artistic endeavors: random. for moi.

Hope you all are having a wonderful Sunday afternoon....or whatever day you read this:)

Yesterday we had a cousin's wedding...'twas lovely:) They had a good band at the reception, --this awesome black lady was the lead singer-- and Grandma T. and I suggested some oldies --they played some lately done by Michael Buble. (yuck, Heather, yuck!! hehe) It was more than good enough, though, and was quite fun. I took off my flip-flops (no, I was not about to wear my pumps all day. me and anything with height have quite a limited relationship. only when needed.) and danced with Anna, Rach and Lyd in turn. The boys obviously were too chicken, and I wasn't about to wait around for them to get some courage and stop being shy. So sisters will do. :) We danced to Fever. Whoa, that song. Makes me laugh. So I put it as the first song for this blog right now;) Ha!

Did I mention I don't know how to dance? 'Kay. Now you know it. And I swear, someday I'm going to take lessons. I mean, I know how to waltz...well, the basic idea of the steps anyways, but I don't know any moves, really. Just thought I should clear that up;) There was this one couple, a little older than mom and dad, who were really swinging it. They were pretty amazing, compared to everyone else who knew the basic steps for different counts.

Soon enough, I got tired of being surrounded by all these couples pulling each other close. It was lovely seeing the older couples who've stuck out and enjoyed years of life together. But it was time to leave anyways, so we headed out and I read aloud another chapter of How Do You Tuck In A Superhero? to the kids. I randomly got it from the library after reading her blog for a while.

Alright. I'm catching up chronologically, just because that's how I'm dealing with the folders of pictures waiting to be picked through, certain ones uploaded, and blog posted.
*sigh*
I am going to make this quick and take a nap.
Dean Martin, Edith Piaf, a heart like his Bible study by Beth Moore, and a nap.
Now that's a good afternoon.
So let's get onto the pictures. :)

Let's get this clear.

This was random.

On a new, big canvas Ben made for me.

For me.

So this painting...I painted for myself.

Just wanted to tell you, I don't expect ones like this to sell. (laughs)

 Time for some chocolate-covered coffee beans. Oh yes. Celebration--a canvas is finished. :)

Up-close....'tis a night sky type of thing, if you couldn't guess.

Sorry. Again, no words to say.

But this--I think it looks pretty cool on the wall where I hung it...

There it is...at night...so I had to use flash. :P And yes...ahem...that's me, probably around-1-2 yrs old. With a little chickie held in Daddy's gloved hand, at a grandma's farm.

I've been obsessed with this song. Just thought I'd tell you. Since it's not available on the site where I get my blog music from. :(

And goodness, his music is nice and various--I love painting to it. Imaginably, the urge to dance comes;)

So that's my painting, folks.

I'm off for a nap. Happy birthday to my best friend--PJ! <3

My unfailing Love for you will not be moved

for you will not be moved

My unfailing Love for you

and though the mountains be shaken

and the hills be removed

yet My unfailing Love for you.

[Jimmy Needham]

hello:) i'm going to make this short.

A couple words:

Tired.

Not staying up late reading for a while.

Cut my sister's hair.

Need a nap.

Need to clean the kitchen.

Need to paint! Gosh I have like 3 I need to do...
Need to make a coffee cake for the church ladies' brunch get-together tomorrow.

 [See those freckles? Those are from yesterday's venture.]

Yesterday, at the demand and suggestion of a few family members, I went outside and sat on the lush front lawn Caleb's been nearly vain about, growing and watering it these past few weeks...er...couple months. I sat in the sun. 

And read a blogpost or two of this new author I found... :) 

So I hope I got enough Vitamin D...that was the point that Mom was trying to make.

Oh, and thank God it was around 6pm...not nearly as dangerous as early afternoon, aye?

It's not that I don't go outside. I do. But when we go for walks, Anna and I, we go at night. Or late evening, after 8:30. After sunset. After dinner. Yes, we have late dinners sometimes/most of the time...especially with Dad and fieldwork.

Edith Piaf CD came in at the library today! Should be interesting;) Old. French singing.

*laughs* Wow. It's something you cook in the kitchen to.

