Scribble Picnic - CURLY

I am a bit "disausted" tonight - the week before school starts is like a whirlwind and I'm still spinning.

My first thought at this prompt CURLY was for hair and who had the most memorable curly hair?  My answer would be Shirley Temple.  She even starred in a movie called "Curly Top".  

I've drawn her in pencil and added a running list of her movies.  I think I've seen a lot of them.  What about you?

Here's a more abstract rendition of CURLY I did first but thought it was a little too abstract.

I'm about to take a quick look at all the curls the Picnickers brought this week.  Click here to get a glimpse.  And, as I always say, should you like to jump in next week the prompt is TIE IT UP.

Whatcha Been Up To (Weekend Wonders)

This is the big project I talked about a while ago.  Rachel asked us to make her a Corn Hole game. HWNSNBP did all the wood work and I did the painting.  Being she's a Jersey Girl now living in Delaware that's what she wanted on them.  I found a free program on line that enabled me to enlarge the patterns for the states and despite what you see, I did use the same length for both states but Delaware definitely looks longer (which it definitely isn't) but there was no going back at that point. The lettering had to be done from scratch.  Painting items this large takes a toll on my back but I was glad to do it for her.  

We had our yearly crabbing expedition with our Table 7.  It was a beautiful day and full of a lot of fun.  This swan seemed to be racing with us at one point.

At one point I looked up and saw this little piece of rainbow cloud.  What do you see?  A unicorn or dragon maybe?  Or could it be a narwhal?

Leaving for home early on a Monday morning is not our usual plan but HWNSNBP wanted to instead of staying for the day so I told him if he was going to wake me up that early he would have to wait for me to take pictures of the sunrise.  And he did.

Not to be confused with the solar eclipse that we had just the other day, this was the moon the same morning of the sunrise pictures.  I think it's the first time I've ever gotten a picture of the moon where you can see the surface and not just a bright circle.  

When we got home, as I was watering our indoor plants I noticed that one of my orchids had attached itself to the plant shelf and window frame.  It was not easy getting off and I almost made it to the end without breaking it, but luckily just the tip came off.  

You can see from below that fall is certainly approaching - there are leaves dropping everywhere already along with other interesting stuff that's been growing on the trees in our yard.  It looks lettuce but I think it's some kind of lichen that grows on tree bark.  Whatever it is, it caught my eye coming into the house after a brief rain storm.  

Scribble Picnic - Fill in the Blank

And............. here is the shape that we have to bring to the picnic this week.

I played around with this late last week.  I had a set of colored pencils out and was just kind of trying out color combinations to see which I liked best, not sure where I wanted to go with it.  Before I closed the book on it I decided to add the little acrobats.   

So last night I set about to try expanding on it and got caught up with pencil and ruler in hand while a thunderstorm was quickly approaching.  This is as far as I got before the lights began to flicker and the power went out.  I knew it would be some time before the storm ended and probably even longer before the power came on so I turned in for the night.  (The power came back around 3 a.m.)

And since tonight I was busy making deviled eggs for our work "end of summer picnic" this is all I have to offer this week.

Please take a look at what the other Picnickers brought this week by clicking here.  And should you want to join the picnic next week, the theme is CURLY.

Now I have to write a note for HWNSNBP to pick up paprika in the morning so I can "spice up" those deviled eggs before I leave for work.

Scribble Picnic - FLOWERBED

I love flowers and I would love to have a FLOWERBED that resembles my drawing.  Don't get me wrong, our yard has lots of flowers thanks to HWNSNBP's hard work, but they're mostly in pots and mostly of one variety due to the very hungry deer in our area.  It has taken much trial and error (and $$$) to figure out what they will and won't eat, because you really can't just go by lists in books or on tags.  If they're hungry enough, they'll chomp on things they've never eaten before. 

Back Door Entrance

I drew some flowers that we have had in the past - lupines, clematis, black-eyed Susan's, and the pink ones are vinca/periwinkle which we have found are deer tolerant. 

I used gelatos (for the first time) and Caran d'Ache pencils for this.  Then, after opening a package of some stamps I had recently ordered from Purple Onion Designs I thought this little bunny might be at home reading in the flower bed.  So I stamped him and fussy cut him out.  He's just hanging there for now until I decide to make him a permanent part of the landscape.

And speaking of bunnies, this is a picture my daughter-in-law had recently shared of our grandson watching the bunny under the stairs in their back yard.  Apparently there are two and he seems to be fascinated by them. His highchair is near the window and he gets to see them while he eats his breakfast.  I know you can barely make out the bunny in his reflection, but it's there.  

