yellow

I've been putting in so much garden time, I have been neglecting the art time. So I did make time today to collage a quick view of the beautiful yellow peony that I planted yesterday.

cloud

not plural, as in rain-on-your-parade clouds, just one tiny cloud in the otherwise perfect blue sky as I rode my bike today. I always wonder what meteorological conditions create just one lonely little cloud.

hudson

today was birthday lunch day in Hudson. Its the halfway point for my sister and I to meet, and the fact that it is a charming river town with fun shops and restaurants seals the deal. We found lots to be inspired by in the gallery/shop "Seasons", in particular a couple books about artist's gardens. Martha was inspired to buy a gorgeous, LARGE pot (5 ft. tall)for her own garden. I'm letting some of the ideas incubate for my garden-in-progress. And we topped the day off with the best dessert ever, the dark chocolate habanero cake at the San Pedro Cafe. MMMMMM

peonies

the first of the season. These are from my neighbor's garden--they get just a bit more sun than mine do. This variety has a wonderful, spidery foliage.

happy birthday

Actually, it was yesterday and it was also a holiday weekend so I'm a day late. I recently came across a beautiful, large (12" x 16"), leather-bound journal with hand-made watercolor paper pages. It was a gift from my daughter several years ago, and of course, it was empty because I couldn't imagine what I could do that was worthy of such a lovely thing. And I decided that if not now, when? It seems sort of like covering the furniture with plastic waiting for a special occasion.

So, for my birthday this year (and the plan is, for many future years) I painted a self-portrait in the beautiful book. Here's lookin' at you, babe.

more dirt

this time under my fingernails. And a good start on a farmer's tan. A good day of "urban gardening".

dirt

the theme for the day seemed to be dirt. The morning was spent removing it--from various rooms and laundry--and the afternoon spent waiting for more to be delivered. Two cubic yards now sitting in the driveway waiting to be moved into new garden beds. Looks like tomorrow will be about dirt too.....

dmv

they sent the notice at least a month ago about renewing my license, but of course I waited until the last few days before it expires. But its done for another few years.....

seven words

there was an interview with Michael Pollan--author of "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food"--in our paper today. I love his seven words of advice: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. Words to live by.

Every spring I pick a bouquet of lilacs and attempt a painting. The fact that I do not have a single painting of lilacs around tells me that this is a fairly futile exercise. But I love to look at them and smell them and I do love to paint them. One of these times I will get just the right balance between the tiny flower detail and the large bunched shapes to capture the "essence" of lilac.

new

I started a new journal today! The old one is filled to bursting and looking at its thick pages feels like an accomplishment. Since this is all an ongoing experiment and learning process, my new journal is a new size and shape. We'll see how I like it. (I did just notice that a full page spread in the new book doesn't fit on my scanner. I'll have to work on that.)


It seemed appropriate for the first entry to sketch Dean trying out our brand new hammock. I admit it was an impulse purchase because of the colored stripes--thanks Target!

don't be so negative

I sat down to sketch a vase of long stemmed tulips and got sidetracked by the negative spaces.

birds

I've seen some beautiful birds in the past week. Is it spring fever, mating season, migration time? Probably some of all of that. The first hummingbird was at the feeder this week, I saw an Indigo Bunting and a pair of Orioles on a run this weekend, and a feeder full of goldfinches.

encaustic

I spent the day playing around with encaustic paints--which is basically wax painting. I'm trying to learn from a book--it is definitely trial and error, but I'm looking forward to being able to do some cool stuff once I get the hang of it. Here is today's effort--pretty simple, and at this point hard to tell that it is any different than regular paint.

Mother's Day

It was a lovely Mother's Day--we drove along the river to Wabasha and everything was green and blooming. The pink crab apples were at their peak and Macy's pink floral Mother's Day ad was the perfect collage material.

crab apple blossoms

It does truly feel like spring when the crab apple trees (or just regular old apple trees) are in blossom. I tried to get an ikebana feel with the two sprigs that I snitched off a tree on my walk this morning.

new toy

I'm still suffering from a crappy cold (or as I've been told, "the whine flu") and didn't feel very inspired today. But I did have some fun with a bleach pen and bits of hand made paper, experimenting to see how each one reacts with the bleach. Lots of fun possibilities.

apple tree

I spent my "art time" today on a Mother's Day card.

head cold

In this case, the picture pretty much sums it up. Little else I can add........good night.

hierarchy

The word of the week at Illustration Friday is "hierarchy". I didn't have any ideas for that subject until I heard a particularly long and involved description of a single drink being called out by a barista at Starbuck's this morning. Probably whether you are judged to be at the top or bottom of the "coffee heirarchy" depends on whether you are being ranked by the person taking your money, or the person preparing the order.

art in bloom

I went to a show at the Minneapolis Institute of Art today called "Art in Bloom". Its an annual event where local florists and designers create arrangements inspired by pieces of art in the museum. There were a few that were fairly pedestrian in their interpretation and design, but many more that were wonderfully imaginative and whimsical. It was too busy there to try and do any sketching so I used my own pink tulips for my "bloomin' art".