Summer Still Life

I took a holiday for the 4th of July weekend and painted this teapot. It even rained on Monday so I had 3 whole days all to myself, while the rest of the world celebrated births, deaths and Independence.

It was a sweet gift from a friend years ago, I have always wanted to paint it.

I got the white fleshed nectarines from the farmers market in Boone, the daylilly is from my garden.

I seldom paint still life well, but this one turned out OK. Well, it turned out OK the second time I painted it. On the first try I ruined the background.

I am back to watercolors after playing with acrylic paint this last month. The paintings were alright, but when I tried to scan them into the computer they looked awful. I still have so much to learn. When I straightened up my house last month I got the chance to review the work I have painted over the last year, and I am making progress. It is challenging though, to do the kind of physical labor I do every day and still find time to paint. I am grateful for holiday weekends.

With the dog days of summer setting in, Finn & I are moving a little slower now. I can't believe how much that big brown dog can sleep when the weather outside does not suit him! I love that the phone is not ringing so much, and that I can feel a bit cloistered and unreachable, at peace in my own little world, painting vignettes that catch my eye. I think I will go rummage through the house and start composing another still life. There is not much flowering in the garden right now that I haven't already painted at least once.

I do want to get started on a painting of a dear clients garden. She has not been feeling well lately, and I want to see if I can paint a portrait of her sweet garden for her.

In fact, now that the laundry is done, the house is cleaned as well as the car, and the lawn is mowed....I am free for the day to do just that!

Enjoy!

Way Hot

My White Siberian Iris is blooming, so I sketched it. It was way too hot this weekend to do anything, but go zen and sketch. I also contemplated The Way of Bee's.

I was so dehydrated from the work week, and hungry, no time to eat last week. We were in the ER resuscitating plants everywhere we planted.

I was gathering anger at the weather, stressing out about 'my gardens' and I was spiraling into energy whack. Bee's were aggressively scouting me in my garden. I usually have no issues with the buzzy stinging ones, but I was making them nervous, so they made me nervous. One sat on my head and in no uncertain terms made me aware of it. Something was up, and they were trying to tell me to chill.

I was going into 'me' and 'mine' energy.....whoops! Where had I stung or been stung recently?

I puttered, painted, drank lots of water, swam in Wilson's creek with my dog. I immersed my self in the cool water and soaked in the sun on a rock, like an old seal.

It was wonderful to feel chilled after I emerged from the cold water. I looked upwards at the skyline of the mountains above me, and absorbed the beauty of my environment. Fortunately, Finn had a few children to play with which gave me the time to get into this space. He had a blast. I surely think that dog would swim until he had a heart attack, if I didn't pull him out occasionally to rest up.

I reveled in my microcosmic place in the world, while allowing the macrocosm take care of its self.

We did magnetize a rainstorm to Ski Mountain right as we finished work this afternoon.

Apparently it didn't rain anywhere south of us. But we saw the potential clouds and invited them to the garden. It worked! A special Thank You to the nature spirits for that.