Music Monday - Wick

Just got back from our annual POBL Spring Retreat (which hopefully I will get to share pictures from anon...). It is so spring, and *beyond* here. My tulips are already blooming!

Spring sprunging -

Temps are starting to warm up almost  consistently -

-and blossoms are nearly exploding out on trees and bushes.

Love it....

Happy spring!

Music Monday - Wick

Had a mild afternoon with no rain. This translated into a bout of cleaning the chicken coop and mutated into pruning the roses, plum and fig trees. Buds are apparent. There are tiny purple crocuses in my front yard. Our cool and rainy PNW spring is imminent. 

This time of year always reminds me of the musical version of The Secret Garden.

Makes me itch to spend more time digging in the dirt (and seeing what I can do to repair the havoc that Toby the-terror is wreaking on the gardens and lawn in the back yard with his exuberant and endless sessions of fetch).

Happy earliest of springs.

Succulent Saturday - Spring chickens

A view of the backyard chickens from the studio window. They love to sit in the sun and mutually preen on the back steps. :-)

Figure Friday - and ephemeral sunshine.

 Life drawing day....

It was rainy, blustery and not far above freezing when I headed out this morning. Being March, numerous things are blooming and the weather changes on a dime.

 By the time the session was over, the sun was out (much to the chickens' delight).

 I loved the sun shining through the water droplets encrusting everything. :-)

From a distance, it looked a bit like the ornamental pear blossoms that are erupting everywhere -

- but close-up, more like diamonds! 

I do love spring. :-)

Figure Friday - plus spring sightings...

Despite how chilly and generally overcast and drizzly it's staying, there are some signs that spring is attempting to come..

Finals are close - even our model was multi-tasking by reading while sitting for us.

(Charcoal pencils on Canson paper. Around 2 hours...)

Magnolia blossoms...

...and a definite sign of impending warmer temps - the hotdog/ice cream shop is open!

Figure Friday - plus, sightings....

Life drawing day -

1 minute gestures...

Charcoal on grey Mi Teintes - about 2 hours...

No ducklings in sight again this week :-(. However, I *did* see daffodils right and left...

...and even the start of the rhodys! wow....

Happy almost-real-spring!

Music Monday - "Heather"

Most years, we spend February looking at the winter-blooming heather...

Despite the unseasonably warm weather which has brought out all sorts of other blooming things, this week I bring you the Carpenter's instrumental piece called "Heather"...


I've loved this piece since first hearing it in Junior High, partly because it was so different from the more typical Carpenter's fare...

A few fragments of the gloriousness of our non-heather, ridiculously early spring...

We interrupt these WIP posts -

- for a brief herbal interlude. In honor of the fabulous sunshine today.

I have many many baby basils (5 different varieties) coming up. As well as dill, caraway, meadowsweet and lady's mantle (and various squashes and cucumbers).

This is the Cuban oregano that I've been raving about. Looks like a succulent. Incredibly aromatic (although a bit more reminiscent of fruity sage rather than anything like oregano).

I stopped by the garden center for copper tape (slug deterrent for the raised beds), but got seduced by the lush, green lovelies in the herb section: stevia, germander, salad burnett, pineapple and tangerine sage, coconut and Attar of Roses scented geraniums and more lemon thyme. Also a couple new to me: agastache and epazote. Both are labled as culinary, and smell yummy - I'll have to do some research on them (my favorite kind of research! :-)

Yay Spring!

And I keep forgetting to post the treasures that my daughter brought back for me from her British Isles adventure over spring break. She knows me well. They are wonderful and perfect for me. Thank you baby.

Things I've Been Doing Instead of Drawing....

I'm having one of those Life-Gets-In-The-Way sort of week... Wanting to work in the studio every day, but stuff, besides doing things like flying across the country for the weekend, continues to come up -

Spent one evening taking my Sondheim-loving daughter downtown to see "Sunday In the Park With George" (which I related to much more now than the first time I saw it. All that crazy-obsessive-artist stuff! Hmmmmm....... :-)

I volunteered to put together a card for the owner of the house we stayed in for our spring retreat - with a Thank You piece of art from all of us. I enjoy making these things, but they always take longer than I had planned. So, another evening Not Drawing.

Spent some time researching mini-laptops (Michelle is shown here with her new baby Asus Eee). I'm traveling more now, and as much as I love my chartreuse green 17" Dell Inspiron, it is *heavy* and cumbersome to lug around in airports. 'Would like a small, light-weight one for travel. (Anyone out there have a 10" laptop you recommend?)

