Midweek Post- Art and Moths

   Hi everyone. I really don't know what happened to August, but we're in the last few days of the month. Since this is my month to host over at Art Journal Journey, I want to squeeze in a few more posts for that challenge. 

   Today's journal page  is one I particularly like. As you probably know by now my theme is In The Good Old Summertime. 

  I made a simple background of light blue painted lines. The line background is kind of a theme I have on several pages throughout this journal. Then I cut out this picture from the Ciao Bella Rivera book I've been using on a lot of pages. It looks like a lovely morning or evening coffee or tea, doesn't it? Sitting outside and enjoying a drink is definitely one of summer's little pleasures.

  The two little potted trees and the branch on the left are stickers from this book. To finish the branch I added some sniped off flowers from a yellow flower trim and then put a flat yellow bead in the center of each. The quote is from an Andy Skinner set by Paper Artsy, but I think it works perfectly here. 

  Yesterday  Denise over at An English Girl Rambles from 2016 to... shared a great photo of a milkweed tussock moth caterpillar. I mentioned to her that I had recently noticed a lot of little ones on a  milkweed plant in my yard. 

Here's the cluster yesterday.

   I've never seen so many in one place so I'm wondering if a whole batch of eggs hatched on the underside of this leaf. I did notice yesterday that the top of that plant is missing all its leaves, so I'm guessing they've eaten them. I didn't know all that much about this caterpillar except that it feeds on the milkweed leaves so I did some research. 

    The moths are a favorite food of bats, BUT, they give off an ultrasonic sound to keep the bats away. That is good, because since the moths were once these caterpillars, and like monarch butterfly caterpillars, fed on the milkweed. That means they contain cardiac glycosides, which are poisonous to animals who then try to eat them. When these little guys molt into their final flying stage, the cardiac glycosides has stayed with them, thus protecting them as adults. 

    Here's a couple of photos I "borrowed" from the internet showing the adult moths.

    When their wings are closed, they aren't really much to look at, are they? But I like how they look with wings fully opened. 

   Here's a link to a gardening article that I read that I thought was interesting: Milkweed Tussock Moth if you'd like to know more about these creepy crawlies.

  That's all for me today. Hope you have or are having a good one. 

T Stands for Botanical Gardens, a Vineyard and Lunch

   Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for our weekly T Day meet up.

  Today I had my first physical therapy for my shoulder.   I really liked the woman who met with me, although today's appointment was really just doing some analysis on my pain. I go back Wednesday, but she's not quite sure it's my rotator cuff. She thinks it's more my bicep connection to my shoulder.   Kind of the rotator cuff, but not (hopefully) as bad as the doctor made it out. 👍🤞

  Last week was a fairly quiet week. My husband and I met up with blogger Dorothy (The Frog and PeguINN) and her husband Patrick at Pop's on Saturday for lunch since they were in the area, and we were home. It was their anniversary, and they were out celebrating.

  One other day I met up with  my walking friend Jo. She and I went to our local botanical gardens to walk and catch up since I haven't seen her all summer. We both have season passes which makes it convenient. Afterwards we went to lunch at a new place for both of us. Today's post is about my day out with my walking friend Jo.

   Here's a few different botanical garden views, starting with the water feature which runs through part of the gardens.

The water lilies looked beautiful.

And these ground shrubs were not new, but I hadn't seen this funky blue pot design before.

Here's a few more views

And finally, they were cutting the crazy hedge around the bee hives. You knew I had to include them, right? Grin. 😉

   Afterwards, we went to check out the tasting room and restaurant at Flagg Hill Winery. I had never been here before, but since it was only 2 miles/ 3.2 km away from the Botanical Gardens, it was worth seeing if it was a good lunch place.

    They had a very nice covered patio so we decided to eat outside and enjoy the view of the vineyards.

    They didn't have a huge menu, but they did have gluten free options for my friend. We both had grilled cheese sandwiches, with their homemade pickles and  homemade chips.

