Artful Adventures

The Things I've seen!

Definition of persistence-trying to post today!  This is about the 5th try, went right past the 3rd time's a charm thing, and kept right on going.  There's more pictures than words today, in trying to show you all what I've been seeing lately, summer's good for that, isn't it?                                                      

  Last night, Trina (the neighbor from across the street) came over to show us a baby oriole.  Apparently the chicks fell out of their nest the night before when the wind kicked up, but the parents were continuing the feed them while the brave little souls tried hopping from branch to branch, sometimes landing in the tall grass.  This little guy has managed to survive, with help from Trina who made a quick road trip to the closest bait shop for some yummy grubs that he gobbled right up.  The whole neighborhood is cheering him on!  Here we go again (you're all saying that right?) with more beach pictures, as if you didn't see enough of it last year.  But this was the first time this summer that it's actually been warm enough to tolerate sitting there-that wind coming off Lake Michigan is wicked!  But the water was as blue as I've ever seen it, and relatively calm besides. We weren't the only ones enjoying though, we were treated to watching a bunch of young seagulls playing around in the water.  They appered to be having a ball!  Can't be a summer post without more flower pictures from around the yard.  Here's a few, with more to follow in the days ahead. For tonight, last but absolutely not least, is of another sunset taken at Red River Park.  I've shown them here before, but this is by far the most gorgeous sunset that I've ever seen.  It was impossible to choose a favorite out of the bunch that Gary shot, one was more perfect than the next, so I finally grabbed this one-enjoy it!  And I hope you all get to see such a sight as this soon!

A quick recap of the week-how did that fly by so quickly?

 Yesterday was a stormy,hot, humid, sticky icky kind of day, with storms hammering most of the state.  Just as it was getting close to the sun going down last night, it was storming and yet there was a spot where the sun managed to reach through and shine on top of a low layer of clouds.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but there were so many layers of clouds that were visible, making it strangely beautiful.

Not quite sure how last week flew by, but fly by it did!  Last week end Jeremy was here to help Gary take down some trees.  There's always some sort of glitch that happens so it never all gets done, but at least it's started.  In the middle of it, the chainsaw broke so that took several hours and an internet search to figure out how to fix it, and they were back in business.  Those 2 scare me when they do this-something ALWAYS happens, they've never gotten hurt but the potential has certainly been there! 

This time around, it was the ladder that took a beating.  A limb didn't go down as expected and just like that, the ladder got trashed.  But the good news is that neither of them were on it at the time!  Like I said-those 2 scare me sometimes! 

Gary did find time to rearrange some of his found metal treasures on a stump in the yard, and just like that we have new yard art!

Seeing that for this post, I'm just hitting a few things frm the week (more to come later) I have to share the baby birds:)  Chickadees set up house in a bluebird house (we have everything BUT bluebirds that use the 3 houses we have for them!) after hearing babies chirping last week end, it was time to investigate.  Gary was able to get a picture of them through the top of the box, but it has wire over it to keep unwanted critters out of there, so you'll have to look close to see them.  The 3 babies are all sitting butt to butt, so cute!    More & more flowers are blooming everyday, more pictures of that coming soon.  Funny story about the poppies, we tried for years & years to get a transplant to take of these flowers, what we didn't know is that once you get them, they take over!  After killing off some perennials with their rambunctious growth, we finally got them moved to an area that's not too bad, but they need to be moved again soon.  Last week, I was visiting Jen Worden's blog, and she mentioned how sometimes it seems like no art is being made, when in reality, it's really is being made, just not done & ready to show, and then all of a sudden there's a bunch that's done.  That's so true!  Once again, I have a bunch of things in progress, but nothing ready to post, although a couple of neckalces just need to be aged & polished and then they're ready to go.  But the canvas work, that's another story!  There's a bunch in various stages of completion, but with every layer of paint or glue, there's a day of drying it seems.  So my question is, when I see folks churning out a couple of canvases a day, how the hell do they do it!  Speaking of arting, Jen's challenge for this month is to grab one of the many art technique books you own and work through the book-great idea!  One of the books I recently got was Acrylic Revolution written by Nancy Reyner.  It's a great book with a ton of techniques, some of which I've done, but most are new to me.  The really nice thing (for me anyway) is she shows everything using Golden products which is what I use anyway, making it much easier to get the desired results, perfect!  And to make it even better, Michelle Ward's challenge for this month at her other site, GPP Street Team, is to work with a resist.  She's using wax (or crayon) for the resist, but there's a different resist technique in this book that I may try instead or do both, but any way you look at it, I can do both challenges at once, you gotta love it when that happens:)   Ok, I need more coffee!  One last photo of a portion of a shade garden we did last summer in the front of the house, which turned out even better than I'd hoped for.  Oh, one more thing-anyone joining me in sending in their skinny jeans?  Read the previous post if you need to refresh your memory, but lets all do this!

