A New Book-y Thing

Last Saturday at the Literacy event in Sturgeon Bay I was thinking about how many books members of the Writers Guild have and how they'd have trouble fitting on the tables at the
Farmers Market. Then I saw that one of the other book vendors had a metal rack with books in it that displayed more books in less space. Light bulb moment! I took one of my books over to their table and asked if I could see if my book would fit and it did. So when I got home I ordered one and it came today. See how my five titles fit so nicely in there? I can display one copy of each and keep additional copies in a box under the table and not take up too much room. Ah.

I finally got a picture of a squirrel hanging from the suet pellets feeder head on instead of its furry back. It didn't look like there were any pellets left in there but that squirrel stayed for quite a while nibbling and moving around.

Today's drawing is Dino Ride. I like the footprints and the crazy hair of the three dino riders.

The watercolor today is Chicory. It was fun to paint but I wasn't happy with the way my paintbrush made the flower petals. According to the directions the bristles were supposed to spread out and make uneven ends on the petals but my brush bristles kept their shape and made points. Oh well, it turned out okay, I think.

I decided to take a picture of my little Pacific Sunset Maple tree. It's the only tree in my yard. All the rest of the leaves I have to rake come from other people's trees. It has a few leaves that have changed color but the majority of its leaves are still green. Most of the trees in the neighborhood have lost their leaves or most of them except for the two Red Maples down the street. I wish they would coordinate their leaf dropping so I could call the leaf raking guy and get the job done once.

Tonight I signed onto the Ad School website and logged into the Page Pals Zoom to spend a couple hours in silent writing time. I wasn't at all sure that I'd have words today but I had an idea, started writing, and ended up with over 1700 words! Hooray! I've not had much luck writing lately so that many words all in one day is a triumph.

--Barbara

Early Dark

I remembered to change all but one of the clocks last night and spent the day not knowing what time it was. Not only was it overcast and drizzly most of the day but it got dark so darned early I spent all evening thinking it was time to get ready for bed. Did they mean for it to start getting dark at 4 o'clock?

I dived right into watercolor this morning. It's supposed to be Chamomile flowers. You can barely see the petals because they're such a pale gray to take the place of white. I enjoyed making the gray paint. I followed the directions in the book and mixed lemon yellow, ultramarine blue, and burnt umber and it made gray. LC was here when I was mixing it up and she wasn't convinced when I added blue to yellow and got green that adding brown would make gray. But it did. And she said, "Wow!"

When we got back from lunch I pulled out Half Hour of Pencil Power and my sketchbook to draw Aunt Penelope. No, this isn't my aunt, it's the name of the drawing in the book. There was a story of Aunt Penelope attending one of the author's drawing sessions and being very enthusiastic so he drew her. I'm guessing that she really doesn't look like this.

Once OJ and LC were done playing on the Wii (one of the lures of Meemaw's house), they settled down with markers, colored pencils, and blank booklets to write and illustrate stories. I didn't have anything left to draw or paint so I pulled a coloring sheet out of a folder and used the confetti crayons to color this Halloween scene. I love those confetti crayons more than the kids do, I think. It was fun.

After they left I pulled out the second half of semolina bread dough, formed it, let it rise, and baked it. I am unable to leave fresh, warm bread alone. Once again I had bread and butter for supper with a little cheese on top. Mm.

It was a dreary, wet day and the local football team didn't win. But I got to spend a few hours with my favorite small people (who aren't so small anymore), felt good about my painting and drawing, and even managed to go through the critiques for tomorrow's session one more time. All in all, a pretty good day.

--Barbara

A Good Day

Today was the book event for Literacy Door County up in Sturgeon Bay and it was a good day. Two of my writer friends showed up to see me. I hadn't seen them in years and it was just fantabulous to see them and their friends. My two friends bought books and an old dive shop customer bought a book too. Then they needed six books of four titles for store stock so I brought home almost half as many books as I took along. We didn't have nearly the traffic we had last year so it was lucky that my friends showed up. Thank you, AR, MRS, and TR! I really appreciate you buying my books.

I had a scrumptious lunch. It was Korean BBQ on a hoagie bun with kimchi mayo and tater tots on the side. Oh, yes please. I didn't eat the bun because there was so much meat and fried onions that I'd never have been able to eat even half of it.

The birdbath was frozen again this morning and the grass was pale with frost. One of these days I'll have to get out the birdbath heater and get it installed but not the next three days. Because it's supposed to rain for the next three days. And there's a home football game tomorrow afternoon. I can't imagine sitting out there in the rain.

 

I drew a few flowers out of Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers and I chose them because I thought that some of them looked like the craspedia I painted the other day. I don't know what the ones on the right look like but I liked the way they looked too.

 

Continuing the yellow flower theme that seems to be happening, today's watercolor is Dandelions. I seem to be using a lot of shades of yellow paint. They were fun to paint but the leaves were a bit of a pain. I'm not at all sure that I did the leaves correctly but they're green and spiky so I declare them good.

Once I got home in the middle of the afternoon I got online and ordered a wire book display rack that one author had at the Literacy event. There's not a lot of space on the tables at the farmers market and that rack will let me display all of my titles and not take up too much space. And none of my books sold at the farmers market but there was a big fall craft market in town so I'm sure that was big competition for the market dollars. It'll be better in two weeks, I know it will (she says with her fingers crossed).

--Barbara

Not A Bird

I took a picture of something on the suet pellets this morning but it wasn't a bird. It was a squirrel. One squirrel has figured out how to leap from the birdbath to a crook and then over to the suet pellets feeder where it hangs by its hind feet and grabs the feeder with its front feet and nibbles through the mesh. It stays for quite a long time too. I have to believe that it hurts its teeth to gnaw on that metal mesh.

Yesterday I took a picture of the baby beer as it flowed from the mash tun to the kettle for boiling. It swirled and foamed and smelled pretty good. It was a nice brown color too. One of the first steps from water and grain to beer.

 

The next lesson in the drawing book, Half Hour of Pencil Power, was Three Monkeys in a Tree. They didn't photograph very well, but I enjoyed drawing them. They look better in person than they do here. Really.

At Friday Night Knitting tonight I finished the Wool Ease 2 Hour Hat. It only took me three three-hour Fridays to finish it. Like I said, I'm not a fast knitter but I'm determined. Now I have to think of something else to knit. Or maybe I'll crochet a hat next.

Last week while waiting for school to be out I started another washcloth with the brown denim yarn. This week I was working on it waiting for school to be out again and realized that I was down to about half of the yarn I started with but was nowhere near a regular size washcloth. So I started decreasing and it'll be whatever size it turns out to be.

I had company all day today so I didn't write or paint. I did meet GBB at the farmers market booth and she agreed to show off my books and try to sell them. That means there'll be two places my books are available for sale tomorrow. Hooray! I hope the Literacy event in Sturgeon Bay goes well too. Fingers crossed.

--Barbara