Why cooking? Why the kitchen? Because it's French. French=cooking. ;) Gotta love Julie and Julia. All that cooking. 

(And La Vie en Rose is the first song on this blog playlist for now;)

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, 
because if we are not grateful, 
then no matter how much we have we will not be happy -- 
because we will always want to have something else or something more.
[David Steindl-Rast]

artistic endeavors: for anna

I did this one on Thursday, May 20. Ha, last week.

Alright, so that's not what I made last week.

So I'll start posting the real material the title suggests. ;)

That's a nice dark Italian-grape kind of purple. As if you couldn't tell.

This is a scene of a bit of wonderfulness.

Ah, colors.

Alright, so confession: I have no witty remarks or narration up my sleeve today. I have painting to do. Sorry. 

Carefully orchestrated spatters.

Ah, yes. Turned out quite decent, dontcha think?

That's why Anna's buying this first one from me.

Sorry I'm kind of speechless today.

Have to have those days every once in a while.

;)

Visit me here, and check out the gallery thing I have.

Okay. There's little me, saying 'bye, have a nice Thursday, alright?'

Oh, isn't that funny. Now and in the picture, I'm wearing the same shirt. I swear I'm wearing the same gray wash jeans cut off for shorts. How random is that?

I'll leave you with this.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on. 
[Robert Frost]

wordless wednesday: lyd with a violet.

[I'm listening to Red  (gave it all away) and painting on a new and very exciting canvas (for someone special) right now, so I'm actually participating in wordless wednesday...hehe:) And we're harking back to the times of cool weather and sprinkling rain with violets everywhere! 

*sigh* 

I researched Oregon's weather today and now I wish even more I could visit. Sounds like the perfect weather to me--I can handle rain. And I definitely can handle 50's-60's much of the time. :) This warm 80's and muggy is just... interesting. I'll try not to complain too much...

Have a lovely Wednesday!]

artistic endeavors: experience...

Okay, I'm back. Like a day inbetween posts is a break, but heck it's been warm here. And I'm not going outside. I'm too much on the smart side to fall for the thought, if I go out for a couple minutes each day, I'll get a bit of color...a bit of a tan... Well, I'm beyond caring about ever tanning.
I'd burn if I went out. So I'll leave the swimming fun to the children for now, and try for it when it's not so muggy.
But I've been painting...and Ben's been on a roll. Sweet brother of mine. (sorry to get mushy, but he's just so darn talented and I loves him)
So I'll not bore you with further details of how not-fun the weather and my genes are. Because painting is much more exciting than all that other stuff.

:)

This was Thursday, on the 20th of this month. Ahhh, that's the mug from Sarah. It's amazing and holds a lot of water. So that's what I did first of all that morning.

Then later, I filled it with the predictability of me.

So this was inspired by an already-existing print, too. But here's mine...almost done...

Lyd was sewing something on the machine, and you can see the vibrations...I didn't really mean to capture it, but it looks randomly cool:)

See how huge it is, that lovely mug? Ohhh yes. It's like half the size of my head. It's great. :)

I'm not sure you can tell I like that green chair:) 

This is before I made it a bit older-looking....not so perfect.

There it is:)

Not bad for a prototype. Heh. Not my favorite, personally...but hey. To each his own.

So that's all for this one. I've got like 2 or 3 more new ones to post on here...all in due time.

Meanwhile, look at all the canvases I've been priming--because as I said before, Bubby man is on a roll...and running out of the limited amount of canvas we had bought. :)

Today he was using up some of the last of the canvas...so therefore, cute little ones! I've got arrangements in mind for these ones:)

Excuse my painting mess. :)

Excuse the newspaper mess, too... These are the bigger ones he surprised me with yesterday. :) There's another one, bigger than these, too. 

See that thing? It's huge. In a store it would cost upwards of $14 buckos, but there's talent in the family, and it's not me who's getting charged that for the canvas that's worth it.Whoever buys this one, will want it. They'll have to. Hee hee. 

I'm also going to post a single picture of each of the paintings on this blog's page on FB...so go like this place, and check it out:)

Have a wonderful Tuesday! 

Praise the Lord, I vacuumed earlier while nearly everyone was out swimming or something, so that's over with...and I've got an order from dear Jen for a unique twist on this canvas. 

