Gloomy weather approaches

Tomorrow's weather cast is for thunder storms and rain.  Reminds me of Macbeth's three witches chanting,
     "When shall we three meet again,
       In thunder, lightning or in rain?"
I did a quick sketch or how the scene appears in my mind.  For some reason I always see them raising out of a cauldron.  Odd that. I think it comes from the line "Fair is foul, and foul is fair, Hover through the filthy air!"

Well Miss Barnes, wherever you are, I can still remember some of my Macbeth after 50 years. Well taught you! Thank you!

Our second Journal Page prompt for June was titled the 7 Deadly Sins.  Just in case anyone is in doubt I chose Lust!  I have finally finished it but I think I will need to do a little discreet covering of the nipples before it goes anywhere near Miliande's censor! :)  Thank heaven for the little stick on jewels you can buy, I have a sheet of heart shaped ones that will do the trick.

Miles is the local cat.  He visits the neighborbood, sleeps in the neighbors garage, eats here and there, and is friends with the whole street.  He actually belongs to a family 3 street over but they can't keep him home.  This morning it was misty and drizzling and he felt like taking a nap so he crawled into Derek's van. He was sound asleep on the dashboard until I opened the door to take a snap. After being disturbed be just gave me the evil eye and went back to sleep!

Genie in the bottle

Two days past the equinox and it has poured with rain on both of them!  Woe to us - kids out of school and stuck in the house, wet dog, soggy shoes, and damp towels.

Isabel is happy as a Linty however, rain or no rain she rides her bike.  Yesterday she mastered the art of riding with no training wheels so our VERY big girl is all smiles.

Dominic has found something to amuse himself with too.  Nice bright eye, nice pink tongue.  Good and healthy!

Today I finished the Journal Page swap for the Genie.  The quote is,  "If I had one wish it would be..."

I found that to be rather hard to answer. 

 I really need a million wishes to restock the oceans and fix the forests, stop Global warming, end the wars, etc., etc., etc.  So I suppose my answer should have been a million but I don't know how to illustate that!

SOLSTICE GREETINGS

Solstice and the sun is shining, a glorious Summer's day.  Gypsy splashed in yesterday and is floating happily on the mooring.  Life is good.  All my art goods are "in process" so I thought I would celebrate with a little Summertime album.

I have no idea what this tree is called but it is beautiful with white clusters of leaves instead of the usual flowers.  As Summer goes on the tree will turn completely green.

I am afraid we have lost this one.  It only has a few leaves on one branch and a lot of dead wood by the looks of it.  Derek is giving it another week before he makes any trimming decisions.  I hope it perks up - It was lovely last year.

Just look at this large patch of clover in the middle of the lawn!  I think clover and dandylions are quite lovely but the sentiment is not shared by the gardener. Why can't weeds be flowers too?  I  keep remembering my father's patch of golden rod he carefully tended year to year.  Here it's a weed!



And here is my little tree god.  I coaxed
 him out of a pieice of driftwood we
found on the beach one day with a hammer
and chisel.  You are not supposed to
remove any wood but I took a chance - I
couldn't let this little god be thrown out
with the other beach trash!

The alligator isn't real by the way  :) . We love different
garden ornaments.  No gnomes!

The Bohdisat sits outside the back porch
all year long. The dragon is on the front porch.  I am not sure why he seems to be glowing.  Maybe I was too near his gold!

          Happy Solstice everyone!

Launching soon

In New England the Winters are rather hard and boats are pulled up onto the hard for the cold seasons.  Now that Spring has sprung and is almost gone Derek is hard at work prettying "Gypsy".  Our little boat is the joy of our lives in the Summer and over the years Derek has turned her from a hoyden into a really pretty lady.  Unfortunately this means I don't see him for weeks on end except to feed him and watch him sleep!  He works so hard on the boat he is exhausted by the time night rolls around.  Now he is under the gun as we have a launch date - Monday June 20th, and the tides will be just right at 3pm so "Gypsy" had better be ready to float.

Here is a quick sketch of the "in progress" :)

Journal Pages and Dye Experiments

I had a fun day today and as a reward for being so good I received these two beautiful Journal pages from Mary Larner in England.
 

