Happy Haunting to all......
 

Happy Halloween to one and all!

I found this little witch decoration on sale and she had to come home with me! I have a sparkly black, papermache cat with a broom to be her buddy.
This witch has sparkly red hair and a black bat is flying up our of her brew. I also like her purple dress.





This old fashioned card reminds me of a photo of myself at 4 years of age.....rather mischievious! (I will try to load the photo....) I see now the photo is up......not where I would like it, but it is there.

Well, so much for the self-centered one today....I need to go shop for a new stove....I am having most of my family here for the holidays.....!!!!!!!

The first page of a small moleskine art journal. This was a birthday gift from a dear friend, a blank book, a gift with possibilities!

I jumped in on a day off recently to make a

cut and torn paper collage , "structure".

We need structure to grow and develope our
potential..... as one who has fought against rules, and structure for many years, I now have a new appreciation for the direction and boundaries which are helpful in giving form to our dreams!

The next page is a pencil sketch of a vase of autumn
flowers and a cut and torn photo of a twig chair
and blanket....thinking about rest, growth and
possibilites!

This new inspiring book for watercolor (watercolour in Britian!) came just before I went to teach the workshop yesterday!

I considered it to be a good omen and it was. The workshop was fun , the setting at a retreat center on a mountain top here was wonderful...sunny and lots of fall color.

These were beginners so we painted autumn things...their retreat is called "Leaves of Gold" . We did a negative painting (which emphasizes the outline shape) using maple leaves gathered from outdooors and a positive (realistic ) still life of pears (which are in season now!)

Shirley Trevena is a British watercolor artist whose work I just love. She is in love with color as I am....what a great teacher! I would love to take a workshop with her!

Here are some blocks for the Summer Spirit
quilt.....this will be the wedding quilt for the August wedding of Andrew and Mary.

I have sewn on it some lately, but life has been busy ....also this is a new computer, our old one crashed right after my last posting. This one is taking some getting used to.....the scanner isn't "hooked up" yet, so I am just blogging with images which are already loaded.....

Today I have a watercolor workshop to teach....so no more time to post for now! 

Indigo and pears ..........

These are birthday cards from 2 of my friends who like to do collage art! I love them!

I manage to celebrate my b'day for several days,.... last night we got together, as we often do on a Wednesday night,.....I baked Rachel Ray's Thai pizza (the recipe is on the internet), one friend brought wine and Japanese beer and another made pumpkin bread.

Then we listened to Rod Stewart's new CD "Still the Same" . For "show and tell" we looked at two quilts I had picked up from being quilted....I have to bind the edges still, and at Kaffe Fassett's new book which features quilts from the Victoria and Albert Museum. We all enjoyed going through the 36 fat quarters from Kaffe's latest collection.....(so dynamic and colorful!)

While we talked, I knitted on a fingerless glove using up some leftover sock yarn. These may be a Chrismas gift....I have more socks to knit, too.

I really like the quote from the post by prettylady....from Emily Dickenson.....
"We turn not older with years, but newer everyday."

 

A happy grandaughter!!!!!!!



My grandaughter is already a traveler....these are more of my daughter's photos from her trip to Jamaica this month.

Lilia with Bindley (who is from Jamaica), Lilia looking out on the ocean, and Laura with Bindley's close friend's children.

These are the photos I tried to upload to the last post and they just went into a black hole!

Our foggy morning in Arkansas has changed now into a sunny day so I will finally get going......

Back to Jamaica!!!!!!


For my birthday last year, I received the gift of a wonderful new son!

My daughter, Laura and Bindley were married in Jamaica on my birthday, October 15th. Our extented family was there and I can truly say, it was the most wonderful time I have ever had!

This year they sent photos of their anniversary trip to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. How beautiful! Rainforest vegetation, foggy clouds hanging low and the ocean visible in the distance!

I love being an armchair traveler! Having a travel agent for a daughter gives me many opportunites to see the world through her eyes! Her business is www.caribbeanjourney.com . Here are more of her photos .
The young girl is her daughter (that is another story!).

