I KNOW....SHAME ON ME!!!

I KNOW....I've been playing hooky!!! ....is that how you spell it?! Sorry I haven't been blogging, but thanks to some sweet followers that were worried about me, I feel I must catch you up with what I'm doing!......NOT MUCH......still resting and taking breaks from teaching ....... doing my garden, reading a lot now with my new glasses, fooling around with some jewelry making, more gardening, little league baseball, a little boy's fractured wrist .... jumping out of a swing at school .... OUCH!!!! ... getting ready for all my children and grandchildren coming in a few weeks!!! We are also working on "Roma's House" ...... which used to be a condemned house that became a dream for a family ..... a few pictures I will make a blog about later ...... BUT honestly, I have just been happily lazy and resting and doing ONLY what I WANT to do .... just pleasing me ........ a rare thing, but feels wonderful! I will try to add some pictures just for interest ..... as soon as I do something more interesting, I'll blog ..... I promise. I will paint again, I promise. Here are some photos of our little B&B guest house and one of the garden from a distance.....my vegetables are beside the little garden shed.....just small plants so far.....and my zinnias are beginning to come up. Have a GREAT week!!! And a cup of coffee on the porch with the birds!!! Let some mud squish between your toes...... remember that?! May God Bless You All .... whether you like it or not!....Love yal....

Stanley,Tito & the Parrots, Me and New ART!

Pilar was too scared to go in the cage.... but she WAS there too...it was raining so not many pictures.... The smeary original for the above is on the post "Works in Progress" I think I like the original smears above best...?? I can't find the photo of the smeary beginning of this bird...but I like the end result... Well, Stanley earned his visit to the ZOO....we LOVED the parrots!!!! It was a fun surprise when the parrots all landed on our heads.... they were the sweetest birds!! I needed the get away before the big ANTIQUES FAIR that begins in these parts again on March 24th thru April 5th! Thousands of people, and good deals to buy, people set up all over the pastures, dance halls, town squares and yards ..... I have had more requests for the B&B than ever before! ??? ...the economy?! I have added a few antiques to my yearly sale.... among other goodies and more new art and some sculptures.... new to the batch of work from the studio! Remember this one with the paint smeared on the canvas and then set aside to see if I saw a picture in it?...It is on the post "WORKS IN PROGRESS" below .... well, here it is finished with not much done to it....I HAVE TO TRY THIS AGAIN!!! It is "Walking in the Garden"......then the girl's face "Hide and Seek"was the second one and then the bird "My pop-corn ball curtain"was the third one..... NOT ALL GREAT but I have loved the spontaneous process....I have more started.....and of course I have prints for anyone who wants a print....or the originals in the gallery next week. I have written scripture on the backs of the canvases with a personal note....I do PRAISE HIM for the joy I get while painting and creating..... it ministers to my soul. I have been stuck, delightfully, on these scriptures for all my painting last week.....Isaiah 55:10,11. I just love what it says....especially the part that says....."it will not return to Me empty." And I love my garden, and His garden! We are His garden too.....planting seeds, growing, watering and harvesting....beautiful and hopeful. Enough...chat...here are the goods!!! Enjoy!

WORKS IN PROGRESS.....

You can click on the pictures to see the detail better..... These are works in progress, some more finished than others. The vase of flowers on the magazine was the inspiration for the roses.....I like this one. I will put Isaiah 55:11 around the outer edge...."....a watered garden...." The ship one is an image transfer of an 1811 Argentine stamp, enhanced. Then the background surrounding the ship is a scanned antique handmade hankie I own from the days of the antique shop. It is from late 1800's and I printed it and then did my first image transfer. It was time consuming but fun and I learned something. Then the outer edge is stamping on kraft paper with pencil and oil pastel enhancements around the scripture...."Go therefore to all nations teaching....", at the end of Matthew. I still have to glue it on the four edges. The last one is one I am looking forward to finishing. You can see the image that developed by the painted shapes.... a woman with a hat on the garden path picking a flower and holding onto her hat. Trees in the back....and who knows what else. BUT on this one I CANNOT over work it like I did the last collage using all pottery barn catalog pages. Enjoy! Have a great week....I have!

INSPIRED BY SCRAPS...

After deciding to do a new kind of treatment with my art....I began to search for old treasures purchased when I had my antique shop.....and found my old type letters that I had forgotten about! There is a complete set of capitals, small letters and numbers , plus a few punctuation marks....!!! I was so excited I started stamping letters to see how they looked and decided to make labels for the front of my ugly plastic boxes. Then made a label for my clear bag of scraps....I almost threw away! While looking at the scraps an idea began to emerge with the two pieces that have a large cutout in the middle....(which was a flower that I framed for the show)....anyway I took a 16x20 canvas and gessoed it.....then played with the pieces of scraps.....then made some script on my computer....Psalms 119....then printed larger..... Isaiah 58:11....a favorite of mine and decided it would be the theme....words in particular..."garden" ...."you will be like a watered garden".....well, you would have lots of flowers in a watered garden....so flowers it would be.....since I've never done this before and don't have new supplies yet...I used an old standby...decoupage medium. I tore and cut up old scripture for the outer edges of the canvas which you can't see....and some of my floral drawings or manipulated photos I've done in the past.... printed out.... You will not see it finished until much later.....but the last touches will be painting or oil pastel-ing the flowers to make them extend around the edge of the canvas and enhancing the gerbera daisy that looks dark...it will stand out more when I'm finished.....some stamping....then I have a few embellishments to add....and a few tiny photos to give it meaning....I will get a final picture and you will see the finished product around Nov 1....or sooner.... It truly was a joy to do....just playing with the shapes and colors and adding the words....I love the concept that it began with pieces that were doomed for the trash....but looking closer....there was something special about them....and as I worked with them.....I began to see a purpose for them....and upon finishing....the pieces of scraps doomed for the trash....were of value and had beauty....maybe we should think about people in the same way.....as we are each created completely unique and different....not a single person alike in the universe....but uniquely created.....Somebody is pretty smart and amazing!.....and it's not me.......Forgot to say "THANK YOU" to all you artsy bloggers who have inspired me!!!....and I welcome any advice, ideas and especially comments....enjoy!

PULLED WEEDS TODAY..

I did paint today...so relaxing and it takes me away from all the other work ....but then I love to walk out and check my two baby chickens and mama's eggs to be sure another snake hasn't come to eat them. Then I have to go see how many flowers I have left in the garden. I'm known for my wild zinnias....I pull all the dry heads of seeds and drop them back in the flower beds.....and every spring I get tons of tall old fashioned zinnias....thus a lot of art with them ! Four years ago I had a zinnia plant that forgot it was supposed to put on petals!! I mean it would make this wonderful big head with little curly hairs....and never any petals....not one flower on that particular plant with petals! It was gone the next year, and did not show up anywhere...... but the last two years I have spotted another such plant in a different place, across the grass in another flower bed. I absolutely love them....NOT perfect at all....I'm into imperfect! And how wonderful that God could use all those IMPERFECT people in the Bible....maybe he's trying to tell us something....I love my bald zinnia.....I look for it every year......I have a photo....somewhere!!

Peach Blossoms...

...I don't get good peaches, but I can always count on beautiful blossoms. I love my yard, even in the drought I had some flowers to photograph. I manipulate my photos in photoshop to make them look like paintings for my 5x7 greeting cards printed on vellum...you can see them at the GreenPeck Gallery in Round Top, Tx...my hangout!!