Getting ready for some summer fun!

Check this out!  This box of innocent looking jars are going to give me hours of fun dying paper, fabric & ribbon this summer-I feel like the mad scientist about to embark on a new experiment.  Actually, that pretty much describes it:)  Awhile back, I talked about Mixed Media Nature Journals written by L.K. Ludwig, rather than repeat myself too much, you can go back & read it here.  For once in my life, I wanted to be prepared, so I made sure that I had plenty of Fabriano watercolor paper on hand (love that stuff!) and then went on over to Dharma Trading Co to order dye.  Sounds simple enough, until I got over there and saw all the possibilities, amazing!  Look here and here and then just keep digging through the site, there are enough ideas to keep anyone busy for a very long time!  This morning we ran into Kewaunee for an estate sale, it's that time of year for all kinds of sales, so off we went.  Not quite sure just yet how or when I'll use this stuff, but it was too cool to leave behind.  See that's the problem at these sales, no time to think, because if you don't grab whatever it is that you're looking at right away, it's gone right before your eyes.  But I'm either going have to do some assemblage pieces soon or I'm going to run out of room in here!  The other thing that keeps me out of the studio for a bit this time of year, is playing in the dirt & potting up containers.  Here's part of one of a pair, to go on each side of the front door.  It's the north side, so not much sun, but by incorporating houseplants, I can still have color in the shade and even bring the container in for the winter and keep it for next year.  See, the old mind is always whirling:)  The violas will drop seeds on the ground beneath it for next year, and the dusty miller, strobilanthus, and streptacarpus all make good houseplants.  I've always said planning a garden (or container) is like collage-layering colors, texture, shape & form-maybe we could coin a new term & like "art gardening", well, ok we can probably do better than that, but it'll do for now.  In the meantime, our flower gardens have gotten out of control over the last few years, so I've got Gary digging up, splitting, & moving plants all over.  And then we keep finding new ones-can't win!  Like this beauty we found at The Flying Pig out in the greenspace.  Robyn does a great job on getting her hands on some different plants to keep our gardens interesting and fresh looking.  Now we need rain to keep the gardens looking good, so far we've had very little.  Hoping this isn't a repeat of last summer!  Ok, now go plant something, I'd love to see what you all come up with!

What's Blooming Now--

Yesterday early morning, I stepped outside the back door and was greeted with the heavy, sweet scent of lilacs.  The breeze was soft & coming from just the right direction to blow right at me, and the scent was strong with them just begining to open.  Will have to cut some tomorrow & bring them in the house, they don't last long but they certainly are a treat.  It's still on the cool side here in WI, I think we've only had one day reach the 70 degree mark so far.  But that means the spring flowers are lasting longer so it's ok.  The downside is that being the impatient gardener that I am, we bought plants early (telling myself it was to make sure we got what we wanted, but we all know that wasn't the real reason!) we've been hauling them out during the day, and back into the garage at night becasue it's been too cold for some.  We left a few out last night though, and they were fine-whew!  The old apple tree is still blooming, another one that doesn't last long, but what a beautiful flower.  Half of that tree blew down during the first spring storm that came through the year we moved in, but it keeps hanging in there-tenacious old thing! 

The allium are about to pop, they crack me up, looking like some sort of alien creature standing tall & proud in the garden.  Note to self-remember to dig them up & move them this year to another spot, they take up too much prime space for a plant that goes dormant for most of the summer.  For the last 3 days I've been feeling sick again (what the hell, I never used to get sick so often!) but today we got out of the house anyway, not a very perky road trip, but a road trip nonetheless.  We went into Green Bay to Summerplace Gardens where I used to work & got some more annuals for containers.  Oh, check out the website, I'm doing it for her so be kind-lol!.  Just started it, and have a long way to go, but at least it's started.  Came home & had a quick lunch, then off to The Flying Pig for a cup of coffee and of course had to buy another plant while I was there, too.  Plants can be almost as addictive as art supplies:)  But there was a big beautiful Kent's Beauty (a flowering oregano) that I couldn't resist.  Will take photos of containers soon, as I plant them-maybe tomorrow:)