These photos may refuse to load down here.....so they are probably at the top of the post.....I need to learn to think backwards on this layout!!!!!!

A page in my journal about the long road trip to Arizona....miles and miles of interstate highway. Photos from the car window.....


I added the colorful pastel painting of "Sagebrush Hills" (center left)by artist Mary Silverwood as a reminder that an artist can find beauty in the ordinary. (I had seen so many miles of the sagebrush hills that they seemed monotonous and mundane...of course, I was anxious to be with my son....so the long journey was a challenge!)






Another photo of me on the trip to Arizona. Looking at this photo, I am remembering the wonderful air, and the peace and quiet of Oak Creek that September morning.

The prickly pear cactus (in the foreground) were very common out there, as well as ponderosa pine trees and scrub oak. You see, I am standing on a ledge which was about twenty feet above the creek and looking up still higher at the mountains we had been driving through.

The creek runs at the bottom of a deep narrow canyon. By pulling off the road at one of the overlooks, you can see much natural beauty and listen to the wind and the water. What a shame that we usually have to rush by in our hurry to find the next busy tourist site!

Last night, as the harvest moon rose in the east, we went to another artist's reception.

Here is a photo of the gallery lit up for the evening. The long summer days are definietly over for the year, night falls much earlier now!


It was a lovely evening as usual at artist receptions!






Celebrating autumn with a basket of leaves and apples!

I recycled a gift basket from last week into a centerpiece for the breakfast table.

It is a great fall day here....leaves are falling all over our yard. I could start raking them up anytime....but not yet , I think.

Yesterday brought a package of fabric fat quarters which I had ordered. They are designed by Kaffe Fassett and are luscious rich florals....they will enrich many of my future quilt projects...as I sort of "sprinkle" them through with the more ordinary fabrics..... I usually make very scrappy quilts.

Another story of sychronocity....

(My spell checker isn't working on this?)

We went to an artist's reception for Helen Kwiatkowski
(see her little helen series here http://www.roseminn.com/calendar.html) .
In addition to her Little Helen series, we loved her icons of Mary.

Another friend was there...she just happened to be the reporter from our newspaper...so we ended up in the society pages....with Mary behind us! (I always refered to the other photo as the 3 pretty ladies....I didn't know who they were other than that Lindsey was the gallery director.)

I was expecting my friend Macrina to visit that weekend, as it was her birthday. Well it was also Helen (the artist's) birthday and the gallery director Lindsey's birthday.... rather eeerie!

The next week, I realized I was seeing the brunette on the national news with her husband...a Walmart executive. (You can research that story if you wish).

Weeks went by and one Saturday I was at work....an "old" friend from our Lamaze class days came along hadn't seen her in maybe 20 years (too long!)....and she was in our part of the state visiting her "old" friend, who as it turns out, was the third, smiling, "pretty lady" in the photo!

It was another example of how we are all connected whether we realize it or not!

I have another artist's reception to attend this weekend....I can hardly wait!

One last look at summer by posting watercolor paintings which
I have painted this season!



The flowers of summer, zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds, hosta leaves (thanks for that idea, Paula!) , coxcomb, bells of ireland, and lots of brilliant red snapdragons combined with the fruits and vegetables of the season!



Some of these are sold, others are avaiable at a local gallery.




I will be teaching a watercolor workshop in a couple of weeks to people on retreat at our local mountain top Methodist retreat center....we should be in the midst of fall color by then.




Lots of inspiration for painting watercolor comes with the brilliant maples and other leaves turning..... and of course, pears are in season and they are a great subject for beginners to paint!

(one down side to doing a blog....it takes away from other creative time!)

Comtemplating Aspen.....


One of the sights I was looking forward to on our trip out West was seeing the aspen trees after they turn to gold!

They were not as easy to find as I had thought....maybe autumn is a little later this year....when I lived in Denver, as a child, we could always count on seeing golden aspen on my grandmother's birthday, September 23rd.

I did see several groves of aspen on our drive to the Grand Canyon on Friday....but we didn't have time to stop.

