Mar31Art

Mockingbirds fighting for territory in my yard this evening, they will work it out I'm sure.  With the woods behind me all cut down, the squirrels and birds are staking out their territories defending their places in the remaining trees from the interlopers moving in. We can learn a lot about the human condition, by watching the animals when resources are short and populations compete for what is left.

Mar30Art

My pink Azaleas are in bloom, so I had to try again to draw the blooms.. it is my favorite azalea in my yard.  Our crepe myrtle is sprouting leaves, but our dogwood is not.  

We spent a delightful afternoon with our friends at a luncheon for Senator Tim Scott.  Good food, good conversation and fabulous weather… a bit windy, but otherwise perfect.  Popped over to visit our friends Dave and Laura after lunch… an enjoyable Sunday from start to finish. 

Ron and I with Senator Tim Scott.

Mar29Art

Spent the morning playing with colors, and then refilling all the pan that were mostly empty… so since I was at it, I drew my compact plastic palette.  I love this little palette, inexpensive, light weight, holds over 20 colors, I like being able to hold it via the thumb hole and it fits into my orange sketching gear bag. What's not to love about it.

Mar28Art

Got out my Spring earrings today, these polymer clay blue birds are a favorite, when I quit smoking I took up making wire jewelry, even dabbled in making Lampwork beads (melting glass with a torch to make beads) for a while.
Rays lost the hockey game tonight, the Komets gave them a lesson in hockey 101 tonight.

Mar27Art

As the day wore down, and I still hadn't drawn anything in my sketchbook, I decided to draw my left thumb holding the book.  Then as a lesson in patience or lack of patience, I tried to add watercolor before the ink dried… so my hands look a bit like Ron's after a day of drilling carbon fiber.

Mar26Art

The chain link fences along the highways here are covered in these vines with yellow flowers.  These same vines appear in trees and bushes too.  I've only seen them at 70 miles an hour, so they are a blur of yellow and green.  They are a sign of Spring none the less.  My sunflower yesterday worked to bring back blue skies and sunshine, wasn't very warm today, but that's ok sunshine is welcome.

Mar25Art

On a gray, rainy day, if I think about and draw sunflowers will it chase the clouds away, and bring back the sun?  Just in case it will, here's my imaginary sunflower.

Mar24Art

When my daughter JeAnna was little, she would not eat beef (she out grew it eventually).  Influenced by tv advertising she wanted to eat at McDonald's but instead of burgers she always got the fish sandwich.  During this fish only period, she really liked fish sticks, those frozen battered no name fish.  Instead of a hotdog, she'd have a 'not dog' a fish stick on a hotdog bun. Not sure what got me thinking about 'not dogs' today, but it's a story her children might enjoy some day.

Mar23Art

We did something we rarely do, we left the game at the end of the 2nd period, at that point the score was 5-1, and when I checked when we got home, we missed nothing at all except aggravation in the 3rd period, because the score did not change.
On a good note we went to La Fontana Italian restaurant in West Ashley, had a bottle of red wine, and two delicious pasta dishes.  Went by the wine store on the way home and bought another bottle of the wine we had at dinner.  Ready to start another work week tomorrow.

Mar22Art

Rays won last night for my birthday, but lost in a shoot out tonight.  They played a really good game, just couldn't finish it off. Nice Spring day today threatened rain but never actually rained. The tulips are in bloom now, I've never tried to grow tulips, I'm thinking I may give it a try.

Two final Bike Week Photos….

There were photographers taking pictures of the bikers, they'd hand you a card with date and roll number, and then you could order prints later.  This photographer got the best picture of all 3 of us, so we bought a couple of his photos of us.

Mar21Art

Happy Birthday to me :-)  Headed out to a hockey game, hope the Rays manage a win for my birthday.

Mar20Art

Did you know that sparrows are endangered?  Their populations in some countries are really decreasing.  It would be a shame to lose these little fellows.  Today is World Sparrow Day… so I had to draw a sparrow.

Mar19Art

Spring is here officially tomorrow, and just in time the sun came out today and the temps warmed up.  I'm so ready for Winter to be over, I imagine folks snowed in still are even more ready than I am.

Mar18Art

The SC DOT wanted to cut down all the trees in the median of I-26, from Columbia to Charleston.  The people in Charleston fought it, so the trees will be saved from I-95 to Charleston… which means the lovely crabapple trees blooming now will be mowed down and replaced by wire guard rail contraptions… what a boring stretch of road it will be then… I predict MORE wrecks due to the boredom and the stupid wires don't actually stop cars from crossing into on coming traffic.

Mar17Art

Back to work for me today, Beau caught up on his beauty sleep, I did a couple of loads of laundry.  We went to Parson Jack's for a couple of green beers for St. Patrick's day… and called it a day well spent.

Bike Week 2014

What an experience Bike Week was, so much fun, so many things to see and do.  Staying in Linda's lovely home, with golfers on the tee behind her house, and a community hot tub and heated pools that made the end of the day a delight.   I did not draw anything on the bike, and at the end of the day was too tired to do much, so I drew a bit in the mornings, picked one of Linda's flowers one day, and stood in the yard to draw the palm trees and the lava rock out of bounds area.  Below are my pages as well as some of the photos I took last week.
                       