    For my drink this week, we both had a wine smoothie, made with fresh strawberries and white wine. It was a warm day (86 degrees F/ 30 degrees C), but not humid, and there was a beautiful breeze, so this drink was really refreshing. 

   I thought the glass our drinks came in was really pretty too. 

  That's all for me. Wishing everyone a happy T day and week ahead. 

More Gelli Printing

   Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend.

   Today I am joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles and Nicole for her SITAR-Sunday in the Art Room. Last Sunday I shared some Gelli prints. (Here's the post if you missed it: Adventures in Gelli Printing.)  This past week  was another mostly quiet one so I spent an afternoon making a second round of prints. It was  wet and rainy that day so instead of going outside to get some leaves, I  used a variety of stencils. 

   This time I was very happy  with all my pages. No brown YUK like I had on a few pages last week. 😊   Here's a few of my favorites. This first one reminds me of a painting on a brick wall.

   My trick (OK technique 😉) is to never clean the plate. That way  when you pull a print you get bits and pieces from older prints  (I think they're called ghost prints) and spots of colors that were left underneath.  Plus don't use thick amounts of paint, so rolling with a brayer is a good idea.  These  prints are done on student grade watercolor paper, but I have printed on everything from  scrapbook paper, deli paper, cloth and even newsprint. 

 The check patterning this next print is from using the plastic roller I mentioned last week. It's meant to roll even lines in clay, but if I roll it  in both directions on my plate (vertical and horizontal) it creates this pattern.

    The other thing I really like to do is pull a plate, let the design on the paper dry a few minutes, and then repress it back onto the plate and pull it a second (or even third) time.

 I then switched up my stencil.

I switched it up again.

I thought the window shapes in these next few would be great for some Halloween journaling.

   I really liked how the alphabet stencil looked. And the  ghost like rings are made by using a small piece of left over pipe insulation that I dabbed in paint and then "stamped" onto the Gelli plate.

    And here's the final stencil I played with.  In this next image you can see bits of yellow that were just dried on the plate from a previous pull.

   That's all for me today. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Friday Flowers and Faces

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Another week has sped by, hasn't it? 

    Today I have a bunch of random garden photos to share. I'll be linking  up to Friday Face off over at Nicole's blog and also Friday Lunch Break over at Gillena's blog. And just an FYI- this is a photo heavy post

                                        

     I'll start with these faces on these wild turkeys. I haven't seen them around for a while. I want to say "They're Back!" 😁

   Do you see the grape vine growing over my arbor behind the turkeys? Usually the new growth comes off the old woody vines, and this spring there were none. I thought I'd lost the plant. Then we had a couple days of actual rain, and after that, new shoots came out of the roots. And look at it now. No grapes this year, but the plant certainly wasn't dead. 

     How about the deep red of this lily flower?

A dragonfly hanging out on a tomato plant.

  This year I bought a few plants for a tiny spot next to the deck that usually just filled up with weeds. One plant I bought was a Black Eyed Susan, a favorite plant of mine. It's very happy there and looks amazing right now. Plus there's a face in one of these next photos of the flowers too.

    OK, I guess I got a bit carried away with black eyed Susan photos. 😉 Next up some golden-rod with another face, and then another favorite of mine which are now blooming.

Zinnias ❤

    The other day I noticed 3 Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies on this one bunch of zinnias at one time. I only captured a photo of 2 of them because one flew off as I walked over in that direction.

   These tiger lilies blooms have seen better days, but I still think the flowers are very interesting to look at.

Here's another face on some milkweed.

   This first dandelion photo is slightly out of focus, except for one seed that is breaking away over on the left.

   You can still see the dandelion break away seed here, but it is not so dramatic.

  I visited my daughter the other day, and my son-in-law pointed out this swallow-tail caterpillar that was in his garden.

And to wrap up this post, the son-in-law's sunflowers look AMAZING! 

   Have a wonderful Friday and start to the weekend everyone.