Painting Practice

I decided to practice painting birch trees today so I taped a piece of watercolor paper to a plexiglass board, sketched in some trees, land, and water, and got busy. My sky and water are too pale, I think. The color barely shows and there IS color there. I masked out the birch trees and like the way they turned out. That bent one looks weird but I'll straighten it out next time. I don't know what happened there.

 

The only thing the mail carrier brought was a little cardboard box from Journey Arts with three tubes of paint in it. I've bought paint, paper, and palettes from Cheap Joe's Art Stuff over the years and was sad to learn that they went out of business at the end of last winter. I'd gotten a few of my favorite color paints from them and thought I was out of luck. Until about 10 days ago when I decided to google American Journey paints. There they were! So I ordered a tube of Skip's Green, one of Red Hot Mama, and one of Taylor's Flamingo. I mean, who wouldn't want to paint with those last two? 

 

A Robin spent time poking and pecking around under the feeders. I keep hoping to see one pull up a worm but I've only seen that once and didn't get a picture of it, dang it.

 

More Stella d'Oro lilies for your viewing pleasure. I'm waiting for all eleven plants to have flowers on them at once so I can take a long shot of the whole retaining wall.

 

And Dad's roses are still showing off. I took a little sniff tour of them today and can honestly report that each one smells better than the last one. So sweet, so rosy.

 

I cut and pasted a couple chapters of Sailing the Seas, the manuscript I'm working on with cda, and realized that the two chapters together were 42 pages. Waaay too long, especially for "one more chapter" before bed. So I spent the afternoon rereading them and dividing two chapters into four. Much better. Much easier reading. 

 

OJ's soccer game tonight was pretty much of a rout and they weren't on the winning side. But they played hard and will give it their all again on Thursday. We went to Smart Cow which was close to the soccer field for frozen yogurt to console the feelings of the player we love. I think he might have had more toppings than frozen yogurt in his cup. I just had chocolate sprinkles and boba on my chocolate and peanut butter yogurt. I was restrained.

--Barbara 

Squirrel's Back

Only this time it's a juvenile squirrel that can't figure out how to get to the seed in the square green feeder. It spent quite a bit of time leaping from the back of a patio chair to the top of the feeder, leaning down looking at the seed and the perch, and then giving up or falling off.

 

This is a terrible picture, but in the center is a brown and beige smudge that is the back of a hawk in the tree. It flew over the yard being chased by a bunch of smaller birds that kept mobbing it and generally throwing a fit while it sat in the tree until it gave up and flew away. 

 

The male House Finch posed on the square green feeder in the sunshine so its bright head and breast were shown to their best advantage. He didn't visit the orange or the grape jelly...

 

But the female House Finch (or a juvenile) had a nice grape jelly snack a while later.

 

I am crazy about these ostrich ferns. They spread underground and are moving around the flowerbed, crowding out other ferns, and shading the peonies. I couldn't even see if a peony bloomed there are so many ferns in front of them.

 

Today's drawing is a Daffodil. I know Daffodil season has passed, but it caught my eye and I thought I could draw it and not screw up too badly.

 

Like I said the other day, the Stella d'Oro lilies are exploding into bloom. This plant has about ten or so flowers in various stages of opening or closing and more buds than I could count. Well, that I stood around counting. I could have counted them if I'd stood there longer.

 

Today's easterly breeze brought the fragrance of Dad's roses to me here at my desk this afternoon. It's a much more appealing aroma than Burger King which is also borne on the wind, but from the west. See, there's a Burger King a block away and I'm downwind when it blows out of the west. Sometimes it's almost impossible to resist the allure of charbroiled beef, but I manage.

 

I took a little walk today but I'm impatient for my physique to catch up with my imagination. I imagine that I can walk without huffing and puffing and having my lower back ache, but so far I can't. I am not giving up. I can tell that I'm a little better and maybe by the time I go back to The Clearing in October I'll be a lot better. If I don't give up, that is. But I won't. Promise.

I worked on a different short story today before critique Zooming with cda this afternoon. I might have finished the story today. Maybe. I'll have to reread it tomorrow to see if I'm right.

--Barbara 

I Got a Lot Done Today

My to-do list kept getting longer today but I kept up with it and got it all done. "Blog" is the last item on the list and here I am. I took a walk. (notice my socks don't match) That got crossed off. I washed the sheets. Crossed off. De-stemmed and washed the grapes. Check. Ran the dishwasher. Check. Wound the antique clock. Crossed it off.

 

Today's art is another watercolor of Iris. Actually there are two of them, one big and one small. They each have their good points but I think I'll post the big one tonight. I like that I thought to add leaves to them. Makes them look a little more real.

 

The writing today was working on a short story that keeps getting longer. Maybe when I figure out where it's going I can cut some of it and make it shorter and stronger. I do tend to run off at the mouth, er, fingers.