Our last morning there, we went hiking in a place called "Priest's Draw". I was able to sit quietly in the shade and be with the wonderful morning. Every so often, a slight breeze would disturb the quiet and the leaves would begin their quivering dance. Some leaves would even be freed by the wind and then swirl, fluttering softly to the ground.

They are like golden coins....and also remind me of the
book by my friend Macrina Wiederkehr, "A Tree Full of Angels". To learn more about Macrina's book, click on this link:http://www.amazon.com/Tree-Full-Angels-Seeing-Ordinary/dp/0062548689/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b/002-2500846-2542453?ie=UTF8

This Pre-raphaelite style angel is on a t-shirt!

She inspired me to do research on where we get our images of angels...

These beautiful 19th century angels were modeled after the beauty of Jane Burden Morris. She may have been the first super-model (in those days models had to hold the pose a lot longer!)

You can read more about Jane Morris at this website :

http://www.walrus.com/~gibralto/acorn/germ/JBMorris.html

This is an angel collage which has been hanging in our
parish church this month......(why do my italics keep
vanishing?)

I created it to celebrate the feast of St. Michael and
All Angels, which was Sept. 29th. It was a challenge as I am not really caught up in the angel "thing".

There seem to be at least two kinds of angels, the sweet, guardian- helper angels and the avenging angels. I suppose we need both kinds in our spirituality, though I, of course, would prefer the kinder, gentler variety!

The names of most angels end in "el"....Raphael, Uriel, Michael, Gabriel....this "el" is even at the end of the word "angel".
I think it means "of God" .

Angels are messengers of God.

The feast of St. Michael is associated with desserts made with blackberries because of the legend.. ... When St. Michael fought with the devil and threw him out of heaven, the devil landed in a bramble patch. (Rather like the briar patch of the Uncle Remus stories!?)

We have just returned from a road trip to the west...
Visiting our son, Andrew and his fiancee, Mary who live in Arizona.
It is a lovely time of year there, the air is cool and dry. Because of the altitude, the air is also thin which takes some getting used to.



These are the red rocks of Sedona which are very dramatic. While Andrew and Mary were at work and university during the day, we made our own excursions into the surrounding area. It was just delightful!

I didn't do any painting while there...we just kept
moving, but I took photos to work from later.

On one of these side trips, we went south from Flagstaff, down Oak Creek Canyon toward Sedona. After winding down the mountain on hairpin curves, the road became cool and shady along Oak Creek.....one of my favorite stops was just by the roadside, where we could look down at the creek running gaily over the rocks and skirting boulders. Across the creek, the bank was striated red sandstone which made a lovely background for the white trunks of a group of slender young aspen trees. It was absolutely quiet excapt for the sound of the flowing creek and the slight breeze moving the trees.




Later, in Sedona, which was crowded with many fellow baby boomers and retirees..(how can we be seniors?!!!),
I convinced Steve to let me visit the local quilt shop.
It was very busy....quilters from all over stop in as they pass through in their large RV's. It brought back many memories of the years I spent running my own quilt shop...many of the fixtures were the same ones I had used in my business. I was on a mission to find bright colorful fabircs for the wedding quilt I am designing for
Andrew and Mary. The theme is alpine wildflowers.
(I will post photos of the quilt as it evolves.) I also wanted a "fat quarter" for each of my quilting friends.

(These are quarter yards of fabric, made by cutting half yards horizontally....making an 18"x21" piece)

On Friday, Andrew and Mary drove us to the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. One of the seven wonders of the world!!!! We had a lovely lunch at a resautrant on the rim of the canyon and them hiked along the rim for a couple of hours....it was amaing to look down on soaring birds and to be able to see for miles. From some overlooks, you could see the Colorado River far below. Andrew has helped with some of the raft trips on the lower part of the River and would like to continue doing that.

Although there were people from all over the world visiting that day, it was not too crowded....such a vast place! I feel we were blessed to be there that day because, the following day, Saturday, was Free Admission Day for all national parks.....many more folks would be sharing the view and facilities.....