Three Faces of a Fairy and when is a cup not really really a cup?

Hello there, February is coming to an end.  Wonder if this Blizzard we just had was the going out like a lion that in my world the ground hog predicted?  Me thinks so.  It was a hum dinger I can tell you they even named it Rocky.  

 

A quick glimpse of Rocky in our backyard.  Not to fret, today it was sunny and all gone except in the corners of the yard with 3-4 foot drifts.  Now it did uproot some trees around town and close down the interstate yesterday.  I think because the temp before it started it was in the 70's and the ground was warm.  But in West Texas we can have this one day and beautiful weather, like today the next.  I think Mother Nature just likes to play with her power here and then go on elsewhere to show what she did. 

Now I know lots of young ladies AKA spring chickens and a few of us old hens don't cook as much as we use to.  When I first married over 52 years ago now, I really really didn't know a lot of cooking terms and doings.  I kid you not,  but learned as I went and still learning.  Love the cooking show, just to watch and sometimes even trying recipes out.   When I first started cooking I didn't know the difference between a cup or a cup.  To me when a recipe called for a half of a cup I thought a cup !!!! You know the kind that you drink hot tea or coffee out of.   Then one day I was at the grocery store and lo and behold what did I discover?   You guessed it-----a measuring cup.   Like a light bulb came on or a shining light from heaven beamed down on it saying "here I am Annette---I am a cup"  

 

 

 

Now as you can see there are many different sizes of cups.  Big, small, skinny and very round.  It does make a difference when measuring I can swear to that one.

 

 

TaDa a measuring cup.   Funny how the textures etc of my cooking made a difference when I acquired one of these wonderful treasures.  Oh what will they think of next?   Butter in a tub?   Whip cream stuff in a tub?   Oh the wonder of science. 

 

 

I bet you remember the little fairy I sketched off a post or two back.  Had fun with her and thought why don't I copy her off and then preserve the original and play with her attitude in different colors.   It is indeed how the color changes give her different looks.  I tried my best not to make her look realistic.  I will play on canvas with some of these and just see where she and my muse takes me. 

 

Soooooooo here she is all three of her.

 

 

This little red head was first, she was the journal size 5x7 ish.   Loved doing the red hair .  She looks a little feisty doesn't she? 

Here she is more flowers and looks pretty sweet she is a little larger than the journal page. Now her face may look like it has the mange but I think I got a tad to much watercolor and the paper pilled up.  So I kind of sanded it, gessoed it and then more paint.  So now she looks embarrassed or maybe to much sun?   



Now Miss Purple here, she just came out and wanted to be a little more daring with that purple hair,  I guess I could have made it magenta like mine was one year but purple seemed to fit her little attitude.    Again I tried my best not to make real looking.  Just a playful little fairy. 

 

 

So here they are my little fairies.   Well the ears are a give a way or a Vulcan  like Spock from Star Trek but they don't have big eyes like this so we will go with fairies.  

 

 

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

 

XOXOXO

Annette

 

 

It's Around the Corner

Yikes I just saw that I have not posted in a while.  Where has the time gone?   Here it is the middle of February already.   OK now I am not sure but we here in the north part of the equator are I do believe ready for SPRING !!!!!  What do you say?    do I hear YES !!!!!!!

 Enough of the snow and slushy nasty stuff that follows the pretty white and clean snow.   How about some spring showers, nice and slow, to bring May flowers?   Course that time is year is when we get lots of hail storms also.  I did mention to God that when we moved in this house  it had a polka dot roof.  I kid you not and I said I hope we get a hail so we can get a new roof.  I did forget to say for one year not two years.    I may be jumping the gun as they say but I am ready for Spring and our sand storms and all.   Now I know you will remind me when it is over 100 degrees that I was wanting warmer weather, but that is why we have air conditioners isn't it?  

I looked to see what I had on the computer or  card of something cheerful so this is what I came up with.  

 

the "monster" plant that tricked us into re potting it.  I received this little innocent looking plant  probably back in 1992.   Well it grew and I felt sorry for it and  I re potted it.  Little feeler roots coming out of the pot.  I felt so sorry for it.    Then the nursery said don't ever re pot them because they will take over.  Well it was whispering to me when we put it in the "Tropical Hideaway" for the winter and said--- I need re potting.  This thing gets giant in size.  Eldon AKA  DH uses a dolly to get into the back as it is.   So it will be placed here in probably May after any threat of a late frost or freeze.    The fur babies self water thingy stays out all the time.  This is the best invention since light bulbs. 

 

 

A Summer sunrise here, with out our nicer lawn chairs that got beaten to a pulp by the hail.   The rug I painted survived.  Well I think with 2 gallons of Kilz on it and 2 gallons of paint it is indestructible.    But we have seen it blow over half way with the gentle winds.  That takes some doing let me tell you.

 

View from our bedroom, well not in February but in the summer.  We can dream can't we?

 

 

 

 

Our view this morning, back to reality I guess. Nope no snow just DH forgot to turn off the sprinkler system so it looked like snow.   Funny, when Libby came out of the "Tropical Hideaway" she started barking up a storm.  She was protecting us from the ice trees.  She was in serious protecting mode.  

