Green Glass

Three wouldn'ts don't make a would

If someone asked what I'd been up to all this time I haven't been blogging,I wouldn't say I've been napping the entire time.

That wouldn't necessarily be wrong.  But I wouldn't say it.

Days of rest

Evidence of life.

A bit skattered, like fallen seeds, am I

I am not a birder per se.  Not so much on the long hikes and mucking about.

Generally, the regular gals and guys visiting my sparse backyard are more than enough company for me.  But this brown thrasher above jumped in and made himself known early on.  And he's hung around.  Or he's multiplied.  Hard for me to tell.

 I will admit my favorites are the woodpeckers and the nuthatches. This Downy woodpecker was not having it with this carolina wren.  She thought they could work it out.  He suggested they would not.

I have even enticed my husband into my interest.  These are all his photos.  I may add to the lot, or I may not.  I'm a whimsical free spirit.  Plus my hand wobbles. 

  He caught the nuthatch below in a kind of an armored hummingbird pose.  I know the military is considering this for future observational models.  

 

This robin took advantage of a series of water baths I jerry rigged from broken bird baths, plant saucers and some plummet's putty to fix cracks.  

I am ending on this little guy.  As of this moment he is hail and hearty and eating all the peanuts (and some dog food) that I am putting out to attract a crow.  However a couple of his buddies (I believe in my heart of heart that they were buddies) have fallen to my very fat very lazy but still very predatory cat.  Tomorrow she's is getting a collar with a bell.  Let's call it an experiment.  How quickly will the collar come off?  How much bell tinkling can I stand?  Time will reveal all.

You may think birding is a digression.  HA HA, it is not.  Birding goes straight to the heart of noticing.  Noticing leads to jotting.  Next think you are distinguishing. Are these not the three founding legs of visual journaling?

Which you did not

If you asked me what I've been up to, which you did not, I would answer, parenting, birdwatching, parenting, journaling, parenting, napping, birdwatching, and parenting.  That's all there is, there isn't any more.

My brain has turned to mush.  I think.  But I can sit and watch the birds, which I have been doing.  My vision isn't actually the best, so I am not picky about which birds visit.  I like new friends, but I am happily feeding a colony of grackles, pidgins and house finches.

I tried to do the Every Day In May challenge (which was a variant of the Every Day Matters idea which I have enjoyed).  I did quite a few days, but I sometimes got stuck on the idea.  Do I got out and find a cupcake?  Somehow the universe did not deliver one to me, although I waited.  I am using the same style I did for my fake journal, and THAT has been FUN.  I am not sketching birds.

Well, not much.  Not yet.  We just hang out mostly.

I am hoping to do a little less parenting soon.  We'll see how that works.

Shhhh

Went to the Liberty Antique Festival.  Took pictures.  Collapsed in a heap.

I have sketching away here, but limited energy makes it an either/or situation.  I can sketch or post.  So since I can, I am choosing sketching.  Back when I muster the will. 

Days of rest

And so it ends

 

We are traveling today, so in advance, I am showcasing a little of what I've done.  I've discovered this trip that I really really enjoy sketching rock outcroppings in ink.  I did quite a few like the one above, some more and some less successful, but I enjoyed them all.  Very calming and just plain fun.

I also sketched a fair amount of food. The label above was floating in the lemonade, but I took it as a sign that is was made fresh.  My husband got a kind of pained look on his face.

I had a blast traveling with this kid.

And this guy took some amazing photos.  Seriously.

 

Days of rest

Days of rest

I moved my desk and put a pillow out for the one cat, but the boss lady decided it had the perfect blend of bird viewing and sun catching.

Days of rest

Betwixt and between

Today I finished off the only two knitting projects I had going.  I grabbed up my knit bag as I was leaving to take someone to an appointment and now it's empty.

Meanwhile at home I am in a quilting frenzy.  It's been too long (say my uncalloused fingertips).  However, I can't watch soccer and quilt at the same time (as compared to most of my knitting projects).  This cuts into the time I'm willing to sit and 'watch'.  

Meanwhile my paints beckon. I stopped while walking at a nearby lake, did a quick sketch and then added color at home.  It was AWFUL!  The remedy is to do more but instead I am resorting to resorting the supplies in my kit, as if that will improve the quality of the drawing.  HA! 

My sketching is stiff, my eyes are lazy, my shoulder is bothering me.  What's a crafter to do?

Just for fun

These are my many children.

HAHHAHAHAHAHAHaaaaaa   aarrrgh.

