It Was a Great Week!

I had a fun (and tiring) week watercolor painting at The Clearing in Ellison Bay, Door County, Wisconsin. We painted morning and afternoon with the teacher and then went back to the Schoolhouse to paint without her after supper. By yesterday I was pretty much exhausted and my paintings that day were the worst of the week, even worse than Tuesday's tulips. They're supposed to be hollyhocks but the blooms aren't big enough and they just look like dots. Not my best work. In the afternoon KA showed us how to paint conifers at my request. I think everyone else just did their own thing but I practiced and the one tree painting I had time for turned out pretty well. The page in my sketchbook isn't as good but I'll keep practicing. I'm stubborn that way.

 

Our instructor, Kari Anderson, brought in a basket of her fused glass pieces yesterday and let each of us choose one. Naturally I picked the one with the red glass in it. I need to find some fishing line or a chain to hang it somewhere in the light. Isn't that a cool gift?

Last Sunday while I waited around for time to leave for The Clearing a Bluejay flew down onto the ground under the feeders and stayed long enough for me to take about five pictures. This one is the best.

When I got home today I saw that all of the grape jelly was gone from the Oriole feeder. I was afraid that meant that the Orioles wouldn't come back but I filled the jelly dish anyway and when I came upstairs from carrying my suitcase down I saw a female Oriole on the feeder. She flew away as I reached the top of the stairs but I'm so relieved to see her at all. I put out a new orange half too.

When I got home this morning just before lunch I looked out the patio door and saw that the iris buds from last week had burst into bloom while I was gone. Many of the stalks have tipped over from the weight of the flowers but just look at the line of blooms. Beautiful!

And the yellow iris are blooming too. All of these flowers are on the part of the retaining wall that's behind the rental side of the duplex but they're still my flowers so I get to take their pictures.

Next to the iris is a purple/blue perennial salvia (I think). They're okay looking, not as flashy as I'd like but once again I didn't choose the plants, the landscaper did. They're the wrong color and wouldn't be my choice. Ah well, I did let him pick, let him plant them, and paid for them so I have to shoulder part of the blame.

One of the most exciting aspects of last week was that I sold six books. Six! One of the other watercolor students bought one of each title, another bought Horizon, and one of the poets bought The Seaview. And I swapped two titles for these books from two of the poets. One is a book of poems about Moby Dick and what comes next, and the other one is a Young Adult novel. Pretty cool, huh?

On my way out of Ellison Bay this morning I stopped at Kick Ash which is a coffee shop/gift shop/bookstore. They make amazing granola so I bought a bag, found some scented gel pens for LC and OJ, a packet of small napkins, and a pair of earrings. 

 

I bought earrings at The Clearing's bookstore on Thursday afternoon when we don't have class but I'm wearing them so I didn't take them off to take their picture. They're a square of brass with a tiny leaf dangling in the center and a blue gray bead hanging from the bottom. I also bought this 5-Minute Watercolor book thinking that it'd give me some tips. I've paged through it and think it's interesting. Further study is required.

It was good to be away for the week even though it was only really warm enough to not wear a hoodie one afternoon and it threatened rain a couple days. We had a big thunderstorm blow through one night but no severe weather and no tornado. Thank heavens because we'd have had to go into the basements under the cabins and they look like breeding grounds for giant spiders and platoons of mice. No thanks. There were five of us who had been in class together before so it was fun to get reacquainted.

Doesn't it seem too early for Memorial Day weekend?

--Barbara