It's Green and not even St. Patty's Day

The end of January is almost and positively here.  Sorry January you are usually brown and grey and cold  So I try to think of a cheerful color and green was the winner this day.   I know when I think of Green it is St Pattie's Day with the luck of the Irish and maybe a little Leprechaun at the end of a rainbow with a pot of gold.  But wait that is in March and when the green beer is served.  I guess I am getting ahead of myself here.  

When I started painting this next background I just saw a tube of green and cobalt blue paint and started playing and paint was a flying. One of my shirts proudly show the battle scars of the paint.    All random strokes painted and to the tune of some pretty song and Criminal Minds on the TV.  Yes both at the same time and with sometimes our fur babies laying at my feet giving me the stare that dogs give us when they really want a treat and look like they have no friend at all in the world.   Funny what I paint to now, pretty music and the TV going full steam ahead.   Well now I do mix it up sometimes and watch NCIS also.  

I created a wonderful swirly stamp I made  with rubber bands, my new best art friend and used my brushes and puncinella ( aka sequin waste) and just played to my hearts content.  Then when it was done I thought what in the world am I going to do with this?   Well guess who chose to appear ?  I call her the Brazilian Mardi Gras girl.  Pretty and sassy and lots of personality in her headdress. 

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO here she is.    

Hope you like her and the ribbons of color in her hair.  What am I going to do with her?  Don't know but she was fun and danced across my page.

Thanks for stopping by and seeing what is going on in my world today.  Hugs xoxo

Color in the Sky, Ground and Paper

Alright I had said ugly things about our sky and weather the other day, I do hope Mother nature didn't mind to much but it was true and the sand in the air left for today. Maybe.   That is another wonderful thing about West Texas, our weather changes almost hourly.    So I was up day before yesterday as the sun rose.  Now that may be front page news because I rarely see these phenomenons.  I kid you not.  Sometimes I think the world should not have to function til 10 A.M.  Now I know a lot of you and hubby are early birds but I can be if I have to but 7:30 a.m. is early enough for this Texas gal.    Well once while in my photography business I did get up, got ready and photographed a couple like at 7 A.M.  Special duo to us but guess it was love for them also.  When I helped hubs at the farm I got up early but not the happiest camper in the world but sometimes you have to do what you have to do.  Now sometimes we would get up around 4 A.M. and move water lines but that was before our wonderful circle systems came into our life.  YEA !!!!! 

This is a sunrise out our back door, taken from inside of course.   In the summer the tree is just to full to see it from this view.  A Tequila sunrise possibly? 

Same sunrise just a few steps over.   It is funny how quickly sunrises and sunsets change as the clouds  move and the earth twirls.   All the pretty purples, reds and oranges in them.  Lots of color here. 

Now also yesterday it was close to sunset, that I see and am up and certainly chipper.  Looking out the front window there were literaly hundreds, I kid you not, of Robins.  Big, pretty and hungry Robins.  We had run the water to settle all the dirt in the grass that had blown in  during the dust storm.  We stood and watched them flying in the air, filling one of our trees and covering the ground.  I suppose after watering it washed something in the little trench between the concrete and the grass.  We looked this morning and it is picked clean. 

Now after watching them for a while, the movement of our bodies scared a lot of them off but just thought you would like to see some of the brave ones that stayed to dine.  It was a grey day yesterday evening but you get the idea.

Their colors were really pretty and they cleaned out the little trench. 

One more image of them.  You know cameras and the fingers they just don't know when to stop.  

One good thing about digital you can see what you photograph right now, but you know there is something to say about film.  You compose the image correctly in your viewfinder, send it to the lab to print and get it back and you have a perfect photo.  Not spending lots of time in front of the computer.  Just my thought on that topic.

Now on to the art part of the blog.  Now you know I have taking some FREE classes from Strathmore and Traci Bautista has been teaching it.  Well this is the last week for her class sadly to say and just had to share my first Glam Girl.  Talk about letting loose and having fun.  That I did.  Not sure what I am going to do with them but doens't matter at this stage in life does it?  Just creative juices flowing and your muse let loose.

I started with one of the backgrounds I had done last week, I didn't care for it so thought what the hey if I mess it up I mess it up.   I have painted in with some gesso I had tinted first and then glued some doodles on  the background secondly.  Just wanted you to see where I was going with this. 

Here she is  Glam Girl all doodled up.  I did get carried away but my muse kept saying go with it girl.  So I did. 

