Reflections, Summer Gold

the evening was golden with clouds and sunset and got me to thinking about altering a painting. So I altered one and like it better. So you will see what I started with and what I ended with. the flowers are Helenium and they hardly show as I layered another computer generated background. It does have the feeling of looking in a mirror.

Summer at it's Best

We never say the "Dead Of Summer" Lush, bounty, hot, steamy, colorful, summer words that we wish for in the "Dead Of Winter"

Can you believe I am still planting, as I cut back there are empty places, and like painting emptiness bothers me. So I buy leftovers at the garden center and feed them, coaz them and they respond and will look good for the late summer garden which I like better than the tall plants of summer that tend to fall this way and that if not staked. Too big a garden for all that staking and can you imagine the frustration when it all has to be cut back in late October, fussing with stakes and ties when you just want to hurry and get it cleaned up.

We are enjoying the fresh vegetables, it is a huge treat to go out late afternoon and gather what you want for dinner. Also gathering of a fresh bouquet is the best as I like a vase of flowers in the kitchen.

These are a bit blurry, I must of not been still enough or something????

Forty Five Years

It is our anniversary today, I can hardly believe 45 yrs. I do remember that day and thinking gosh I wish people would stop asking me questions. I remember Richard's mother calling and asking of there wasn't something he could do as he was getting on her nerves. My mother said he can go pick up the flowers, and being we lived very rural and had to drive a lot of miles to a town, that would take him some time as he had to go to another town to deliver the flowers, and then come to our house to deliver more. My mother must of been weary as there were relatives, and friends at the house, and things to get ready, plus you know always a worry about what folks will eat. Plus it must of been an aggrivation to see me just wandering around and
not really much help and not seeming very in tune to the day. I come to a lot of realizations at this stage in life, that didn't occur to me as a young adult. It is a natural progression of things, like the song "I Wish I didn't Know Now What I Didn't Know Then"

Painting and Chance for YOU

First you have to go and visit HERE
Diane is a wonderful artist, and she also has some helpful tips this week on doing shows and fairs. She is having a give away also, such pretty things you would love.
I have become fond of Diane, her work and her writings.

I have been painting when I get the chance, honestly it is hard to paint when the radio and news sources are talking about severe weather, we have had a lot, and just a few miles away, everyday. Today looks pristeen however.

This is just a face done working on having colors in the face that reflect background and also the fun things done on the computer with color, and background.
Even with the mindless chores which are endless outside it is nice to come in and read of paint a while. I feel like the grubby painter, however, I don't have to worry about getting paint on the garden clothes.

Feeling the Hot Colors of Summer

About now I start to really like the very hot colors and like them until Nov.

This painting I feel has been enhanced by computer Print Shop altering. Of course there is nothing restful for the eye really but I do feel jangled, scattered, wanting to do all and do it well. I do cards sometimes and this could be done the three ways and packaged that way. I find nice envelopes at thrift shops sometimes, and so it works with not so much expense, ink and card papers are not inexpensive.
Sometimes I give a packet of blank inside cards as gifts. Liquidation stores also will have nice evnelopes. This painting I like better with the scanned fabric background then I do in it's original state. I do the layering on the computer.

I am suppose to be in the garden it is cloudy pleasant day for the hard labor of pulling, digging hoeing and pulling carts of disgarded cutbacks away to compost.
But I also want something new on the blog. One thing for sure the days don't lack things to do.

Desires Move About

It give me a rather uneasy feeling and disappointment that I loose passion for things that were once so important. How does the passion just disolve? One can get it back a little bit but not full force so it really comes to the front of the thinking process. I really have to get into the garden and do some gardening, yet I find myself painting or reading with the spare time. Or I schedule some painting time with a friend because that is what I would rather do. It looks like lack of self discipline but it is interest that has gone limp. Nevertheless, I plan to garden when things dry off a bit. But, you see first I have to post a painting from the "Faces In Technicolor" because that is what is in the front of my thinking process today. If your interested in doing that also the badge is to the right and you can.

Oh one other thing, thinking about passion and how one is percieved by others, one still wants the gardens, the house, and the art to all look good so it appears that you can really do it all and still have energy to do other things that weave in and out of the basics of your life. These self inflicted demands are silly, however they don't go away. I think maybe that is a good thing or how would anything ever get done, and make us look oh so capable.

Holding on

That is sort of what it feels like in the busy days of summer, the tasks mount even as some get crossed off. One has to remember that these are not ordered taks, there are no task police, it is all in the mind and most of it self inflicted. Most days my first thought in the morning is what time is it, then what did I do yesterday that counts. What counts frequently is the self centered stuff, I recognize that
in myself. I have times of other things for others and they last days or weeks and then I slip back into gardens, books, painting and the general stuff of keeping a home.

I haven't had a lot of blog time lately, I usually post things that I like best, these are not wonderful photos, and a painting I just sort of like. I cal thhis painting indifference, one reason is the composition is quite wrong to my eye. but she seems rather indifferent, and the bird wil not meet her eye. It was a mood of mine of course.

The Love of Poppies

I recall my first poppy experience, just a little kid, we were doing our Saturday night shopping and enjoyment in a small town, walking down the street with my grandmother and aunt. Someone behind us said would you like a poppy, I thought they said puppy and turned quickly thinking how wonderful someone giving puppies. There was a lady with paper poppies, it was near Memorial Day.

I don't remember the next experience, my mother didn't grow them no one did in the late 40s in western Minnesota. I grwo them now several kinds. the transparencies of poppies and the fragile presence of them for ever how long they last is worth it.
If you singe the cut end of them with a lighter till black they will last 3 days in a vase and hold their garden beauty.

These are my garden poppies and the photo is altered in several ways. I couldn't reseist some faces in one work.