices began flowing again this weekend. On Saturday I sewed ripped strips of cotton cloth and sewed them together (as seen in last of these colorful pictures) then I sewed strips of green, turquoise, red, and orange tissue paper on top of the fabric. On Sunday I took a piece I had knit using hand dyed cotton ribbons from Vivian and started sewing them slantwise across the fabric and tissue strips. I did that on both sides leaving an open V shape in the middle. Then I took more of Vivian's ribbon http://desertbloom.typepad.com/desert_blooming_right_now/and started sewing spirals all over the piece. I used my free motion sewing foot on my machine for all of this sewing. I broke at least five needles. When I tried to sew more variegated thread around the finished spirals and broke yet another needle I decided to move to hand sewing. I am now in the process of sandwiching the piece (you can see the white batting yet on the whole piece. It of course will be cut out/around when done) and hand sewing/quilting around the spirals and other lines made by ribbons and cloth. It may call out for some bead work too. We shall see. It felt strange the week after the gallery entries to be "out of creativity juice"; and then I was over joyed to find it had returned! Therefore, the present title: Colorful Joy! This art quilt/wall hanging is 25" across and about 23" tall. Doesn't it look like a painting or color crayons gone wild? click on photos to enlarge to see details and MORE COLOR! ;-) It is highly textured, as the ribbons are heavily frayed and sit on top of other materials making hills and valleys to run fingers along and through. This photo shows Saturday's early work of the under foundation that you really don't see much of now that it is worked on top!

Nadia's ATCs, Blue Skies, Found Art and a Good Book!

A while back Nadia in Nederland asked if I wanted to trade ATCs with her! She sent me these that arrived in yesterdays mail! The one on the left is called Golden Ocean and the one on the right is called Chinese Characters. They are both made of fabrics, top machine sewn...Lovely. You can see more of her art on her blog: http://www.patchandstitch.blogspot.com/ Thank you Nadia! When I got home this afternoon the skies looked like this in our neighborhood. We had a quick short lived rain a few hours after I captured this beautiful sky with camera.

This is a little collage I made at that watercolor class a few weeks back...just torn papers I had painted first.

And I found these pears in my sketch book.

Now I must get on to something new to share!

I cleaned up my design table today.

But then got busy reading a good book. So maybe this weekend?

The book is called The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It has my attention now, and as I haven't read a book in daytime for quite a while, I might just let myself stay lost in this one until it's finished.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Friday Sky Watch and Red Tailed Hawk Drawing

Thursday evening gave us a bright sun peeking between large white layers of clouds at 6 PM. This photo looks like black and white but it's not, it's in color! Since my last weekend preparing for and enjoying the day of the judging at the art gallery wore me out and drained me of all creative juices. Teri C. asked if I was going to draw or quilt my hawk photo I posted. So I used her question as my inspiration and this is what developed: I thought of painting blue sky around him and I still might.

In the meantime

Happy Skywatch Friday

and

Wishing you an enjoyable weekend.

*****

Grandma Report:

A. my 4 1/2 yr old grandson has taught himself to ride his two wheel bike

with out the training wheels all by himself. He surprised his parents after practicing for two days straight!

Both kids started swim lessons last Saturday and have many weeks of them ahead.

But grand daughter Y. age 4 1/2 announced that she did not want to go next Saturday

and put her face in the water.

She's the same one who said she had not smoked a single cigarette in her entire life!

Stay tuned~

Napoleon comes to California

I took my noontime walk today and stopped in at my favorite thrift store, the one that allows you to take three books for free. I found an Annie Dillard novel (her second) called The Maytrees. When I got back to my office I was looking at the book and found this bookmark inside: The small print says: Jean-Auguste-dominique Ingres (1780-1867) Napoleon l" sur le trone imperial en costume de sacre, 1806 (detail) Photo Musee de l'Armee R.M.N. , Paris Hotel des Invalides, Musee de l'armee, Paris Reunion des musees nationaux

I imagined the Californian on a plane returning from a vacation in France reading this book and using the book mark they'd picked up at the museum there. Kind of exciting to me. Almost as if I'd been recently myself! Alas, it's been over 45 years since I was last in Paris, France.

Red Tailed Hawk on Earth Day

This is a 4 yr old red tailed hawk we saw at the medieval faire last Saturday.

Beautiful?

Happy Animal Wednesday

and

Happy Earth Day!

Bloomin' Tuesday; Happy Soulbrush ATCs and Maya*Made Gathering Gift Bag

Happy Blooming Tuesday. I found these beautiful blooming tulips last Saturday during our weekly garage sale trek... I became enamoured of this front yard. I liked what they did instead of lawn. The roses are for all of you on this wonderful day.

And this bouquet is a welcome home from Hawaii to our dear Teri C. ,

who we all know as a Daisy lover personified.

Happy Bloomin' Tuesday Everyone

Many of you are already familiar with the wonderful art of our friend, Soulbrush. http://soulbrush.blogspot.com/

She and I made a trade of ATCs and these are the ones I chose from her collection. I am so pleased with them! Thank you Soul.

And then...Last week I received this adorable gathering bag from Maya of Maya Made Blog: http://mayamade.blogspot.com/

Her work is so perfectly made...this bag is made from a re-purposed burlap bag and believe it or not it is very soft to the touch. Maya gave this away and I was the lucky winner! I told her I'd give it to my grand kids and help them explore nature, record their finds in the little note book that comes with it. Her note card is also very attractive with the bird stamp on it as you can see.

Please go to her blog and/or Etsy store to see more of her lovely hand made items. You will be as pleased as I am to have found her blog. Thank you again, Maya! ;-)

As for me?

I am still with spinning head from my wonderful day at the art gallery

on Sunday~ My cup absolutely runnith over!

****

http://soulbrush.blogspot.com/

Drum Roll....

My Experience at the Art Gallery on Sunday I donned my white cotton gloves. I joined a group of perhaps seven women and two men who carried in one art piece in each category judged separately: oil painting, water color, digital photography, photography, mixed media collage, fiber art, jewelry, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, starting at nine this morning and ending at 3:30 p.m. \

Three judges judged each piece, three people recorded acceptance/rejections/awards/comments made by the judges.

It took two judges yeses to be accepted.

It was educational. I learned a lot about what these particular judges were looking at and for. What they liked and did not like. I saw one as the “strong, opinionated one”, one as “weak/quiet/almost non-comitial at times”, and the third, as “having a strong opinion but allowing the stronger one to over ride at times”.

I had the good fortune to sit at lunch with the strong, opinionated judge and get personal feedback about his pros and cons about my pieces. I heard things like “good composition”, “good use of color”, “don’t use that title it tells us too much, it’s not necessary”; “this piece is good for you and the other person involved but it didn’t reach ME”…This included examples of other work that did a better job of showing it’s emotion. I wish I could have heard more from the other two judges as well.

It was mind boggling. There was so much GOOD ART there that it boggled the mind to see what got accepted, what didn’t and how they were judged. I saw backs turned from work that was exceptional in my eyes, there was so much superb art and very, very little that I would have said no to. It seemed at times like a crap shoot, as to what got in and what did not.

I got to know some of the other artists, had time to chat with them about their art, their experiences, etc. and share mine with them.

The good news is that three out of four of my pieces have been accepted for the show. Hard Times, Desert Cactus and Snake, and Living Green.

I’ll tell you more after the reception on May 2, 2009…You are all cordially invited. It is going to be a terrific show!

Hey this is one of the 3 that was accepted: Happy Cactus Monday!

Who knew that a few scraps and 11 hours of play time could produce a winner?