There you go that is what is going on in my world right now.  Thanks for stopping by and see you soon.  xoxox

60 Miles an Hour and a Tad of Art

I know it is winter in a lot of the world but today looks like a good ole West Texas day in the Spring.  Spring should be a doozie with no rain and lots of dry red dirt when it blows in here.   The sienna sky , sounds like a pretty color but not good for the sinus or can you imagine the messed up hairdos?   The flags fly out straight and you acquire leaves in your back yard that are not yours.   Little whirlwinds gather at your back door and the assorted leaves just dance around like they are thinking this is so much fun.  60 mile per hour gusts are a tad windy but we I would suppose we get use to them.  Or at least tolerate them.  Now mind you I didn't say we liked them but we get them all the while. 

Here is a quick shot outside our back door.   Now you ask why in the world do you live there ?  Well we have a lot of good friendly people  and that counts for a lot.  You will meet no strangers here in West Texas and we don't have big traffic jams either and we can't forget the wide open spaces where you can see the sun set and rise.  The song from Roy Rogers of Don't Fence Me In  is one that I always think of.

I took these off of the weather channel, it was showing some scenes around town.  The visibility is pretty good for a sand storm like this.  

A scene on the interstate. 

Now just a thought off the top of my head but don't think this little shed was tied down well.  Wonder how many times it tumbled?

In my art room where is is calm and nice and cozy I create and play and be so thankful I don't have to be out in the wind.  When we are at the beach  we don't mind the wind but do you supppose it is the location that makes our mind think like that?

One of the Mandalas that I painted at the beach.  On watercolor paper and I used the  Neocolor II watersoluble wax pastels.   Carran D'Ache ones are small and in a cute little tin.    It is the container that counts doesn't it?  I used them with a paint brush and water , like wet brush to the end of the crayon method.  I think you are really suppose to color the paper and then add the water but it worked that way.  It maked the colors deeper my way.  I sketched it first then lastly went over with one of my black Pitt Pens.

My fairy I did in the calm of my beach trip.  I haven't put wings on her yet but did enjoy the watercolor this way.   Is it perfect ?  Nope don't think so but that will come with practice practice.  

There you go now you know what is going on in my world today.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.   See you soon. xoxoxo

Mad as a Wet Hen

Do you ever think of WHAT IF?   You know what if something didn' happen the way it did would it have panned out a different way?   So many thing in life just follow a path.  I wonder at times what fate has in store for us and guess life would be dull if we knew ahead of time. 

Now what if we hadn't been in San Angleo Texas at this particular time in our life?   Here's the little story I had thought of ---we were in our van, when van's were popular.  We were always hauling kids of all ages, our daughters and their friends around taking them to Six Flags over Texas, the beach, ball games, in fact when we traded it off for my little wonderful red sports car our nephew said we needed to put the van on blocks and make a shrine out of it.  The van held lots of fun memories.  One daughter use to take it and a crew of friends to the movies quite often.   Anyway we were going thru San Angelo and just outside of the town cars were pulled over and a stock trailer was also pulled over and the back gate was open.  We stopped and wondered what was going on?  Well, hubby got out to see and then very soon he jumped back into the van and  said a bull, a big one, was out and wandering around the highway.   Well just a few seconds WHAM the bull head butted us several times.  I do believe he was mad as a wet hen. Well if they got mad when they were wet, but a good saying anyway.  The bull was  really mad and our van looked like the one he would take it out on.  The only damage to our van was the outside wheel cover had a nice rounded dent in it.  Now the bull?  Bet he had a massive headache, if they have headaches that is.  They finally rounded him up and got him back into the stock trailer. Even after we drove off he was running at us trying to get us one more time.   It was something for us to giggle about and certainly a memory we would not forget.  Now what if we hadn't have been there ?  Would the bull have head butted some little compact car and really hurt the people inside or tried to take on an 18 wheeler truck and hurt himself?   You wonder how things would have turned out differently.

Now another question in my mind is would hubby and I have met if he would have not moved back to Seminole when he was in the 5th grade after living in Portales New Mexico for a year?  Would he have gone into the Navy with a couple of friends or been drafted by the Army (beginning of the Viet Nam era)?  Would we have been soul mates for 51 years if my Mother would have taken my little brother or one of my other siblings  to live with her instead of me?  I think somehow or another we would have met, it was fate that we were to meet and be together.  Makes your imagination go kind of wild there doens't it?  Many stories could have evolved there. 

How about if I had entered the contest from artfullymusing earlier or later and not won a prize.  I am not a prize winner, yes in life I am I feel, but prizes from contests ?  Nope -nada- no. 

