pencil on hot press watercolor


I don't think I've posted this picture before. I try not to post pictures of my great granddaughter, otherwise that's all this would be...her picture album.
Anyway, this is the first time she was placed on a saddle and I love her cowgirl grip...haha. Two crossed fingers. Obviously this child inherited no cowgirl genes....(or else she's destined to be a talented trick rider) Well, her mother warned me she would be raised as a city child.

I just got in from wading in my little fishpond, scooping out the pine needles, which are still falling so hard they were hitting me on the back as I worked....but, I couldn't wait any longer...pond was getting choked. These are the three prong, long Jeffrey pine needles which invariably get hooked on things...all the greenery in the pond....so it was a hand picking operation.

Jeffrey pine needles

I got my soil analysis back. Soil is too acid for most flowers...low in potassium...and lacking compost and fertilizer. But it's not that simple...flowers which shouldn't be blooming are, and visa versa...Good grief. I'm not going to start pouring good money into this plot of soil. This was supposed to be a fun little hobby. So, I'm going to plant only what grows well. If I really want a certain plant that doesn't like it here, I will plant it in a container with potting soil.

I would love to be spading in chicken or cow manure for compost but my dogs would dig every single plant up, sure there was a dead animal down there somewhere.

Decisions, decisions. Today is the first day I've said to myself, ok, I'll get a new knee. I had a left knee put in several years ago, but now I need a new right knee. I'm tired of walking in pain. I hate the idea of the risk of an operation and infection, death and worse, and also the painful therapy...but, I'll bite the bullet and do it. Just not yet...haha. The idea has to soak into every gene in my body.

colored pencil on something or other
done two years ago when Bingo was a pup and didn't have the feathers he has today...He was in the middle of obedience training, thus the command to "Stay" as he tries to step out of the picture.

Bingo today

up on my soap box, or blog box, with a little ranting. A friend of mine was walking her little chihuahua, Bingo, down the sidewalk. They passed a young girl sitting in her yard with her arms around her pet pit bull. She released an arm to wave and the dog dashed to the sidewalk and grabbed Bingo. Much screaming from everyone...Bingo was rescued and seemed ok....but the next day was shivering and giving little yelps when touched, so off to the vet where they discovered two puncture wounds and much bruising.


Next day my friend walked down the opposite side of the street. The mother came out and crossed to talk to her, giving her the standard pit bull owner rhetoric..."She's never done that before...She's so sweet...I'm amazed she would do that...I just don't know what happened.....blah blah blah.
It's so irresponsible to have a pit bull, not leased or fenced, in a residential neighborhood with people..and kids..walking by....(aside from the fact it's against the law.)
I read just the other day, some dog lover saying, "There's no such think as a bad dog, just a bad owner." That is so not true.
Hunting dogs hunt without being trained...retrievers retrieve, shepherds herd, and fighting dogs attack other dogs, period. They are bred that way and can't be trusted.
Ok, got that off my chest.

watercolor on 140 lb Arches



scribble picture..pen and charcoal on Bristol
looks much better enlarged, (click on it) while I, on the other hand would look much better made smaller....how nice if a double click would take care of that, too.

Got in a housekeeping mood today and did things you do only if it's spring, or you're pregnant....neither possible.

Am forced to read a Danielle Steele book today, and we are not amused.

Drug out my guitar today, dusted it off and am staring at it....do I really want to go through the pain of developing callouses on my tender fingers again? Maybe. It pleases me much to sit and strum and sing ballads to myself...If I lived in New Orleans, I'd sit on a corner and do that...so many people do, no one would notice another little old lady, and someone might actually toss a quarter into my shoe. What fun. All you need to know is G, C, D, E and A....and have a lot of nerve...haha. You should hear me belt out Love, Oh Love Oh Careless Love.....or not.

Better I should paint gerainiums on the guitar and forget about it.
Better still if I just go to bed and quit nattering on...ciao

colored pencil on Bristol board

Lazing around in a recliner for a month, staring at the ceiling does not inspire blog writing..but I'm now getting interested in things again...feel chatty today.

I bought a new, violet, velvety neck pillow...one of those U shaped supports for your neck. It made me think of the little, seemingly inconsequential things that are super important to you.