Ok. Seriously.  My daughter made this.  She gets bored sometimes.  Then she gets an idea.  Then she makes her younger brother do things.  She likes to play with photoshop, and also makes videos for her Youtube channel MC1R.  In case you are wondering where the name of her channel came from, it's the gene for redheads.  She's the only one in our combined families for a couple generations, but both sides take credit.

This is my favorite video of hers.  She made it for a PTA contest, but submitted it in the wrong format, so they wouldn't accept it, but it won the school wide contest for all categories.  I'm just a little proud of her.

 

Here's a link to the Youtube channel in case it doesn't embed.  And yes, that's her brother's voice.  He gets roped in a lot.

The day of rest

If you are trying to capture a wild and ferocious creature, you have to be crafty.

First you lay a trap.  Then you have to be patient.  15 or 30 minutes should do.  Make sure the trap is irresistible.  Then take a nap and revel in your success.

 

I got stamped

I have a friend who is a serious thrift shop visitor.  She's always on the hunt for new venues.  Sometimes I get lucky and she takes me along.

Sometimes I get lucky.  These were two stamp finds - both unexpected. One was in an architectural salvage clearing house.  The other was in a little store only open on Fridays and Saturdays.   She thought they were blocks.  

Recently I've had my eye out for old paint tins.  I'm always happy when I find things in non-pristine shape because it's easier for me to mess them up without guilt.

Someone had an end of school party.   Ten 14 year-old girls.  I'm tired.

Next time I might sketch

More collections.

Eye candy.  I didn't take a picture of the brownies and hot dogs they were selling.  I just ate them.  And I didn't take a picture of my little tripod prop chair.  I just sat on it while someone looked at many, many pocket knives and my aching feet recovered.

Groupings - it's what they do.

Liberty Antique Festival - I can't resist

Cleaning out my own house, I wasn't inspired to buy much this year, but I do like to look.  Venders make such nice arrangements of their collections.

Some days

Some days you just need a buddy to hang with.

Two challenges in one

I'm doing two month-long challenges combine and posting them at my alternate blog "Paint by Numbers" link to the right.

Traci Bunkers presented a "Capturing 30 Days of Joy" as a challenge to focus on - well - everyday joy.  At the same time, Tammy Garcia at Daisy Yellow suggested another photo challenge of "the moments".  Both of them are pretty loosely defined but both focus on exactly where I need to be mentally, so I took them on.  I've been and will be posting at least one photo (more sometimes because that just happens) capturing the spirit of the day for me - that moment when I felt lifted.  Or an image from another time.  Whatever the whim takes me.

Where does the whim take you?

Joy and frustration

I'm working on my beach journal. I'm not a life long journaler -  I really only started after seeing journals on-line and realizing  that my mental limits of what journaling meant had blocked that idea for me.  I continue to do that to myself, putting restrictions or requirements where none exist.  Who knew my skull was a labyrinth of dos and don'ts?  (Labyrinth is kind of fancy. Maybe a quagmire?  A swamp?)

Anyway, I am slowly slowly learning what I enjoy and don't enjoy about journaling/art/crafting.  Learning to trust myself.  Learning to listen to myself.

In this beach journal, I got a little carried away with the construction itself.  I just LOVE making books - choosing the papers, constructing the cover, sewing the binding.  Way too carried away.  Miles off course.

The reason that matters is that when I actually got to the beach, I felt pressure to fill up my big fat journal.  I had an on-going conversation will myself in my head.

MUST FILL UP PAGES.

Don't actually have to.

MUST FILL UP PAGES.

It's your journal (in my head, I talk like this), you can do whatever you want.

MUST FILL UP PAGES.

deep breath

However, having survived that, I'm actually having a blast now adding photos and papers I collected and making notes.  Who knew?

But I can see I'm going to change things next time.  Different paper choices.  Different structure.  It'll be interesting what new mistakes I make.

However, one BIG GLARING FRUSTRATION presented itself to me in this journal.  One of the things I did the most and which was really the center of my thoughts was something that I couldn't really journal about in real time.

(me, on a sit-on-top kayak on the ocean)

I haven't figured out how to get a journal out on the ocean in my kayak.

Now, I know there are waterproof pouches and water resistant paper/notebooks (for people who have to sketch or make notes outside) and pencils work even in space, but....

Getting through the surf is not the easiest thing for me.  The kayak gets tossed.  But even if I attached all my journaling things to the kayak and even if I made it out.  What I'm really doing out there is this.

Waiting for stuff to come by.  The birds don't come too close, but still the view of a line of pelicans on the water from the water, or watching them or a seagull fish up close or seeing them floating, bobbing yards away - pretty cool.  But they aren't the main attraction.

This is the main attraction. 