Okay, so now it's time for a garden tour.  Time to check out the FLOWERBEDs of all the Picnickers. You can tag along by clicking here.  And make sure you pay special attention to Michael's masterpiece.  He has hidden the FILL IN THE ________ object for next week's prompt in his drawing quite cleverly.

Jingle Belles - Peace on Earth

Somehow I missed the last Jingle Belle prompt and I'm just kind of sneaking in at the last minute with this one.  Phew!  The theme is Peace on Earth and I had such high aspirations for this card. Instead of going into a long-winded explanation, I'll just say that I need to investigate how to use masking fluid a little more - and probably investigate one that is not so SMELLY!  Thankfully I had colored a second image so I was able to get this together after work today.  

The dove is from SU's Dove of Peace and colored with Zig Clear Color Markers.  The sentiment is from Stampendous "Glory to God".  It was stamped with VersaMark and embossed with white EP which is looking very vanilla to me in IRL.  Does anyone know if this yellows after a while unused?

I actually do love the colors of this, I just wanted the dove to be in a watercolor cloud.  Oh well, maybe next time.

Won't you join me to see all the other lovely entries in the Jingle Belle challenge this week?  Click here to tag along.   

The Birds of Barnegat

What is that?  Some kind of alien?

Oh, thanks for turning your head!  It is a bird.  Still too far away to tell what you are but I have an idea.

On our way home the next day, passing by the same area but further down, HWNSNBP asks me if I saw the bird in the opening.   Usually we only see white birds here and there wasn't any flash of white so I said no.  He smiles and turns the car around.

I can barely make it out against the reeds, but yes, there it was, the Great Blue Heron.  Most likely the same one that I saw the night before.  I grabbed my camera and jumped out of the truck and approached cautiously.

He saw me, but he tolerated me and even looked like he was posing for me.

From big we go to very small.  Waiting for the sun to set in the hopes of getting some good pictures I glanced over at our neighbors' hummingbird feed and was treated to a charm of hummingbirds. There were at least three and maybe four.  They are so fast and flit around so much it was hard to keep track at times.

I am so glad that I asked HWNSNBP to create screens on the back porch that open for two reasons now.  One - it enables me to take shots of the sunsets without having the screen fabric to deal with, and now two - I can lean over to see the hummingbirds who seem to feed at the same time as the sunsets.  

Periodically they would take a break either in the brush or a nearby tree.  

The next morning I woke up to a bird party - hundreds of them whooping it up!

I took a short bike ride and found a lone swan resting along the waterway.  

Try to find the hummers in the next two pictures.

All these lovelies within a week!  

Scribble Picnic - BUTTONED

I had a very big project to finish this past week/weekend that I'll be posting soon but that doesn't mean I wasn't pondering what I could do with this theme - BUTTONED.  Problem was, I had in my mind that it was "BUTTONS" (of which I have several thousand I'm sure) and there were a few ideas floating around in my head.  It was when we returned home on Sunday and I checked the list again so I could get started when it hit me, or rather I should say I hit the wall realizing that it was not BUTTONS but BUTTONED.  So I set myself to thinking about it again and being a little wiped out from both the big project and the end of ICAD, that wall loomed large in front of me.  Finally, last night I decided to check out the definition of BUTTONED...and there it was, from the Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia: Decorated with buttons or small bosses, as a glass vase.  (via Worknik)

So I pulled out one of my tins of buttons and started running my hands through them.  The memories of playing with the tin of buttons my grandmother brought home from the sewing factory all came flooding back and I spent more minutes than I should have pulling out all the buttons of a certain kind before I realized what I was doing.  I still needed an idea.  And then I saw a tortoise shell button that reminded me of something I had made about 20 years ago........ can you find them?

These turtle brooches that were tucked away in my jewelry box haven't seen the light of day in a long, long time.

I thought I remembered which of my craft books I found them in so I could share the pattern, but after spending more time looking through books than I should have I sat down and created my own.

By then, bedtime was quickly approaching and I had every intention of just having the turtles in black and white on the white sheet, but during work today, I decided that they needed something to swim in so I came home and gave them some water.  The background is acrylics and I added a metallic watercolor wash over the turtles in a light blue.  

Yes, I know that was a very long-winded explanation of my Picnic contribution this week, but I hope you enjoy the final product.  

Now, off to see what all the other Picnickers BUTTONED up.  Click here to join me, and should you wish to attend the picnic next week, you'll have to bring a FLOWERBED.

