Junkin in June

More washi tape, from my favorite source Pixi's in Gilbert, IA. I have to admit that keeping a personal journal has become a lot more fun now that I've started incorporating all of those elements I've been collecting, but had no place in my regular artwork!  

Picked these up from one of the vendors at JB Knacker in Gilbert, IA this afternoon during their annual Junkin in June event!  

My watercolor issue resolved now that I've been reminded that I own sets of Caran D'Ache's Aquarelle watercolor crayons as I wasn't looking forward to replacing 20 year old dried up tubes of watercolor paints anytime soon!  Now that I'm using my aquarelle's again I can take my time and buy the colors I need preferably on sale as sets or as single tubes.

Water Heater Woes

Well the water heater died sometime between last night and this morning.  I was a third of the way through my shower when I realized that the water was getting colder, NOT hotter!  It's rather cold here in Iowa in February and while yes the house is heated, I gotta tell you a cold shower in the winter is no fun!  It was a quick shower.


So this afternoon's activities involved going to Lowe's, I needed black duck tape for a journal project, so we could look at water heaters.  There's a LOT of choices out there on the market right now like do we want 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60 gallon unit, do you want it to be energy star ok I thought they were ALL energy star now but apparently not, what kind of warranty do we want, so on and so forth.


We came home w/o a water heater, no suprise there right?  I will be making some phone calls tomorrow morning, in addition to cleaning out the laundry and furnaces rooms to make way for the new unit, and the eventual removal of the old unit.


Until then it's sponge baths and cold showers!

Journal Cover

Went to Lowe's today to find black duct tape, and a new water heater, I found red duct tape with polka dots and no black duct tape.  The story about the water heater will be on my other blog.

I love the polka dot duct tape, my only complaint is that it doesn't come in the yellow, orange, or apple green, only red.  Oh and I still want some black duct tape for another project that's currently in progress.

Now all I have to do is go to Staples and pick up one of those ring binder doohickies for my journal pages and I'm set to go.  I have a back up plan, just in case I'm not able to find the ring binder thingy, I will add grommets to the front and back covers and then add some of those big rings thingies for the pages and dividers.  

Over all I'm quite happy with this project, it's been helpful in putting together my new business plan, my overall mission, and how I hope to get there!  I still have gobs of questions I don't know how to answer and will be thinking about those as I clean out the furnace room this week, in preparation for the removal of the old water heater and arrival of the new unit!

Birds and More

Getting ready for my Open Studio, for Art Crawl Iowa, in October. 
Ink on watercolor paper.

And then some down time with some hand carved and mounted stamps.

Ink on watercolor paper.

Bjorkboda Marsh 060613

Near Bjorkboda Marsh in Hamilton County.

Native prairie plants at the marsh.

The marsh has water once again, it took a LOT of rain for the water levels to return to normal.

Livestock Tank as Raised Vegetable Bed

Got these lovely livestock tanks this afternoon from an old friend of John's.  They are delightful in their shape, patina, and the fact that they will keep my madder root contained!

In addition to the livestock tanks, John also got a yard of composted horse manure for our gardens.

He's beat from all of the shoveling and moving of topsoil and manure, but I'm thrilled to have everything in place for the growing season!  This weeks forecast is rain, rain, and more rain.

All three beds are now dressed with composted horse manure.

Experiments in Sketching

Layers of ink, water color, and pen on watercolor paper. Inspired by Lascaux.

Drought at the Marsh

This is the lowest I've ever seen the marsh before.

Redneck Bird Bath

Or shabby chic bird bath either way it's WAY hot outside right now so don't forget to water our feathered and winged friends along with your plants!

Garden Update 060912

Praying for rain!  Just finished watering the garden, by the time I was done it looked as if I hadn't even watered.  Tomorrow I'm putting down the final layer of heavy mulch along with the seaper hoses!

My grapevine has grapes on it for the first time in 8 years, mainly because the neighborhood thief didn't shear it off to the quick this past winter!!!  Yes I actually have someone who has been coming into my yard and cutting back my vines, and then stealing them!!! 

Anyway, we'll be putting netting on the arbor this coming week to keep the cardinals, and other birds, from stealing my grapes.  Mainly it's the cardinals that have been causing problems, they did a pretty good job of stripping the cherry tree that's just behind the grape vine, and the cherries hadn't even turned red yet.

En Plein Air Painting

I spent some time on the porch capturing the colors of the crabapple trees.

Color Pencil Redux

I moved my watercolor pencils out of their larger tin and seperated them by color ways into tin mugs, I'm not sure if I like this set up yet or not, well I do for the greens and yellows.

Plotting and Planning

Plotting and Planning.  John signed off on my moving my studio into the Living Room, and even possibly the Dining room some months ago and I had been dragging my feet... BUT NOW I'm hearing that the rain Iowa has recieved in the last three years will now become common place and I really don't want to have to move my wet studio up from the basement every year... it's very tiring and is extremely stressful.  So, I am thinking of moving those elements upstairs and moving my design studio from the second story down to the living room and this part of my life can now exist in one room, instead of spread out here and there.  Pictures coming and soon.

WIP - Girls of Summer

WIP - Signs

WIP - Still Life No. 1

Detail of Still Life No. 1

Drying

Painted watercolor paper that has been glued, with gel medium, to a piece of ordinary plywood.  I may come to regret having used ordinary plywood in the future but for today's sample it will be fine.

I'm waiting for the gel medium to dry! Dry times are the hardest part about mixed media and my work shelf is currently unavailable, its one of those black wire shelves, actually dh combined two of them for me, that has 9 shelves that are approximately 7 inches apart.  So now I wait for this piece, and several others I have in progress, to dry.

Still Life

An impromptu still life I set up this afternoon, in my wet studio.  I"m not used to painting flat other than fabric so I sat to paint the apple it worked out pretty well in the end, I'll finish the apple painting tomorrow.

Birds

More Bird Paintings -- WIP - watercolor and gouache on acrylic paint.

WIP - Paint on Paper

WIP - Oil Pastels on water color paper that was painted with Golden Acrylic Paints. I'll let the oil pastel dry overnight and lay down more color tomorrow.