Day 264 of Week 38 September 2024

 From a photograph, an early morning

view of Camel Hump Mountain

from Addison, Vermont

~In progress~

The other hand has only 1 bandage.

Full Harvest Moon clumsiness

The acrylic on paper began as a background texture

for Intermediate Drawing course at UVM circa 2001.

I use it to add leftover white acrylic paint.

Quick Chickpea Stew

Brown Hamburg with diced onions

Add 1 can of chickpeas rinsed

Add 1/2 Cup water

Add greens, garlic powder, 1/4 Cup BBQ sauce,

1/4 Cup Ketchup

Simmer until greens are tender

This week I've been painting a few old canvases with the goal of finishing them for good! Meanwhile, I made the Chickpea Stew, got stabbed in the finger with a meat fork, tore out a tiny bit of skin on a thick staple sticking out of wood, awful muscle aches (fibromyalgia), and, had horrible allergy problem until today.

Overall, it has been a productive week with the bonus of good weather to enjoy!

Weather Your Weekend Well!

Bake a pear cobbler

Sing to the radio

Browse crafts online to try

Research the best body lotion to use

Design an autumn wreath

Read a good book

Shop for a good shampoo bar

Buy a pair of Halloween socks

Oh That Tree!

East Main Street Along Rt 22A
11x14 inch acrylic ~The After version

Over, (I estimate), 15 years ago I started a series of paintings for places I see on my walks around town. The above is the first and only artwork I've done. Projects get put aside for other projects.

The small painting has been hung in various places over the years until today. The large tree on the left has always bothered me. I intended to add more branches. I mixed the colors. And then got lost on other areas. The house behind the tree, I didn't even notice I was covering it up.

Main Street Before

I see now from the Before version, what my mistakes are. At one point, I signed it as I was determined to leave it as is. The tree will go back to being smaller, the house more visible, and the shrubs on the left less shrubby.

As that's all going on, I look up to see another painting that I planned to finish hanging on the wall. Mostly because I liked the way it was except for the sky.

An October Morning at the Field Puddle
16x20 inch acrylic on canvas

As I was painting, to my surprise I remembered the original idea for the image. It is taken from several watercolor sketches I did in 1999 of snow geese landing with the sunrise to their backs. The sketches are missing. I have no idea where they are. Thankfully, I have the pencil sketches in a sketchbook. More painting to do, this time I hope I don't lose sight of what I'm trying to achieve.

Update: The sky is getting there. The tree had to go. It would be in the way of the snow geese landing.

In Progress, Leftover & Finished

The Cosmos

The Cosmos in progress is next to be worked on until it is finished. As I paint more than one canvas at a time, it is good to line them up one after the other instead of selecting as I paint along. I find it is easy to become distracted during a painting's progress. Adding a pinch of organization preserves purpose.

Leftover Paint

At the end of a painting session, there is left over paint on the palette. Instead of spraying with water and sealing it up in a container, I use the colors on another canvas. Leftover Paint is such a canvas. I sketched the lines of the Adirondack Mountains from a familiar photograph, and then fill in the colors with the leftover palette paint. I have no specific image plan. I suspect I'm going for autumn.

Summer
Mixed Media Abstract
Acrylic 18" x 24"

Finally, after a few years this mixed medica acrylic abstract is finished. I do not want to paint anything else on the canvas other than maybe spruce up a black line or two. This painting has been through so many changes, I'm exhausted with fixing what didn't feel right. 

Actually, in a moment of frustration, without thinking about it first, I began adding the yellow over the left side. It was supposed to be all blue. I sat there staring at it, picked up the laundry marker, put in the lines, and got a WhaLa! The painting is done. I like that under painting showing through from some of the original versions. I like the fading into that area in the center.

Thinking Again

Autumn in the Vermont Woods

    This time of year, anxiety about missing the best foliage colors kicks in. I feel the urge to plan, makes lists, update passwords, clean out closets, and shop for a nifty tweed blazer and colorful scarf. Always there is an image building in my mind about what to wear when I go out and about to take pictures in the fall.

Am I shallow to focus on clothes? Nah. How we dress helps us embrace the atmosphere of the season. Dressing well is important. 

This year, however, the tweed blazer has to go by the wayside because I will not pay hundreds of dollars for that perfect one new; and thrift stores rarely have what I am looking for. Buy fabric to make one is silly because the tweed I like just is not out there. 

What to do? Think. How can I achieve the same look without a tweed blazer? Easy, change my mind to another look. Corduroy is a perfect fabric for a stylish warmth vibe. Even a denim barn coat with a neat tweedy scarf can channel a tweed feeling.

Thus, a size up corduroy jacket over a warm bulky sweater over a plaid flannel shirt with jeans and hiking boots is my look for Autumn 2024. 

Do you style your look for the season? 

Have a favorite jacket?

Day 257 of Week 37 September 2024 Friday the 13th

 

Blueberry Ice Milk 

• Add sugar to taste or not
• Half a glass of frozen blueberries
• Cover with milk
• Let stand 5 minutes or so
• Stir
• Milk will freeze around the blueberries
• Enjoy!

I've been a big fan of frozen blueberries since the 1970s. As a child, we picked wild blueberries every summer.

🍁🍁🍁🍁🍁

What's be going on here? Well, I'm enjoying my blog break. The weather has been mostly nice. I've been painting all week. (Good progress there.) 

The foliage is showing a blush of autumn. I bought a pumpkin decorated mug at TJ Maxx. I've discovered I can watch YouTube videos on my smart television. Sparrows and other birds have begun searching the deck for seed when the temperatures drop. I had my flu and new covid shots today. (Flu shot arm is always sore.) I switched back to decaf coffee. I now sleep better. I scored two good buys at the thrift store for saucepans with lids.