 

 

Back to reality.  Do the kids in your area wrap trees and houses?   We have a young teenager next door and I do believe they get wrapped nearly every weekend.  Yesterday morning it was heavily wrapped but the wind has blown a lot of it away.  A lot of the times we hear lots of giggles and activity next door at the wee hours of the night.  Probably little girls at a slumber party saying lets go wrap L's house. 

 

 

So there you go,   not real earth shattering or anything like that but a wishful thought or two about Spring.

 

Thanks for stopping by to see what is going on in my world today.

 

XOXOXO

Annette

EARLY DRAWING AND THE WINNERS ARE ---

The drawing has been held a little early for unforeseen circumstances.   So here you go my dears.   I will mail them off probably next week.  

                                                        THE WINNERS ARE:


                                                   Carol-Beads and Birds

                                                                    And

                                                            Lesley UK

the drawing was very high tech, I wrote the names on paper-folded them up, threw them on the floor and Eldon, Dear Hubby, picked two for me.  

I do not have your addresses so please in the comment section provide them for me.  No one will see them but me because I have to approve each and every comment ( to many spammers saying not sometimes not nice things ) and I will just write the addresses down and delete the address in the comment station. 

Congratulations my dears and thanks to all who entered.  I will have another drawing soon.

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



                                                                 XOXOXO
                                                                 Annette

did the Night Fariy eat the Cupcake?

Hello February.  Today was sunny now I am thinking that the Ground Hog sees his shadow and runs back into his hole so that means 6 more weeks of winter.   I think!!!!!!  At least in our part of the world it was sunny.   Good job he doesn't live in our back yard though, the fur babies would chase him off.   That means yard work is just around the corner. 

Well if I would have looked at the calendar I would have noticed that Ground Hog day was the 2nd of February.  Oh well I was close and as the saying goes a day late and a dollar short.  But not the dollar short just a day late.  I bet the Ground Hog did his thing anyway.  LOL   I had a wonderful friend, who went to heaven years ago said to me one time if you don't make mistakes you are not human.   So I am HUMAN !!!!! Whew got that one settled.  

I have been playing with the art journal this week and just playing is the word.   I did one with cupcakes, yum and no calories.   Using molding paste and rolled up tubes of paper I had made with my Gelli plate. 

 

The top left is on an 8x10 canvas to be hung in the newly painted bedroom.   I chuckle when I see this because I use to think an 8x10 was giant.  I know it isn't but I use to think that.  Now my art journal, where you experiment techniques is bigger than the canvas.  Ok enough chuckling Annette get down to business here.  Now the magazine image is what inspired me from Diane's beautiful work.   Thanks  Diane for getting my muse to working.  

I got this inspiration from Diane Salter in the Somerset Studio magazine.   Love those magazines, lots of talented artists and they share their work so freely.   Here is Diane's blog and her pretty work.


In my sketching I did a little fairy and  her eyes grew  ( better to see you with my dear, like in Red Riding Hood ) so I figure she is a Night Fairy.  Bigger eyes can see better at night.   Right?   Soooooo in another magazine from Somerset--  apprentice-- an artist  Anne Le Toux shared how to made a transfer from a picture.  She used a magazine photo I think and I had sketched this fairy so I just used her.    I had forgotten to say that I took my original sketch and ran it thru the copy machine that was left over from my business.   I used just thin copy paper.   Now I have printed her off on watercolor paper and that stuff, 140 lb. is so thinck that I think if I tried the transfer on that it would take me two weeks to rub all that paper off.  I'll try a small image on just copy paper from my printer.  It is ancient an Epson 2200 which is still a fantastic printer but I can still get all the inks and it works great so it is sticking around till it croaks.   After doing the transfer,   Gel Medium on her face, stuck down on the paper, dry totally and then spritz the back of the "glued down" paper and rub till your image  appears and it is transparent.  A few years ago a person I once knew showed me how to do this technique but I had forgotten about it.    I then used water colors and painted her little face and it has pages showing thru, makes it interesting.  Kind of like a ghost showing thru.  I was going to do it on the right page but  but a good fairy does not look to the left.   No reason just Annette reasoning.   Then I just played with the pages.  

 

Here she is guess I need to name her besides a night fairy.  

 

 

 

A close up of here, now she might look like she has a disease on the right side of her face , well on all of it but it is the underlying pages and paper peeking thru.  Like the ghost from the past or something like that.    Molding paste makes good texture for the butterflies. 

 

A close up of the opposite page.   

 

There you go part of what I have been up to this week.  Playing just playing.  Now I did have to work today!!!!! DH was repairing a light in the fur babies Tropical hideaway and I held the fluorescent tubes.   Not a hard job but they were 96 inches long so a balancing act maybe.  I couldn't do my usual messing and playing around with these things they are so fragile.  But I thought it.  I could be a tight rope walker but if I showed him that and broke one he might not smile just kind of patiently look at me and we would clean it up and go get another one.  

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

                                                         XOXOXO
                                                         Annette