:) My Garden - A Love / Hate Relationship

I LOVE our great big tree; it provides the perfect spot for my little red bench.

I HATE that it casts a shadow on the garden all morning.

I LOVE our seeing our beautiful deer.  They're welcome to enjoy our yard, our woods, and our pond.

I HATE that they don't understand that they are not welcome in the garden.  (Too bad for this poor little sunflower that decided to grow outside the cage.)

I LOVE Robert the one-eyed guard owl who I found on a "serendipity walk" through the woods near the lake where my family has an annual family reunion.

I HATE that he doesn't scare the squirrels or the birds or Pounce the cat who loves to roll in the soil, squash little sprouts, and chew on bigger plants.

I LOVE my marigolds that line the perimeter just like I remember from my Grandma Tallent's house.  Their (stinky) smell is supposed to keep out the bugs and bad creepy little things.

I HATE (That's not true... I LOVE)  my aluminum hanging pie tins that my husband says add a redneck flare to the garden... maybe that's why I like 'em!

I LOVE that my cucumbers are climbing.

I HATE finding a big, fat snozzcumber that hides under a leaf until it goes way past ripe.  (I hope this use of vertical space cures that problem.  I should be able to see them all since there's no place to hide.)


I WISH the cantaloupe would take a vertical lesson from the cucumbers...

I LOVE that jalapenos are so prolific and make me feel so successful and that my cage-fence idea kept the okra safe from the deer this year.

I HATE how cutting jalapenos leaves my fingertips burning unless I wear a glove.  And, I hate the snotty slime that comes with cutting up okra.




I LOVE that I have several different kinds of tomatoes and they all look a little different.

I HATE... nothing... I love everything about my tomatoes.


I LOVE my little herb garden.

I HATE that I don't really know how to cook with fresh herbs...

I LOVE that I have a garden.
I LOVE that I'm a farm girl at heart.

Journals

What's so special about these three books?

I first "finished" this painting four years ago.  Then I put it on a shelf and considered it a failure.  I loved the sunflower that I'd cut from my garden.  I loved the journals.  I hated the painting. I'd notice it every few months and think about painting over it.  I needed a 9x12 canvas the other day, and didn't have one.  

I looked at this one a long time... Should I paint over it?

It was like six separate items with no connection between them... a foreground, a background, a flower, and three books.  Was that what had been wrong all these years and months?

I didn't want to change anything about the books, so I'd just have to tie everything back to them.  

1st -I used a purple wash over the brown table to tie in with the top journal.  

2nd - I used the colors of the bottom journal to create a new background.  

3rd - I decided the leaves and the green journal were pretty good partners.  

4th - Then I just had to get to get rid of the yellow flower.  I made it a purple; t blended with the top journal and made no sense.  I added lots of reds and pinks; it was ugly.  I added the rosy red and orangy color of the bottom book and made extra middle petals to make it kind of mum-like.  

5th - Finally, I got brave and stuck a little but on the leaf that I accidentally put in a weird place.

AND...  Yea! 

So, What's so special about these three books?

The bottom one is my journal.

The green one is the journal I write to my son in.

The purple one is the journal I write to my daughter in.

I started keeping diaries when I was a little.  

These are my diaries from 1973-1983.

That little blue flowery one was the first.

Starting in 1977 I rarely missed a day.

These are my journals from 1985 through the one in the painting.  I don't write daily, but I'm fairly consistent.

(Yeah, I realize 1984 is missing... I was engaged... too in love and busy to bother... but I do have a box of love letters, so that year's not completely lost!)

I also keep a journal for each of my children.  Each has one that goes from birth through elementary school, another from middle school through high school, then the two in the painting.

These are for specific reasons, mostly from my years of participation in the National Writing Project.

Pretty cool, huh?

Original Oil Painting on 11"x 14" Wrapped Canvas
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Sweet Blossom the Possum

Would you like to meet my alter ego?

This is her!  Her name is Sweet Blossom the Possum! Sweet Blossom was a darling little creature - practically perfect in every way, but oh, the things she had to deal with!   


And, what a lot of adventures she's had!

When my kids were little, we had our normal bedtime ritual, and part of that ritual started with, "Tell us another story about Sweet Blossom the Possum!"  

Ha ha ha... It still makes me smile.  Whatever was going on in our lives... that's exactly what was going on in Sweet Blossom's life.  I'm telling you, I think my kids were in junior high before they caught on! (Ok, maybe not that old, but...)