 

A Downy Woodpecker was back on the suet cakes. I can't say if this is the same bird coming day after day. It's the same kind of bird but whether it's the same one, that I don't know. I like the way it blends into the suet cakes and the grid of the feeder.

 

I was lucky enough to catch sight of a Chickadee and quick enough to nab a photo. It isn't a great photo but it's a photo of a bird that's tricky to get a picture of.

 

Last but not least, there's Dad's roses. They're exploding into bloom. I'm especially enamored of this cluster of flowers and buds that I think looks like a bouquet. For a fleeting moment, the breeze carried the fragrance to me here at my desk. And they smell soooo good. 

 

Wherever you are, thanks Dad, and happy Father's Day! This is Dad with his little brother Walt in 1944 when he was in the navy. Doesn't he look like just a kid?

 

Happy Solstice! Today is the longest daylight day of the year. From here it's all downhill as far as hours and minutes of light goes. Too bad we aren't having a beautiful sunset to commemorate it.

Edited to add: We are having a beautiful sunset! I saw it out the west window coming back from the kitchen. It's not the greatest picture but it's better than nothing. 

--Barbara 

No Squirrel Today

Only birds. The most interesting birds were these House Finches that visited the Oriole feeder. No Orioles anymore, they've moved on, but the House Finches love the orange half and grape jelly. I was lucky enough to catch the male flying up to the grape jelly while the female waited on the orange.

 

Then there was this Robin prospecting for tasty morsels under the feeders. I watched until it flew off but it didn't pull up a worm.

 

And a Downy Woodpecker visited the suet cakes for the third day in a row. It didn't pose as nicely today as it had the last two days but it was good enough to be posted.

 

The Stella d'Oro lilies are still blooming mightily and not one flower to a plant anymore but many on some of them. This is just one of many, some coming, some going, on one plant. If you look closely, you can see yesterday's flower shriveled up in the lower right up against today's flower.

 

I'm watching this Dad's rosebud, waiting for it to open. I'm tempted to cut it and bring it inside so I can sniff it whenever I want to but then it won't last as long so I'm going to leave it on the rosebush and go outside to sniff. No one will notice if I'm outside sniffing flowers a few times a day, right?

 

Today's experiment in painting Iris was not as successful as I'd hoped. I fell back into my old habit of not waiting for one step to dry before adding the next one, not even using my fancy new heat gun. I'm such a disappointment to myself sometimes. I guess I'll paint an Iris again tomorrow and try to do better. Probably should have done a big one and a little one like KA had us do in class last week.

 

Both of the Book Funnel promos I joined the other day have started a day early. One is called Beach Reads and it's a sales promo for ebooks. Follow the link to check out what's offered. 

And if you're an audiobook listener, like I am, this one's for you. It's called the Official Soundtrack of Summer. There are over 50 audiobooks on here, 5 of them are mine. Click the link to check out the list.

There. Earlier I listed the promos on Facebook and now the links are on the blog. I'll include them in my July Writing Progress Letter and a couple more times on FB. I wonder if I can list them on Instagram. I'll see. They're both sales promos so no newsletter signup is required, just an opportunity to buy ebooks or audiobooks. Marketing, it's never ending.

--Barbara 

The Daily Squirrel

Every day I see the same thing. A squirrel hanging by its back feet, wrapped around the suet nuggets feeder snacking away. I don't know if it's the same squirrel every day or a different one. They all look the same to me. I have to remember to go to the birdseed store tomorrow for more suet nuggets.

 

A Downy Woodpecker visited the suet cakes for long enough to have a picture made. It didn't really pose but it did move from the back to the side so I could see the whole bird.

 

More Dad's rosebuds with more to come. I love watching them open and flood the air with perfume. Dad would be so proud. I just wish I knew what variety rose it is. I know it isn't Mr. Lincoln, that one was Grandma Angermeier's favorite rose. But I'm sure it's an old rose, not a modern hybrid because no one bred the fragrance out of it to get color or habit.

We had a wonderful afternoon. LC had summer band camp this week for the first time and today was the concert. It was at St. Norbert College in DePere and it was just great. First came two jazz bands--younger kids, then older kids. They were pretty darned good. LC was in the World Music Band which played marimba, drums, bells, and those gourds with beaded nets around them. She had a marimba solo and then played the bells which were metal cones joined at the narrow end, played with a wooden stick. Then all of the campers took the stage in the Concert Band which played patriotic music in honor of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It was a rousing end to a wonderful afternoon of music. We went for ice cream afterward, as you do.

 

Most of the morning I spent uploading audiobook mp3 files to Book Funnel which is another site where I can sell my eBooks and audiobooks. I joined two Sales promos; one is Beach Reads and the other is Audiobooks--Official Soundtrack of Summer. Both of them start on June 21 and run into late July. I'll promote them both on Facebook and my newsletter email list and maybe on Substack, although I don't think Substack is a "selling" site so maybe not. I got all of the files uploaded and then tried to listen to a retail sample. It was playing but I couldn't hear it. I sorta panicked, poking buttons and jumping to other sites to see if there was something wrong with the files. Turned out I had the volume on my laptop turned down. Once I realized that, the problem was solved. Sheesh.