BUT 

look at what I won.  It came in the mail today.  In a pretty red envelope, I looked at the envelope,  you know how you look at an envelope like it is going to say "I know what is inside and you don't"  hahahaha.  You all have done it I bet.  I carefully opened it and here was the wonderful prize.  An ATC of some of Laura's beautiful work.   I think I have looked at it and touched it til it is worn out and examined it carefully. 

So if I hadn't entered when I did I would not have been a proud owner of this New Years Girl.  So many thanks Artfully Musing.   You made my day.

There you go this is what is going on in my world today.  Thank you so much for stopping by and more in a couple of three days.   xoxoxoxx

Luck and the Frozen Tundra

Now what do y'all eat for good luck at the beginning of the year ?  I could almost bet, if I was a betting woman and I am, that everyone has some sort of tradition at the first of the year that will bring you good luck or prosperity. I guess our main one is don't take the Christmas tree down before the first of the year, but that isn't food is it? My Mother, being from England always said that.  So it is certainly a tradition we observe.  Only took it down once before the first of January and will never do that again.  EVER.   One tradition that we do for luck and prosperity is eat some black-eyed peas on New Years Day.  Ugly little things but with ham and a few jalapeno peppers they are tasty. You can also add some cornbread and you are good to go. 

 I went on wikipedia to find out something about the little peas and of course there were lots of words and paragraphs about them.  The main little paragraph I was looking for is that the tradition dated back to the Civil War.  Now that is before I was born, believe it or not.  It said when the Union troops, especially in the areas targeted by General Sherman,  didn't say why they picked on his area though.  Anyway the soldiers stripped the countryside of all stored food.  At that time the Union soldiers thought the black-eyes peas were food for animals and didn't take or destroy them.  Good for us because they aren't bad to eat. 

Here is a photo I got from Simple Daily Recipes, just thought I would show you Black-eyed peas.  Just in case you were wondering what they looked like and it ever came up in a conversation. 

Now one thing I wouldn't do is put them into the frozen tundra if you have any leftovers.  Now what in the world is that you ask?  Ours is disguised as a freezer.  You put "things" in there to save them for a later date, then you go back to the tundra and you look for the "thing".  I do believe they hide in there or morph into something else and turn into some dried up looking mummified piece of stuff,  something that you carefully wrapped,  dated and labeled.  You look at the package and think what in the world is this?  I am sure no one has done that ever.  You know thinking about it there was a movie I went to in the early fifties and they have had a remake of it since, but it was called---- THE THING  and was in a giant block of ice.  Do you suppose ?  Naw surely not.

There you go that is what is going on in my world today or was on my mind anyway.  Thanks for stopping by.   Catch you later .   xoxoxoxox 

Explore !!

Hello and hope all have a great 2012.   Here we are into a new year with hopes and dreams of what will come to us.   I feel in my heart it is a year of change--maybe the on going of the Aquarius age. 

My friend Bev had a word for this year--Contentment.  She is gracious enough to share it with me as a good friend would do,  but I thought you know I want to grow and explore this year also.  Trying to catch up with her and several other  artsy friends means get with it Annette.  So how about grow I thought?  Well, have to be careful about the words we pick-grow-now that could mean several things.   Like grow the hips?   Nope not that word.  WHEW almost did myself doom for the year.   So I thought how about Explore?   Explore in Art, explore techniques in Art ( guess that is the same thing ) and also explore in traveling.  to name a few.   Now a Lewis and Clark or Christopher Columbus I am not, had you fooled there didn't I?  We do like to wander and explore when traveling, not so much for the shopping, which we do little and I mean very little of that.  Just to discover the country sides of where we go.  Simple things like that and being us as we go.  So my word for the year is Explore.  There that being settled on with something arty I am exploring. 

Strathmore offers free and I did say free online workshops.  This year one of the instructors is Traci Bautista.  I had never heard of her but she is a good and pretty teacher.  Her four week class is Doodles Unleashed : Mixed Media Techniques.   I have watched the videos and thought OK you like to doodle so off I went.  Paint, pens and markers just dancing across the page like my Muse was taking over.  Layers and layers of paint and marks.  Even my tee shirt I was wearing got into the picture of painting, it proudly wears some pink paint. 

Here is a section of my first doodle.  I didn't have all the supplies but did just use what I had.  It was fun and I think you could use sections of the whole  piece for other work additions.

One more cross section of the main painting doodle.

It was hard for me not to let loose and do more of my pen line drawings-tangles but tried just to let loose.

The final piece of art or doodle.  I can see so many things in it, guess like looking at all the shapes in clouds.  A tad colorful but might have gotten that out of my system but kind of doubt that. 

There you go, that is what is going on in my world at the moment.  More to come and thanks so much for stopping in and seeing what is going on in Annette's World.  xoxo