Attended critique meeting with my fellow POBL-ites. This is one amazing, hard-working, well-published group of women! (And our meetings take an entire evening...)

But probably the most time consuming thing of all -

as a result of that UFO up in the sky (some people call it "the sun" - a thing we don't see so much of in this part of the world at this time of year) -

-I've *had* to spend a number of sun-drenched hours out in the yard, working on the gardens and various beds that have been so neglected over the past couple of deadline-heavy summers. (See all my parsley babies coming up here? So much new plant life. So gratifying to be out amongst....)

I'm sure I'll get more studio hours in as soon as it starts raining again. Could be any minute now.

A brief goodbye-

We're taking off - yet again - today.

Just for the week-end though.

(It's my mother-in-law's 80th birthday celebration)

So we'll leave the cool, burgeoning spring weather of the Pacific Northwest for the significantly warmer Southeast corner of the U.S.
*

Looking forward to seeing what's blooming there.

Happy Easter!

(from the mother's house...)

More Spring-ish signs -

Besides the backyard being full of birds (I can hardly keep my feeders filled) -

- I got this charming package in the mail, winging its lovely way from far away England, from Wiltshire artist, Karen Davis -

She sells these gorgeous, hand painted hearts at her Etsy store.
I am tickled pink (or in this case, turquoise?) to have this one!


- And I have *finally* gotten a couple of flats of seeds planted. I've only been trying to get to that all month! I still have a basket of packets of "early spring" seeds that need put into the ground ASAP - as it becomes less early-spring by the day.

But, alas, that will have to wait for a bit. It is now spring break. My daughter is flying off on a school trip to England and Scotland tomorrow, and I was SO not invited to chaperon :-( - so I am winging my own way off to spend a few days with my folks, while my husband also heads out of town on business.

Flying for everyone! Happy spring.

(Maybe it will think about warming up a little by the time I get back).

Birds in winter -

Saw an armful of robins in the front yard today. First gathering I've seen of them this year. That's supposed to mean spring is on its way, isn't it? Yet, we have snow and below freezing temperatures once again.

The chickens can't quite figure out what to make of it all. Their water freezes in their container - much to their bewilderment. They are bored silly and are trying to dig themselves out of their coop, so I do try to let them out for bit. But with weather like this, they find that the dirt is frozen pretty solid, so fruitless to scratch at, and every thing green and therefore potentially edible in the yard is covered with chilly white snow. Curses! Foiled. Indignities most fowl!

There needs to be a better word for a collection of robins. A portent of robins? A premonition? A precursor? A presentiment? Anything that makes it feel like spring will come again! Soon please!

(For a lovely list of collective nouns for birds - from which robin is conspicuously absent - see here).

Happy Equinox/Spring!

What a lot of things this week - St. Pat's day, First Day of Spring and Equinox, Full Moon, Good Friday, Easter.... Can't hardly appreciate them all. Got to enjoy the irony of today watching a hail storm out the studio window this afternoon.

***

I hope you had sunshine where you are.

***

[Studio update: All three covers done, pending revisions. Manuscripts re-read and remaining interiors listed, collated and inventoried. 25 drawn. 59 left to draw. 84 to paint. By April 15th... Yeah...]

Updates...

Spring is sprunging all about. Crocuses still out along with the miniature daffodils. The early blooming pink trees, a few white ones, golden forsythias, white and pink camellias and even a few early rhododendrons. I feel like I'm missing it being mostly inside!

On the inside/studio front, I have finished painting 12 'magical' horses across three covers and am now tackling the backgrounds. Hope to be done with all three by the end of the week.

Oh, and Dr. Galubrious has been making discoveries. (and of course, he'd love to hear from you!)

Sunshine and 'snow'...

We're having record-breaking or near-record-breaking high temperatures here at the end of May... (see that *hot* sun bursting through our Big-Leaf Maples? Indigenous to this part of the country - they truly have BIG leaves. Larger than your head. Larger than a dinner plate! Too big to be pressed in any of my existing flower presses even.)


For our un-airconditioned Pacific NW houses, this means one must close all the curtains, run all the fans and try not to move to energetically, or you will get much too hot!


Another option is to take a walk through the 'snow' that is currently falling from the cotton trees... (It *looks* like it ought to be cool, at least)


I believe it was about this time last year that I posted about our late-spring 'snow' season. I've still yet to come up with a better descriptor than 'air decorations'... Still open to suggestions!!!


I loved the juxtaposition of 'snow' and bright green, new growth...