Flowers

Today, flowers.Although it is April showers that bring May flowers, and it is still April (can you believe the last day of April already?), I shall show you flowers.

Flowers in my garden.

I still have crocus blooming; everything has been so far behind this year here in New Hampshire.

But the daffodils are getting buds and will bloom soon.

And my rose bushes are getting leaves. baby leaves, but it is so nice to see them coming back to active life.

And I spent some time recently playing with flowers in my studio.  Paper and silk flowers and velvet leaves.

Making hearts with flowers.

And making cones with flowers.

I have more to show you some other day when I finally get photos taken.

But I'm sure you will wait patiently.

At least I hope so.

Have a great day and thanks for visiting.

Green Dots

Today is a homebody day on my vacation.

I LOVE a day home! I have been waiting for this.

I love to go out and have fun and play and I love to stay home.

I am such a contradiction, aren't I?

I shall show you a few of my prints from last Sunday's printing session.

Layers and colors and patterns.

I made a pile of papers to use for other projects.

I am adoring these green dots.

On watercolor paper, printed paper and on deli sheets.

Have a great day and stop by again soon.

Vacation

Got to love  a vacation.
Showing you a little of vacation art. And a little vacation fun!
Tags put into my tag book.

Gelli prints.

Making prints of some printed paper . Something new for me so obvious I never thought of it before.

 Sharing a strawberry shortcake.

And having a donut.

Some beautiful spring views.

Reading in the morning because I don't have to get out and rush off to work and reading before bed and not being so exhausted as I am after work that I just fall asleep.

And walking in the morning. So much better than in the afternoon. (Of course maybe that is just because it is vacation too.)
And being decadent!!!!

Yesterday I went out with 3 girlfriends and we had margaritas with lunch- on a Monday!
A drink Monday during lunch???? That is what people who are on vacation do!

Finally, so fun to go out with the same girlfriends to the movies

This is what vacations are all about, aren't they?

So today I am doing my daughterly duty and going down to visit my mom and take her to a doctor's appointment. You never know with my mom how it will go, with her dementia and just being my mom, She and I haven't always gotten along all that great, but we shall see.

Have a great Tuesday and thanks for visiting.

Sunday Art

Sunday was very grey here in New Hampshire, although it never rained.  I did manage to get out for a nice morning walk with the hubby and my dog, Decided that even though I should have done some yard work the dark skies didn't make me very motivated to go out, so instead, I watched a rock climbing movie I recorded on TV (Valley Uprising)  which was quite interesting and made some gelli prints. 

Oh yes, playing with paints and stencils and trying some new techniques made it a really enjoyable Sunday.

And hanging low too.

A SLOW kind of day.

Especially when it didn't feel like very late April spring-like outside.

All my prints.

Wow!

I tried a few new techniques from this book;

One included using this intaglio technique.

I used a pencil and ruler to lay out this intaglio design on some foam board. Then I painted a thick coat of black paint over the design, pulled a print directly off the foam board, and then flipped the board over and used a roller to press the line image onto my gelli plate.  Here's  the prints I pulled off the gelli plate.

Now I just need to fill in the sections. 

Maybe tonight! 

This girl has some lunch and movie plans today.

Enjoy your day and thanks for visiting.

Being Domestic

Its been cool and windy here lately, too cool to be late April. But I took advantage of the that weather and  stayed inside and did some spring cleaning. I also went out to  Home Goods and picked up a couple of little things I wanted around my house- a little table for a tea cup next to my reading chair and also a small shelf for my studio area. It sometimes feel good to be a domestic goddess-Ha-ha!  Really, it was a good Saturday.

Here's a recent journal page. I'd stenciled the background a long time ago and added all the details. Having a stack of started pages is always a good way to jump start my muses to get my creativity flowing.

I think we all have our little tricks, and that is one of mine.

Hoping for some art time today now that my cleaning is done and out of the way. Or maybe even a lazy day as they are saying rain.

Hope your day is all you want it to be.

Come back soon.

Book Chat

 Here's a few books on my nightstand lately. Some I bought and some I borrowed. But they all deserve talking about.

I buzzed through this book about finding Richard III's body.  I find the whole thing interesting. That there could be a missing body of a British king, especially one so infamous, and then have it is discovered buried in a parking lot. That alone is so fascinating to me.This book is written by the woman who had a hunch she'd found the grave, and it proved to be true.  I really enjoyed the chapters about the discovery and most of the material about Richard's reign, although sometimes there was a few too many names to keep straight. I am not a historian, and this book isn't written just for the historian, but maybe if I knew a bit more, the name issue wouldn't be so bad. But overall a recommended read if you like non-fiction and a little royal history thrown in.

Oh yes, it is motivating me to reread the Princes in the Tower by Allison Weir, which I read a million years ago. It also motivated me to buy a 1 cent copy of Josephine Tey's 1950's mystery The Daughter of Time. That hasn't arrived yet but I'll let you know how both of those go.

Cereal milk ice cream?  I must try this on my vacation this week.

 Lots of Swedish baking recipes and some interesting culture material. Three of my grandparents came from Sweden, and I have been there, although it was a long time ago. Maybe this week I'll be trying a few more tasty treats.