Ron at the Florida Welcome Center on Wednesday afternoon.

Me holding Beau 

Ron walking back from the trike

Ron holding Beau                     

Photo of Main Street Daytona as we rode

Bikes on Main St Daytona

Beau riding in style

A view of one parking lot at 'Destination Daytona'

Bikes, bikes everywhere

Ron and I at the Manatee statue… we saw lots of them, but none of my photos of them turned out :-(

Ron and our friend Linda who took us in and was a fabulous hostess for our trip.

Linda took us way down the road to a hole in the wall fish place called 'The North Turn', when the Daytona car races were held on the beach, this is the place where they turned and headed back North.  Great food and a place we'd never have found without Linda to take us there.  That tiny dot over our heads was the full moon that we got to watch rise over the horizon as the sun set.  A perfect end to a perfect vacation.

Mar11Art

Dogs all at the Canine Cottage for the week, except for Beau, at 16 years old, he is too old to put up with that stress, he'll go with us to Florida.  Bags are packed, we're ready to go.

Book 25 Title page

Unidentified flower from Telfair Square in Savannah Georgia last month.  Another hand*book (Global Arts) watercolor journal 5 x 8 landscape format.

Mar10Art

Dug thru the $6 cds at Best Buy and snagged some oldie but goodies.  Showing my age with the music I like, but I must admit there are very few current artists that I listen to at all.
This is the last page in this journal, I'll be starting a new one tomorrow.  I've got to take the dogs to the kennel tomorrow, and Wednesday we head out for Daytona Beach.  Not sure how much I'll be able to post while we're at Bike week.

Mar09Art

Our sugar maple tree is loaded with pinky red seed pods, they are still immature so not falling yet, but they will be soon. The azaleas are blooming, I have 1 bloom on my garden variety purple bushes, and my red azalea is covered in blooms, the white, has nothing and my favorite pink also nothing.  My neighbor down the street has a pink one that is covered in thousands of pink blooms.  Folks Spring is almost here…

Mar08Art

What an absolutely perfect day today, not a cloud in the sky all day long.  We went up to Kelly's Bar-B-Q for breakfast and a little politics on the side.  Then to the mall to get bathing suits for our trip.  A portable satellite radio, we're planning to cancel the contract on the radios in the cars, and just swap the portable radio from cars and/or motorcycle and only pay for one radio.  It is too expensive to cover all our cars, I think Sirius is making a BIG mistake charging the same fee for every vehicle you have, unlike DirectTv who only charges us like $5 for the additional tvs.

Mar07Art

Dinner at Gilligan's tonight, shrimp all around. I had steamed shrimp, Ron had fried shrimp and Linda had a shrimp salad. I got to meet Linda, Ron's friend from high school.  What a delightful lady, I'm so glad I got to meet her tonight.  Looking forward to staying with her in Florida next week.

Mar06Art

I must have a glass of red wine every night before bed.  It helps me sleep and helps my sketches to be loose. Really rough drive today in the pouring down rain… I really hate driving in the rain.  Saw lots of folks on motorcycles headed to Daytona… I really felt sorry for them because it was raining hard and COLD all day today.  I hope they all made it safely to Florida.

Mar05Art

I LOVE pecans, they are my favorite nuts, followed by peanuts.  So at your house are they called PUH-CONS or PEE-KAUNS.  I was obviously raised in a mixed household, my grandmother called the PEE-Kauns, but my mother called them PUH-cons… l usually say the name the way my mother did, but the further South I go, I can call them PEE-Kauns.  However you say it… they are very good.

Mar04Art

Wish I was in NOLA tonight…. let the good times roll… Carnival in Rio maybe… COLD day today in Charleston, I don't think it made it to the promised 43 degrees, the best I think it did was 35.  The good news is, it'll get warmer every day this week and we have a great weekend coming.

Mar03Art

Winter will return tomorrow… UGH… will this winter EVER end?  Some fantasy flowers to entice Spring to come and stay for more than 1 day.

Mar02Art

We took the new bike for a spin today, gorgeous weather, didn't even need a jacket.  We went over to Mt. Pleasant to Jack's Cosmic Dogs for a hot dog for lunch and the pink blooms on the crab apple trees were just beautiful.  I've got a busy week ahead, so I enjoyed the sun and fun today.

Mar01Art

I checked this sketchbook, and while I only have a few pages left there isn't one drawing in this book of my palette.  I use this business card palette almost every day, and for sketchbook pages, the little pans hold enough paint to last for several weeks. I actually own one of these silver plated business card holders, and have used it for years.  I love this clever design of the holder for use as a paint palette.  I'm not affiliated with the inventor/seller, but I'm a big fan of her product and would highly recommend it.  Here's the link to purchase this palette http://expeditionaryart.com/shop/product/pocket-palette/