Two years ago, when I first went out, I paddled up and down the shore line looking for dolphins.  I only had the kayak for two days, and both days I found a pod, and both times they, or some of them, swam over to me and played.  Swam around the kayak.  Surfaced behind and then in front and then one even rolled over as it passed me and looked me in the eye.

Eyeball to eyeball.

Really.

Top ten moment of my life.

This summer I didn't get so close.  But I did get to paddle with some a couple days.

Here's the problem.  I can not sketch or photograph and paddle at the same time. And they are cows in motion.  Big and powerful and sleek and looking for fish.  So this trip, the closest I got was the short sprint I was able to keep up while they were moving down the beach.  Or sitting or a couple moments while they swam in circles catching a snack.

I love it.  I love the farty sound they make when they surface - a little exhale and breath before they dive again.  I love not knowing when they'll surface again.

I'm not good at sketching from my memory.  One of the things learning to draw and journaling has done is make me realize how nonspecific my seeing is.  I see, I notice, but when I try to recall, it has become a generic blob.  I love the details that really looking and seeing has brought me while I sketch.

Can't do that (yet) with the dolphins.  Maybe I'll think of a way.

In the meantime I thank a handsome someone for bringing the telephoto lens and capturing these images.  The closest I get so far to documenting this wondrous event.

I don't think every moment has to be documented.  I believe some events roll out and we have to be present, really really present without the distraction of drawing or photographing or notating.  Maybe this is meant to be one of those moments.   I'd be okay with that.  Really.  Because I still have the warm joy in my heart and behind my eyeballs.  I can feel it now, nestled inside me.

Oh, and the first time I went out and saw a fin, as I paddled slowly toward it, I chanted in my head "sharks side to side, dolphins up and down, sharks side to side, dolphins up and down".  Really, I did. In my head.

Just pictures, no words

 

 

Liberty 2013

Every year my husband and I go to the Liberty Antique festival (Liberty, NC).  It's a mini vacation.  We're not antiquers although you wouldn't know it seeing as our house is filled with old junk.     

We walk around and imagine uses for things.

I take pictures of quilts I will never make.  Not in a million years.

I put my grubby little paws on things that should be pawed.

We enjoy the artistic arrangements.

I make people nervous by taking pictures.  I'm sure there's a good reason to get nervous from people taking pictures of old paddles, but I don't know what it is and I don't ask.  I just apologize and scuttle away.

Generally, a good time is had by all.  Mostly. Except this year the bbq did not agree with me.  Note to self - stick with the hot dogs next year.

I don't live here

A couple weeks ago, my friend and I went to a craft fair.  It was unusally cool (for North Carlina).  I don't have any pictures of the crafts.

Except for these radishes, which are not technically crafts, I know, but still, who doesn't like a good picture of radishes. There is not question mark at the end of that sentence so that means it was rhetorical.  Just go with it.

I just took pictures of the grounds of the fair, which was a home where the people's business is archtectural salvage.  

Every where I looked, my little piggy eyes just wanted to freeze the view, so I took loads of pictures.

Next year I'm going on my own and bringing my sketchbook.  Wonder if the craft fair people will mind.

My life is filled with Joy

Sometimes, the Bug wrestles with the Bear.

I'm not sure who wins.

 

You don't know this cat

Another brief note

This was Buster, a Norwegian forest cat.  Originally his name was Findus, after a Swedish cartoon cat, but then... he renamed himself.  

Today I'm just paying tribute to a fella that brightened and enlightened my life.  He's been gone a while now - before I got a digital camera and before I started to draw, otherwise I would have many more pictures and drawings of him.  He was quite a poser.

I miss you Buster.

 

In my next life, I will not drool when I sleep

 

And when I snore, people will think it's delightful and smile.

Some nights I dream I can fly, too

Would I mind.

Sometimes unexpected pleasures pop up.

This weekend someone asked me if I would mind making a little journal for her for a spanish assignment.  She needs to write sentences, illustrate them and hand in a little booklet.

Really.  Would I mind.

Of course the number of questions I asked (how big, what kind of paper, cover?, thread color, opinion on design) far exceeded the amount she needs to write.

I had so much fun.  If I'd had more time, I would have gotten a little crazy with it, so it's probably good that I only had an hour or so.  Plus she's going to glue the drawings in so it doesn't need to be too sturdy.

Thank you my lovely Bean.

A good laugh

I've decided to take the long view on these things.

 

Oh, I just amuse myself so MUCH!

I have eyes that see

I cleaned out the drawer next to my sewing machine.  I found some thread.

These are all being corralled back into the thread cabinet.

They're sneaky.

And well camouflaged.

Sometimes you feel like a nut

 

Somtimes you don't.

IFJM starts today.  Everyone remain calm.

in my head

these things

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