The titles of the pages for this month were "It's been a slice" and "I want to lose myself in your song" . Mary, as always, had created perfect pages to illustrate the challenge. Last month I received Mary's pages too and I will be quite happy to create an album just with Mary's work!  I love her blog which you can find in the sidebar. Tin Can Tart.

The fun part of the day was creating my first dyed silk scarf.  I want to try silk painting but I am a little nervous about it so I thought I would start with a method Judith Baker Montano describes as "Blobs".  It was very interesting seeing how much the dye spread out.  I used a dry white silk scarf as the dye is water based.  Next time I will dampen the scarf to see whether it spreads further.  I did learn not to leave the material folded as there is a slight line on the fold, noticable if you are really scrutinizing the scarf. I am very please with the end result, after all I haven't tried to dye anything, (hair doesn't count does it?), since I tie dyed back in the 60's.  Silk painting here I come :)

Thursday Storms

It’s a wild night here.  Rain, thunder and lightning.  After a broiling hot day we have a cool night.  Great for sleeping

I purchased a new thermometer so that I can tell my sister how hot or cold it is here.  Derek has the same problem calling NZ.  Everyone is Celsius based except us.  Well, just for you Sally Anne it was 30.5 C here at 5 pm and it’s 24.5 now at 8 pm.  A significant drop we are happy to say.

On this piece I wanted to try a woven material background, and also I wanted to play with some Lautrec. The weaving was a success but the little bar of Lautrec blends in too much.The figure is just sewn around and painted.  I made a little clay face and added some Pearlex to the paint on the complete doll. 

Unfortunately I was having too much fun with the gold and mauve. Never having just poured paint onto a project before I really had to take myself in hand and let loose. The thought of making an "error" keeps me way too uptight.  I took one photo of it under the light in the bedroom and another in the living room quite a dramatic difference!

                                                                                 

Our latest swap is entitled "Midnight in the garden of good and evil".  I am not sure I quite acheived what they are looking for.  I know it's the title of a film but I haven't seen it and as it's a horror story I am not about to see it.  I get nightmares I do!!

Anyway, good bad or indifferent here they are!

I am also tacking onto this a picture of my now completely 5 year old granddaughter whose birthday is indeed today!  She is proudly displaying a pin she received from her Aunty Sally Anne in England.  She couldn't wait for me to get home and see it.  Perfect timing - it arrived in the mail this morning.

BIRTHDAY PARTY!

It all went beautifully! Here is our birthday girl enjoying her spaghetti taco.  Sounds weird but the kids LOVED them!  I can see we will have many orders for them from now on.  Wonder if Sally Anne and Dick will like them?  :)

Cousin Jacki

The Play doh queens







Pin the tail on the donkey

Zane and Gemma were there along with Collin. Poor Scottie was on the sofa with a high temp and feeling very sick. He had to go home early with Mum leaving Collin to go home with Nana and Pa.

Nerf Wars

The cousins slept over last night so here it is, 9am Saturday morning, and the Nerf Wars have been going full blast for the last hour.  They form a formidable band of outlaws don't they? At the back we have Collin on the left and Dominic on the right.  In the front Isabel and Scotty.  Zane and Gemma are coming today to join in the fun at Vicki's work party, but Collin and Scottie will go home after the event - a cousin swap!

 Granite holds a party with rides and fun every year.  This is the ad Granite puts in the local newspaper. Everything is free but donations are requested for the Dana Faber Institute which is Boston's big cancer hospital.

It's great to see a big company doing something for charity isn't it?

Tomorrow we will have Isabel's birthday party, spaghetti taco's and pies! 5 already. No longer the baby, no longer a toddler.  A little girl who starts Kindergarden this year and is VERY ready after two years of preschool!  Monday is her actual birthday and I believe we will be having a little icecream cake on Monday just to celebrate the actual day.

Thursday week end for me

I have been busy with the Blue bird of Happiness swap this week.  Unfortunately I am good with the blue bird but how to add happiness? This first attempt is a folded blue bird that opens from the one on the right to the full size one on the left.

The photo on the left shows a gift tag I made to give to Mary.  After the pretty bird one she made for me I think this is a bit heavy - still I will send it anyway.  The little bird on the left at the bottom is just a bird and the one on the right is sheer fun of course!

The photo below here is of the two Blue birds over the white cliffs of Dover cards I made.  The little girl/boy on the bird is maybe not happiness but it would be fun to fly away on the big blue bird wouldn't it?