Softball game tonight for our church league, and I'm hoping to God He makes it cool off soon. Pleeeeeeaaase! :)

my yesterday.

5:44pm

Well. Here's a random one for ya--not so many words...ha, I guess we'll see;)

But here's my yesterday. I'm uploading these pictures while I read a friend's post on her trip to Ireland last year.

It's silent in the house because the children are outside; Anna, Mom and I are inside with a napping Grammy. Anna's catching up to the place where my book-marker is in Leave it to Claire.

Golly, I love the music she has on her blog.

Anyhow.

My yesterday.

Anna was freaking out (hilariously) to me about how wrong it is that Shrek has made it onto packages housing onions of all things.

So she had me take a picture.

Then, because Anna had a headache and she had just finished making those tortuously good chocolate-pecan scones and healthy morning glory muffins in a pan, she took a nap and I got the job --ahem, pleasure-- of making the potato-broccoli curry to bring to a cousin's birthday party that night. (saturday)

Since it's one of the simplest dishes in the world to make, I didn't object much.

Sorry. I'm going to post pictures from that, too, even though there's the recipe I posted earlier, for the same thing. :) I love the look of steamed broccoli. So bright. So healthy looking.

Yay for potatoes! Ha. Sorry. I'm not that passionate about potatoes. I just had to say it.

Yes. Those are my weapons. 

Big smile.

One can of coconut milk coming up. mush it around till it melts and makes a sauce with the hot broccoli:)

Slice and dice up your hot potatoes. That's why I used the weapons I did. I didn't have time to waste on cooling and/or peeling them. (big smile)

Also, I'm reading this sweet wedding photography post by Jana, while these pictures upload...yes, I didn't take the extra time to resize...I'll just catch up on blogs while they load in full size:D

There, you need to put enough curry powder and salt on it, or it'll just taste like...potatoes and broccoli. And those are not known to be the most flavorful things. So...shake away.

I'll just steal a picture of the finished product from that original post:

So anyhow........

There was ice cream cake at the cousin's birthday party.

*happy sigh*

I love that kind of cake:)

Darn but you can't see the Jamie Oliver-like apron I'm wearing. Bought it at the farmers market homemade last year. :) I was very happy with the find.

Ugh, they're watching Free Willy.

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty good movie...but really? my favorite part as a kid watching it, was in the beginning when those kids steal the cake. (laughs at self) 

But I swear I had nightmares of that part, the underwater window crashing in and water flooding the place. (shudders)

Hmm... That's about it.

I'm off to read. And paint sometime:)

Oh!!! Before all that --and yes, I'll just add chronologically screwed up material right here:)-- Ben and I made a canvas!

It was more like I watched Ben make it, and took pictures while it happened...but now I know how to:) Heh heh. He's such an invaluable, creative brother. 

Okay. See that yellow saw blade? 

That's a table saw blade.

Freaky. Very. 

I stepped out of the shop while Ben sawed through some boards with that thing. All I could see from my vantage point was his back, and the saw was in front of him...dust wisping around everywhere because he was sawing huge stuff or for very long. Still. It was freaky.

Good old screws. And what a lovely face mask thing. :)

Then Ben took a break....talked to Dad before he left for the farm...and I snapped a few randoms. Don't laugh at how random they are. It's a...some kind of a dirt bike...oh yes, it's a Yamaha YZ125J dirt bike. Straight from the horse's mouth. I mean, my brother's mouth. :) Caleb. Heh heh heh.

And...that's an old telephone. As if you couldn't tell. But I kinda like that shot.

Yep. More wood. More saw. Actually, that's the sander. But it can be kinda scary too.

Oh well. It gets good things done:)

Canvas time...

It's getting exciting... :)

Ugh, I hate the staple gun. (shudder) Sorry. Shops have so many freaky tools.

Yep. That staple gun is a PowerShot. Wow. ;)

Alrighty. There's those darn good scones again. And the chai-from-scratch I made for Grammy the other day...she loved it:) And me, after the canvas was stapled good and done, and yes, that's the primed canvas...and the book I'm currently reading.

Oh, interesting. Lookie here and here...

Happiness is living well. 
[Plato]