The Fifth Season

 Hi everyone.  Happy Thursday.

Today I have another page for Valerie's Spring challenge.  Those of you who have or have had dogs might appreciate this one, especially if you have a yard full of freshly melted snow or after a heavy spring rain.  Or even if you don't have dogs but have a yard that's wet and soft, you know what I mean. 

My area is in mud season now, but just slightly past the peak of it, as long as we don't have a lot of precipitation to get it all muddy again. Smile.

Lois and Jim let their dogs out one evening when they got home from work. They have a large yard, and it is fenced in, but since by the time they got home is was dusk, they didn't realize how muddy the yard had become over the course of the day.

I think doggie bath time is going to take up a good chunk of their evening. 

To make this page I started with a stencil and a brown watercolor marker. After I'd finished stenciling in the image, I washed over it with a big Chinese calligraphy style brush. I also dipped my brush into some blue watercolor paint  just to give the background a little pop of non-muddy color.

I also think this stencil and some colorful markers would make a cool tie-dye background, so you just might be seeing it again.

I drew in the door and used some white ink to paint in the lighter background inside the doorway.  

On my page I used a bit of blue watercolor over the white ink just to make it a little less white. 

I used various stamps to make the people and dogs. I stamped them on white paper, colored and fussy cut them and then arranged them on my page. I doodled in the rug that the Lois and Jim are standing on. I used a black watercolor crayon and scribbled the mud all over the dogs, and then took a wet paintbrush to spread it to create the mud. 

Finally I scribbled in the title of my page.

I am linking this page up to Valerie's spring challenge at Art Journal Journey.

A couple of years ago I got sick of muddy paw prints every time our dogs went out and then came in, so I  bought a piece of that fake grass rug and put it at the bottom of the outside stairs where the dogs had worn away the actual grass.

It isn't exactly attractive (OK, it is hideous), but it does the trick. I am also amazed how well it has held up too. One of these years we need to redo the sidewalk, and once we do that and put in paving tiles right up to the steps, then I'll get rid of the fake grass.

It's like watching something in slow motion, but I've been keeping track of the snow melt, and mud, in my yard.

I think you can see the mud and puddles on the lawn  in this photo from last week. It's NOT pretty. 

And then finally, it's gone.  Hurrah!!!!! Now the next step is a bit of greening up. 

Welcome to the 5th season of the year. 

I hope your week is going well. And thanks so much for visiting.