One more thing, Button Floozies has a post about a button collection for a good cause.  If you have buttons you would like to donate to the California Holocaust Education and Resource Center they are looking to collect 6 million that they will be using to build a memorial out of.  Here is the link to the post.

Scribble Picnic - CURTAIN

We had to bring a CURTAIN to the picnic this time.  My curtain would be on the cover of a mystery book about a ghost as I blended the ICAD prompt for GHOST with this.  

 

 

I was a Nancy Drew fanatic as a kid.  I couldn't wait to get my hands on the newest edition, usually at Christmas.  We're talking late 60's early 70's here so at that time the "ghost" writer writing under the name of Carolyn Keene was Harriet Stratemeyer Adams.  She was one of several women and men who wrote the Nancy Drew mysteries.  Her father Edward Stratemeyer was the original author of the series as a companion to his Hardy Boys novels.  He subsequently hired other writers to pen more novels.  It was only after his death that Harriet took up "the family business" and began writing as Carolyn Keene. 

 

My sister actually met her at a then well-known restaurant in our area when she waitressed there.  Of course I think I was a little jealous because I was the one with the Nancy Drew fixation and I don't even know if my sister had read any of the books. 

 

Harriet's family owned a farm in our area called Bird Haven Farm.  Apparently she was responsible for creating a garden or gardens there that were, and are still showpieces.  In my research I see that they will be open to the public on September 9th of this year.  I think I might have to talk HWNSNBP into a little gallivanting!

 

I doubt that I could take on a novel, but I might consider putting some pages behind the cover in the form of a children's book someday.  There are some ideas swishing around.

 

But for now I will head over to the Picnic and see what's behind everyone else's CURTAIN this week.  You can join me by clicking here. 

ICAD 2017 - Week 9 - Days 57 - 61 and a Remembrance

Well, it's over for this year.  This is the last of the cards.  

Week 9 - Themes - Optional 

Days 57 - 61 - Prompts - Optional

Day 57 - Spring

I decided to do a series for  prompts 57- 61, the four seasons.  Done in Prima watercolors and Micron pen.  Try as I might, and I did try 3 cameras and several different lighting situations, I could not get the true colors on these.  

Day 58 - Summer

Day 59 - Fall

Day 60 - Winter

And all four days together.  I toyed with the idea of putting the names of the months in the white spaces, but then someone pointed out to me that if I left them off this would be universal.  If I add the names of the months with the corresponding season it would only be true of the Northern Hemisphere.  So I decided to leave the white space to make it's own statement.  

Day 61 - Sunset

This was the sunset on Saturday night.  I was feeling rather melancholy that day because I had heard the day before that a friend, a former coworker from school, had suddenly passed away in her home country of Columbia.  Though I only knew her for a few years, she stood out as a person I was glad that I got to know.  She was our part-time Spanish teacher and when she had a free period, and sometimes after she was done with her classes for the day, she would go down to the art room and create.  Sometimes she would do the same projects as the students were doing and sometimes she worked on her own.  She would show me her finished creations and told me that she used them as gifts for her family back in Columbia.  She was very talented.  

Created By M. Infante 2/15

Created by M. Infante 2/15

I didn't use the sunset from that day for my picture inspiration, I found another one from a few weeks ago.  But I did dedicate my finished one to her and wrote what I had been thinking when looking at that sunset on Saturday evening..........

"Martha, did you paint the sunset tonight?  Did God let you use our tears as your watercolors?  Rest in peace sweet friend.  You will be remembered."

Wouldn't it be nice to think that we would each get a chance to paint a sunset?

I took the picture of my card next to the little box that she gave me when she visited the US and our school this past spring.  At the time she told me that she was going to come back and say goodbye before she left.  I was happy about that because I had a little gift for her also, a small traveling set of watercolors and a little zippered "cat" pouch to keep them in.  When she didn't return we learned that she had already left for Columbia so I reached out to her on Facebook.  She didn't want to send me her address, instead she told me to hold onto the gift until she returned neither of us ever thinking she wouldn't.  

So I finished this endeavor with a little bit of bitter-sweetness at the end.  I'll post a picture of all the cards together in the next couple of days.  I hope you've enjoyed looking at them as much as I have enjoyed doing them.  

There is a new challenge at Daisy Yellow starting today as a matter of fact.  It's called "Catchphrase" and it's all about adding words to your art.  Here is the link if you want to check it out. I think I'll be giving it a try but I'll be delaying my start a couple of days as I have another bigger project that has to get done right away.