Overall, slow paced days without drama has been nice.

Have a Fun Weekend!

Create an autumn movie list

Shop tweed blazers online

Bake a walnut strudel

Take a walk with friends

Visit your local animal shelter

Read about the science of leaves

Draw a lamp

Sing a silly song to a damselfly

 

Remembrance 9/11

 

9/11 Victim List

God Bless America

Reflection Monday September 2024

There is, I believe, absolutely no way in 2024 a presidential candidate can appear at the Arlington National Cemetery to be filmed,

release the pictures, 

and not be about politics.

Campaign stunt, IMHO. 

==============

Honor the fallen.

Please,

Think about Honor

when you vote

5 November 2024

 

Day 243 of Week 35 August 2024 Autumn is in the Air

Dew On a Maple Leaf

A Vermont Country Road

New Haven River

Robert Frost Trail

Frosty Morning

The foliage season is only a few weeks where it is near and at peak. Planning where and when to take photographs is the key to capturing the best of the leaf peeping season.

This year I have a 7 x 5-inch spiral notebook to write down the subjects I want to photograph as well as where, and when (aka the time of day). My theme of Embrace Nature helps me focus on those parts of the natural world I don't want to miss.

Traveling is an issue because I do not want to go far. Thankfully, living in a rural area gives me access to a large view of the fall personality.

Packing up a backpack for a walk down the street isn't the same as for a drive across the state. Thus, the lighter the load, the more attractive it is to me. Walking brings a lot of the aromas of autumn to the senses.  

The only destination event I am keen on is to have breakfast at a quaint diner. That is the meal I like most to have out and about. Why this year a diner, I have no idea. I have no idea even where that diner will be.

Are you planning a fall excursion? Places to photograph?

A Monday Pondering Something

Wild Grapes 2016

As development takes hold of a community, habitat loss may go unnoticed. A huge area of wild grape vines was chopped down years ago when the area nearby, (where horses use to graze), became apartment buildings. Housing is badly needed. (Update, recent look, not all the vines are gone.)

We are in the time of Find Another Grapevine, as far as birds go. I think about the bears that are showing up, (since the separate compostable trash rule began), and I see the grapes as a big attraction for the bears. Ugh. Balance isn't always as easy as it might seem.

Have a wonderful Week!

 

Surveying the Summer of 2024

Birthday roses

Open Summer Fields

Lake Champlain

Town Beach

Tiny Deck Garden

Otter Creek Falls

Fields Days

Lunch Time Along Lake Champlain in August

Well, here I am now, in the last full week of August 2024 on a sunny Sunday afternoon, thinking about what this Summer has been. Overall, these months have been more interesting than previous years because I put effort into making sure I did not stay indoors so much or let depression drag my down so far. I cannot claim this year that summer went by too quickly or I didn't experience a real summer.

I had a fairly nice summer. Heat, rain, storms, are all part of the season's Earth wardrobe. I wore it well. I may not have achieved everything I planned, but I did well with what I accomplished.

Being so positive is rather a shocking experience for me. I'm not sure how it fits in with the depression episode I have been struggling to get out of. I think it might be a situation of emotional isostatic rebound going on.

Isostatic rebound is the movement upward, back to the normal shape after being compressed. In glaciology, the weight of a glacier on the Earth compresses the ground. When the glacier melts, the ground is released from that weight and uplifts. (Earthquakes can be a result as the Earth adjusts.) Think memory foam impression returning to smooth.

As my depression weight lifts, I feel lighter in spirit. This summer has been a period of uplift for me.

Now, onward into the fall with the same attitude to embrace the season as well as I can whether I go anywhere or not. There are trees and views to the mountains. No matter where I go, Nature is available.

Day 237 of Week 34 August 2024

 Spring Sunrise Along Route 125
Ripton, Vermont
16"x20" Acrylic In progress 
M. Flannery

 Frames. 

It is very expensive to have artwork custom framed. This artist, and I believe many others, have to push our creativity to find inexpensive framing methods. An alternative is to sell artwork without a frame. 

Unframed and without a mat, watercolors can be rolled and shipped in a hard cardboard mailing tube.

You can glue cotton canvas to hardboard. Hardboard is thin, easier to ship, and, will fit the thinner depth pre-made frames from big box stores or from rummage sales, and yard sales. Remove the print for your paintings. You can cut the hardboard to fit an old frame that isn't a standard artwork size.

Painting on solid primed wood is another alternative.

Yesterday on the way back from a thrift store donation drop off, I bought a nice wood decorative frame at yard sale. It fits my painting except for one wonky corner where the canvas is folded in thick. I can adjust that to fit.

Frames make a difference. As I return to painting regularly (or try to), I will begin with the painting in the photo above that has been waiting all these months. It needs the sunrise light added. I like it as it is, but a deal is a deal with my brain to continue with my original image. 

The frame is thick wood with no dents or nicks in the frame. It is easy to find yard sale frames that are thin. The canvas depth on the frame in the photo is deep. I feel very lucky. 

Ah, not lucky. I still remember arriving late to a big yard sale circa 1996 when I saw a man walking away with a very large gilded gorgeous ornate frame. My heart sank that I didn't get there before he did. 

Old wood frames that are ornate are precious finds. If they have pieces missing or the wood is marred, restoring them to an acceptable appearance is, I believe, worth the time. The missing decoration sections can be replaced by making a mold from elsewhere on the frame and using that mold to make the missing piece.  

Frame Your Weekend With Fun!

Play a board game with friends

Read about cartography

Cook a boiled dinner your style

Clean a junk drawer

Tell a teaspoon a funny story

Browse home weather stations online

Attend church

Pray for World Peace