Let's see the comparisons:
I had a talkative daughter = Sweet Blossom had Trudi, Judy, & Beauty who, although they were three, always acted as one.
I had a younger, kind of shy son = She had Buck.
I had a little dachshund = The possum family had a lizard.
We lived in a two story house with the kids' rooms upstairs = The possum kids had their spots on the higher branches.
If we had company coming, so did they.
If our dog had to go to the vet, so did the lizard.
If our family had a trip, so did the possum family.
If we had something crazy happen at the grocery store, it happened to them at the creek.
If my kids had messy rooms, Trudi, Judy, Beauty, & Buck had messy limbs.

And whenever Sweet Blossom's name was used, it was always preceded by flowery adjectives. (Precious Sweet Blossom needed... Darling Sweet Blossom thought... Delightful Sweet Blossom discovered... Amazing Sweet Blossom found...)  

Once we "met" the REAL Sweet Blossom. I wrote a story about the time (totally and completely true) that Precious Sweet Blossom got trapped in our garage for a couple of days.  She tore open the garbage bag.  She crawled around on the shelves and broke canning jars.  She knocked over rakes.  She eventually found a fairly cozy spot in our Christmas tree box.  And, I wrote the whole story from that Daring Sweet Blossom's perspective.  

Here is an excerpt from that story:
(This is when she made the decision to go into the garage and got into the trash.)

She moved one foot, another followed, then another.  Before she knew it, all four feet were on the gray hard ground, the man-made ground.  She crept closer.  The smell was coming from a big black bag.  She stopped.  Waited.  There was no sound.  Her tiny, pink nose twitched.  Her long, white whiskers twitched.  Her paws began moving again.

The temptation grew too great!  Curious Sweet Blossom forgot her caution and jumped.  It was easy to rip through the bag.  Once inside she discovered sweet things, sour things, crunchy things, and salty things.  Precious Sweet Blossom, who had always been so neat and tidy, lost all self-control.  She licked, chomped, and chewed until she could barely move.  Taking a deep breath, she sat back and began to groom her paws and whiskers.  It was then that she noticed she was sitting in a pile of clutter.  She couldn’t possibly rest in this jumble of papers and cans, but she was so full, so tired.  Waddling to the other side of the big room, she settled for a short nap.

Weary Sweet Blossom awoke with a start to shouting voices of the family who lived in the house...

Teaching Little Fingers to Play

Do you remember this book?

If you're from my generation and you took any piano lessons at all, Teaching Little Fingers to Play by John Thompson is in your piano bench.  It starts with songs of two or three notes then goes all the way to "Wigwam" at the end with a chord! Finally there's a certificate at the back... only, unless you were the oldest child in your family, someone else already filled that out with his or her name and tore it out.
I was the fifth child, so all my John Thompson books were pretty worn except this one.  For some reason, our Teaching Little Fingers to Play was worn out, so I got a brand new one.

I kept thinking of this book as I was working on this painting.

If you've ready many of my posts, you know that I love to paint images that tell a story.
This one tells a very special one.

Aren't these sweet fingers?  

Raggedy Ann with Hearts

Have you ever seen a Raggedy that isn't happy?

Of course not!  Raggedies always have a happy little smile!  I found this one at a flea market. She's completely hand made - her clothes, her body, her embroidered face, her yarn hair. Someone worked so hard on her.  I wonder how she could have ended up all alone on a shelf with a $6.00 price tag on her wrist.  No matter... she has a home now.

If you'd like to have her portrait, click Raggedy Ann with Hearts for a link to her listing on Etsy.

To Church We Go... Again

Can I have that back?

That's not a question I often ask after delivering a painting to its new owner... but I did this time.

I already wrote about how I came to do this painting on a blog post from April 5th. The Pop in this painting is my brother; we share a birthday, and I thought I'd make this a gift for him.  As it turned out, my niece (the mother of these two little ones) was visiting when I went to deliver the painting.  To make a long story short, I said I'd just whip up another one... Oh, if only it were that easy!  I always think it will be for some reason

Actually, it wasn't too hard, but although they were supposed to look exactly alike, I liked the second one sooooooooo much better.

So, I just asked for the first one back.

I wiped out the Nana's face and made it fuller which made her look happier.

I straightened her front leg which made her look thinner.

I thickened her back calf which made her stand straighter and look younger.

I added a vertical fold in the fabric of her blouse which made her seem to stand straighter.

Then I went to work on the Pop.

I added some to the top of his head which made his head not look so squished.

Then I went back to work on the second one after seeing what was better in the first.

I added some bright to the sun-side folds of his pants. 

I straightened the roof line of the church.

And I finished out the last tree.

Then I let Pop choose his favorite to take back home.

Which do you think he chose?

Sunset Silhouette

How long does the sunset last?

Actually, I Googled that.  Apparently that depends on where you live.  A sunset lasts between two and twenty minutes. 