I wish I had one of those things on my plane trip from hell. Three seats in a row at the windows, and I was in the middle. Huge plane...long, long flight....after hours and hours and hours the toilets were full...How could that be...aren't some things illegal? I thought they dumped that stuff over Iowa or some place....(to fertilize the corn...haha) I payed plenty for that trip...big modern jet...boy, was I naive. I got so bored and soooo tired. Couldn't walk to get my legs circulating...aisles were too narrow and too busy. Could Not sleep...shoulders pressing me on both sides...my poor head lolling back and forth. I really needed a velvet violet neck pillow then, or even a black scratchy one. And of course they lost my luggage. I'm not sure I've ever been on a flight that didn't...but then I don't fly often. I did learn to tuck a nightgown and tooth brush in my purse.

Second thing I never want to do without is my hot water tap. The first one I ever saw was my mom's. She went on and on about it....yeah, yeah, mom..(sweet old ladies love their instant tea) Well, I take that all back...I hope I never have to do without my instant hot water tap...a required tool of modern life.

I was going to say the third little thing I never wanted to do without was electric windows in a car, but I have been lately and life goes on...haha. Jack has the van but I chose a little white pickup...plain jane...no additives...and right now it has muddy raccoon prints going doing the windshield and I've been reluctant to wash them off....reminds me of living out remote instead of boring here. Of course boring is in the mind isn't it?...I should never say that again.I should go out and make myself like this boring old place...haha.

c

Sweet Basil
colored pencil on Bristol board

Basil is all grown up now..he's my granddaughter's cat.

I started a watercolor demonstration here...autumn leaves scattered on the ground......it was fun...started out with the sketches, cut up all the leaf pix and taped them in various positions ...arrangingarranging...then the time consuming task of taking the pix...lighting wasn't good...and on and on...finally I ruined the actual watercolor.....well, I whiled away an afternoon...haha
My art room is downstairs...and when Jack asks me where I'm going I usually say, "downstairs to ruin a picture"

What I should have done is posted the whole thing and then showed a different picture at the end...that's how it goes a lot of the time anyway...but I wasn't amused at the time, and didn't come up with an amusing ending.

I tried to do it too fast...I was just reading PERPETUAL CHOCOHOLIC 's blog, where she is giving a lesson in colored pencils...drawing an apple...and she said it was too daunting to put the whole lesson on at once....should have read her blog first.

Now I'm going to do it backwards....have the final picture in my hand before I show how it came to be. That's what they tell you about writing too....have your ending before you begin...good advice for me...I can think up all the characters...all the situations...but never come to a conclusion....maddening.
Speaking of writing reminds me of when I was still in my twenties...I had a few articles published in magazines....one was of a neophyte trying to ride her too-much-horse-for-her article..(true story) .....Another was an article on breast feeding. It was back when the saying "Happiness is...." was popular and my article was called Happiness is a Fifth of Carnation...published in a Carnation milk publication....a house organ.
It was written in an article writing class I was taking at Clark College in Vancouver, WA. I had no idea what I was going to write. Your grade was based on you writing an article, and sending it in....if it was published, well you aced the course.
Week after week I listened to the teacher and couldn't come up with an idea...but a gal in the front row was bugging me to death. She went on and on about her article which would be on the benefits of breast feeding...how wonderful it was....how you couldn't consider anything else. Week after week she obnoxiously yammered about the poor children who were denied this treat...making it sound like they would wind up in reform school with rickets.
Well...my children weren't breast fed. It wasn't even talked about....I came out of the anesthetic already bound tightly, and I unquestioningly swallowed my meds which were drying up pills...(I was so innocent it's unbelievable)
But I figured my kids were as healthy as hers and finally I had had it with her....I was going to write an article on Not breast feeding.
I was really jazzed about it...and started researching....ha! Nothing out there to support my theory...well, almost nothing....so I shamelessly began dirty tricks. If a doctor had a quote saying, "Breast feeding is best for babies, but in the event that isn't possible, formulas are great."....I would dissect his quote and come up with, ".....formulas are great."
Oh my....I filled a whole article with this kind of writing...I had a lot of funny things in it, too....and it just flowed off my fingertips onto the typewriter keys. Sent it in....had it published...Carnation was only too glad. Not a lie in it...but oh, the fudging.
Miss Obnoxious in the writing class never wrote a single word.....she just talked the talk.......as a matter of fact I was the only one published.
What's the moral?...hmmm...
no morals in this story...haha....
or don't tick off Pat...
or better yet, don't believe anything you read.

Holland Isla

I think my pilot light is out...my leg is healing from my fall but I don't want to do anything....and I don't want to do anything about not wanting to do anything...

34.

pencil on Bristol Board
baby Blue Jay used to have a mother but after drawing her three times I told her to take a hike and I'd watch him myself.

Today's weather was just lovely...and my leg hurt a teeny bit less so I guess things are ok.