In the Name of Art

Rookery

Today was the first weekend for the local farmer's market in Peninsula, Ohio and on the way I stopped at the rookery to take pictures of the blue herons and their nests. It's about 5 miles from my house but I don't spend enough time here. These London plane trees are 50-60 feet high and as you can see, their foliage is delayed compared to other trees. All the better for cautious herons to survey the landscape I guess. I hope you can see the herons, the nests are certainly obvious. As I was taking the pictures there's a constant group cackling going on.

More Birds and Bouts

I neglected to say in the last post that the "Bouts" in this title is the name of the artist who did the body parts floating around with the birds. His first name was Dirk and he was Flemish, worked during the 15th century. This is the advantage of having not many people read my blog, nobody says, "Hey, what the devil is the 'Bouts' about in your title?" I think of all those years I kept a diary with my secrets in it and being afraid some one would read it only to put a journal on line where everyone can see it but who wants to read it? Must be some kind of karma operating there. Anyway, here are 2 more bird works similar to earlier ones. 

Butterflies Flutter By

Butterflies are a symbol for a person's spirit so perhaps that's why I'm so attracted to them. But they also remind me of fluttering, flying flowers so its a very special occasion when I can be in a huge room with hundreds of them doing arabesques around my head. My friend Sharon took the pictures and this was a UCC outing. Didn't have the best weather but it was warm and who could complain with the spectacular scene in the rainforest room?

Some Birds and Bouts

When the local library has their semi-annual book sale I am all over it! Picked up a huge book on birds with illustrations by Roger Tory Peterson (who was born in Jamestown, NY, right down the street from our cottage). It has migration routes and maps and as you can see types of birds in silhouette with information about each.

I'm still playing with the wingseeds and I'd torn out a page from the book and it kept calling my name, dancing a jig, etc. . I finally cut it up and these were the result. I'd planned to use the more colorful, realistic pages first, but I'm beginning to think the materials have a mind of their own.

Mom and Dad's 60th Wedding Anniversary

I'm hoping this is just the beginning. These are my brother Andy's shots, I forgot (!!!!!) my camera. There's something about big events that just leaves me babbling without a camera. I'm hoping to add to these with pictures culled from my other siblings who know enough to come equipped to take pictures.

Queen of Hearts

I'm now having problems posting an image before I begin text, hence this text before my image. I did write a help ticket and am waiting with baited breath to find out what to do. 

Just finished this painted collage this morning, before planting, bills, walking dog and all those other items I have to do during the day. 

60th Wedding Anniversary!

 

Tonight we celebrated Mom and Dad's 60th wedding anniversary with family at a restaurant, it was a truly extraordinary party and my old time MYF friend ( Methodist Youth Fellowship for you who don't know,whew, that was ages ago) Carolyn had her parents at the same restaurant and they celebrated their 60th also! Carolyn had her friend come over to our table to sing to my parents! We obviously needed a lighting consultant but that will have to wait for the 65th.

Wingseeds Falling

So I've been sitting in the yard with a shallow box collected all the wingseeds (or helicopters, as my friends call them) from the maple trees all around the neighborhood. Anybody who knows me, knows I'm after art materials, those who don't probably think I'm OCD about my yard, or something less charitable. I know what I want to do with them on the cabinet cards I've been sewing, but have been experimenting with them in post-card size art. These are OK, I'm still working on it and will have some more next week. The seeds remind me of cicada wings but there are a lot more of these floating (and landing) around.

Watteau's heart

Well it must be obvious by now that I'm going to be underlining everything when I insert a photo. As I said, bear with me, this new and "improved' version of typepad is probably just that but it'll take me awhile to adjust to it's wonderfulness.  Just finished this piece with the intention of using it for a sample for artfest proposal. I'm not sure about that because it veered off into territory of it's own and didn't stick to what I had in mind. My collages are a feckless lot. Anyway, there's quite a bit of stitching on this one. I'm not sure why I love string, but I only use materials and images I love. Tangles, knots and lines attract me.

Typepad novice again

Ok, so they've changed the posting process and weird things are happening to my color, arrangement and the way I edit my posts. Since it will take me some time to figure everything out, bear with me please. I have no idea why the next post is underlined and can't seem to fix it. And the cat is complaining that I won't hook her up to her tether, its ALWAYS something!