 

The Stella d'Oro lilies are still blooming strong. I love seeing those yellow flowers every day. 

 

I keep seeing a baby bunny hippity-hopping across the patio. Well, this evening I realized that it's two baby bunnies. One of them was sitting in the grass preening its fur and then not too long after that I saw these two reclined in the grass nibbling on clover. Sorry it's blurry, I took the picture through a screen.

 

I didn't do any art today. The only art was music at the concert. The rest of the day I did battle with audiobook files and setting up special pages that let me sell and join promos. I thought I had all of the pages done yesterday but it turned out I had to do a separate page for each format. Luckily I remembered how I did it yesterday so I just knuckled down and tackled the problem. Maybe tomorrow I'll draw or paint.

--Barbara 

Smells So Sweet

Dad's rose is blooming. The first bud opened. I saw it when I went out for the mail today and snapped a picture. It's beautiful and red and smells great. And there's more to come!

 

On top of the retaining wall in back, the Stella d'Oro lilies are blooming too. It's surprising to lookout and see so many flowers on one plant. Maybe it's all the rain we've been having that's encouraging them to pop out more than one flower at a time. They're small but pretty.

 

There were too juvenile squirrels wrestling on the patio this morning. They were too fast for me to take their picture but one of them sat in the shade of one of the birdseed cans thinking deep thoughts and waiting for its opponent to return.

 

I wish the perennial purple salvia was more visible. It gets lost in front of the tall, wildflowers that pop up behind it.

 

This morning I went down to Zambaldi to visit DS. He was cleaning one of those big big fermenter tanks in preparation to filling it with the hazy IPA he was brewing. He was making a small batch--only 300 gallons. We went out front to check out the hops vines he's growing up sisal rope to try making a leafy pergola over the end of the patio. This is the second year for about half of the vines and they're growing like weeds. It'll be fun when they get bigger and thicker and make shade. 

 

Today's art was another tulip painting. It's a fast and easy one that KA taught us last week. The paper I'm using isn't the high quality stuff I used in class. It buckles more when it's wet, but it's okay for the quick, fun paintings I'm doing.

 

And I got a new art toy! It's a heat gun that takes the place of using a hair dryer. One of the students last week brought a similar one for us to use. It dries paint a lot faster and it's way quieter than a hair dryer. I'm gonna really like it. 

 

This afternoon I had a Zoom with KM, my assistant. She helped me make Universal Book Links for my books so that I can enter them in sales and newsletter promos on a website called Book Funnel. I found a "Beach Reads" eBook sales one that I entered Anneke's Legacy, Island Dreams, and The Seaview in after our meeting. Yesterday I found one for audiobooks. Now I have to find it again so I can list some of my books in that one. Doing Book Funnel promos is a pretty painless way to market my books.

OJ had a soccer game this evening and I got to take him because his parents were both working. He's a great kid and ran his legs off. They don't have too many kids on the team so most of them end up playing the whole game. Their team didn't win but I think the ref was a little biased. Turns out the ref's dad was the coach of the other team. Not saying he wasn't fair, he was very strict, blowing his whistle at every little infraction. I wish I knew the rules better. All that whistle blowing is confusing.

--Barbara 

A Cool Rainy Day

I was lucky that the times I was out today it wasn't raining, not much anyway. I went for a haircut this morning and the stylist was running late so I sat around with a wet head for half an hour. She hasn't sold any of my books but I could tell that people have looked at them because they were rearranged. And while I was there I got a call that my credit card had been hacked. Thank you very much. Now I get to go to the hassle of changing my credit card in all the places I use it automatically, like PayPal and Amazon.

 

A Downy Woodpecker surprised me by landing on the square green feeder this afternoon before it started raining. It was either a female or this year's hatchling because it didn't have the red swoop on its head. Then it flew to the suet cakes and finally to the suet nuggets. I have a picture of it in every place but I'll save the other two for other days.

 

I wasn't in the mood to do much art today so all I did was draw one little bee. I say that the bee is my spirit animal because my name begins with a B. 

 

The squirrel was back on the suet nuggets. It leaps up there a couple times a day for a nibble and sets the suet cakes feeder swinging from jumping off of it.

 

I scheduled another Substack post today and worked on the short story I started working on yesterday. I don't know where it's going but I'm just happy to add words.

 

Tonight I went to KE's to knit with friends. It's her birthday today so we had that Penne a la Vodka, salad, and garlic bread, with carrot cake for dessert. We even knitted. I added rounds to the Antipasto Chemo Hat. I don't remember how long it has to be before I start the crown decreases but I know I'm not there yet.

 

Now I'm going to close this and hit the hay. I can't stop yawning and my toes are freezing. Time to tuck into my warm bed and go to sleep.

--Barbara