I live in a forested area, so we don't get to see sunsets very often.  But, what a treat when you happen to be in the right place at the right time!

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Summer Color

What color is summer?

Summer is greeeeeeeeeeeen! 

And, sometimes in summer we get lucky enough to see lots of colors all in one place.

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Lily

How could I forget this little face?

I painted her a long time ago... back when I was just beginning and learning about teeth and hair and folds in clothes and wrinkles in skin and shapes of eyes and making arms look round.

Somehow she never got to star in her own blog post... 
Better late than never!
What a cutie!

:) My Marcia

My Marcia...
My sister-in-law... my sister-in-heart...
My biggest fan...
My biggest supplier of inspiration...
I will miss you so...

My first Etsy sale as WordWeaverArt... sits in your kitchen window...

My first attempt at a painting a baby... your sweet Abby...

My first attempt at painting folded cloth and adding shaded areas... your sweet Eve...

My first attempt at glass... you said its colors were perfect... it needed to hang in your bathroom...

You loved your giclee for  over a year... Then you saw the original... We traded... I sold the giclee instead... 

That first baby growing up... Your Abby

A housewarming surprise when you moved to NW Arkansas...  Listed as "Feeding the Ducks,"  but I wanted to call it "Celebrating Life" for the good times of enjoying life after chemo...Memaw with her Eve...

Just down the road from you...hung in your living room all year round even though it had Christmas stockings

Your Jacob...

Wearing your favorite blue... bigger now... your Eve...

Although it's still "for sale"... it hangs on your wall while it waits... your Jacob...

Pretty little flower girls... just did it to sell... permanent loan wasn't enough on this one... sold several giclees... original in your living room...

A big surprise... it was supposed to be about the little one... you made me go back and 
un-fix Anthony's pointer finger to paint it with the crook... your Gideon...

Your Leah...

Your Stephen...

Painted once for me... again for her mama... again for her Memaw...Your Leah...

Your Leah...

The picture you always say is your favorite... that you hope doesn't sell for a long time... that you refuse to take home with you because you like to see it when you come here...

How blessed are we to have had you for a sister...

Three Silly Goats Gruff

What made you smile this week?

These goats, especially the guy on the end, have made me smile every time I looked at them.  Once that one, Percy, was finished, it was hard to concentrate on the other two.  He just kept grinning at me and my paintbrush.  He's become my friend, and I just may have to paint him again!

Hmmm... What else...?

• Painting with my Tuesday-night painting friends... It's the best thing ever to have friends who paint together, encourage each other and laugh a lot.
• Watching my 10-year olds work so hard on their state tests... They couldn't have tried harder, and I'm so proud of them!
• Going to our church children's choir spring musical... 
• Seeing the daffodils by the driveway that finally got to bloom...
• Taking a selfie with my momma.
• Seeing the Facebook post of my nephew hugging his little girl on his return from Afghanistan.

A big thank you goes out to "Southern Gal" for letting me paint her goats, Gabby, Gladys, and Percy!  Visit her blog to read about and see more pictures of these goats and their babies.

Original Oil Painting on 12"x 16" Wrapped Canvas
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To Church We Go!

Do you ever paint your family?

All the time!  It's just that I have all these good looking brothers and sisters who've provided me with all these beautiful nieces and nephews who have given us all these adorable kiddos!  

The pop here just happens to be "Little Curt"... only a little older. :)
And the big brother was the star of "Mama's Kiss" a few years ago. :)

This is another example knowing I wanted to paint this from the first minute I saw it.  When my niece posted this picture, I immediately told her how much I loved it.  She told me the picture's story which was even better than I'd imagined.  They were on their way to Christmas Eve services.  My reaction?  "Oh, Katie!  I love that... but do you have to live in San Francisco!  Could we pretend you live in Wisconsin so there would be snow?  Maybe your church could be a little white wood building with a steeple on top? And, there could be twinkling lights in the trees?"  But, no... that's a different story.  I love this one just the way it is.

This is also another example of me getting myself in trouble by trying to change things.  There was originally a large space between them; the nana and the little one were actually quite a bit further behind the other two.  I knew I'd have to deal with the shadows, but I didn't think further.  By moving them closer together, it messed up the placement of where the trees fell. Although unexpected, that one wasn't too hard.  The big problem came after I realized that the two in front were smaller because they'd have been farther away.  Unfortunately, I didn't catch that little issue until after I was quite a ways into the painting... Anyway, after a little time of depression over it, I got back to it.  Some things are worth the trouble.

Although I've never seen this little church, I am so thankful for it.  It welcomed my own "little one" into its open arms when he moved to California last year. :)

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