I am a pie addict. I love to make it, eat it and even read about it. This book is all about making fruit pies, with some yummy sounding recipes. My cherry pie (that I made a couple of weeks ago) spurred me into searching out new ways to make fruit pies.

 I saw this book at my favorite craft store a few weeks back and then decided I had to have it. I ordered a really decent used copy from Amazon. What I like about this book is that it focuses on 3 general areas- a) sketching and then water color painting-with the emphasis on the watercolor painting of the sketch, b) painting flowers and c) using other mixed media materials in your paintings. It is really nicely written with lots of examples and well described techniques. I'd give it a 5 star.

 This book I bought because I loved her book Farm Anatomy. Its one of those sketched books that teach you something and make a good reference piece. Not a technique volume like the watercolor book, but I really enjoyed reading it-all in one night actually.

And here's another book people have been buzzing about in the crafting blog world, but I resisted buying because I seem to own way too many craft books and wasn't sure how good of a book it was. That is until my favorite craft store also had this book in stock. Wow!  I then bought a good used copy off of Amazon, because this book is great for teaching you to draw faces. I haven't tried much from it yet, and I am not sure I want to draw millions of faces, but I am motivated to do some face drawing and I want to make those drawings more realistic than cartoony.

Another excellent craft book!
Oh yes, and let me add one more I forgot to mention. I picked this up at Costco, because I am ready to garden.

This year I won't be doing too much in the tomato area as because of the high potassium levels my husband can't eat with because of his kidney issues.  But next year,after he hopefully has his transplant...
Tomato city here!

Hope everyone has a great Saturday doing whatever makes you happy.

Yahoo! It is Friday!

Happy Friday everyone! This Friday is especially a good one for me since I start my week long vacation after work is finished today. No big plans but some little jaunts in the planning. I've been holding off scheduling anything since I love the feeling of having  whole open week. Guess it is time to actually decide what I might do before the week is over, but truthfully the idea of being low key is really appealing. A little yard work, some reading, some art time, finishing a few little cleaning projects....sounds decadent and fantastic to me.

So this week I've had a lot going on; I caught a little virus which put me to bed with a bad headache, and I also went with my husband to his  kidney transplant orientation down in Boston.  I did manage to squish in a little art the other evening, including some work on some paintings. The orange house piece is almost finished, and I will show you that next week, but I did start another piece.

The yellow chair!

The chair is a bit out of proportion but I have plans for that. Plus, I kind of like its small seat and the  too tall  back quirkiness.

I have been using up the extra left over paint on my palette to make some backgrounds.

These are nothing special, but these backgrounds have turned into some journal pages.

Next week I really want to spend a morning or afternoon with my gelli plate and do some printing. My painted  paper stash is very  low right now so it is time to replenish, plus I want to make some spring/summery colored pages. I really should get a small plate that they now have. I have a big plate, but I tend to pull it out only when I go into mass printing mode. Not that that is a bad thing, but I think maybe I would use a smaller plate on a more regular basis.

Maybe use- that's the key phrase there.

So update on my husband's kidney situation:  it looks like we'll be able to do a transplant in the fall. Smile. (But it is still kind of scary!) Right now we have 3 active people who are willing to donate a kidney to him, myself included. We have 3 other people who have mentioned they would, but we have to see if they actively want to get involved.  It is way too big of an issue to ask people, but the hope is we can do it in October or November and then be able to move forward with this bump in road in our lives.

I still can't get over where life can put you-unexpectly.

I'm sure many or most or even all of you know that, but it never fails to surprise me.

Linking this week's work to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristen for doing this every week. If you haven't been or haven't been by recently, be sure to stop by and check out all the clever and cool pieces people post.

Hope everyone has some fun weekend plans and thanks for stopping by my blog!

Life is a Bowl of Cherries

 I haven't been busy with too much art this past week. Between a little virus early in the week and then spending a day at kidney transplant orientation for my husband. never mind work, my studio time has been limited. I have worked on a few things but no photos to show you, so today I am diving back into the archives with a few pieces that made me smile.

 The good news is my husband's auto-immune disease is gone and his antibody levels are all back to normal, so next fall we should be proceeding with a transplant. We're also lucky because including myself we have 3 serious donors and 3 other people who have shown interest, so hopefully someone between all these folks will be a match. That's the next stage we are moving onto.

Oh the unexpected places life brings you.

I love cherry art! I don't know why, but I do. I do. It makes me smile.

Maybe because it reminds me of early summer!
I find this time of year very exciting with all the changes going on as spring progresses.

Do you love cherries? Cherry art?

What themes put you in the spring or early summer mood art wise?

That's all for today.

See you soon, I hope!

Local Critters

Last Sunday was just gorgeous outside.The sun was warm and the air had just a slight chill to it, making it perfect to work outside. I took breaks from raking my yard and read a little bit on my deck, comfy in an Adirondack chair with my camera nearby. Since the yard was busy with all kinds of local  wildlife, I got a few nice shots.
I hope you enjoy your views.

It always surprises me the variety of life just in my backyard.
Have a great day and I hope you stop back again soon.