As July winds down there is a fragrant haze which hangs in the air which is a mixture of flowers, cut grass and clover hay, moist earth, bird's song and perpetual sun. It promises of even hotter days which are coming in August and this is probably my most favorite time of summer......the last week of July. Today I was up early and was out the door with my camera in hand to document the last hazy Tuesday of July....
Starting the day with nature imitating art.........
And I...............I took the road less traveled.............. on the way to my mom's house.
This is an old general store which was probably operational at the turn of the century in the small village of Hadley in which I grew up in. It's right beside the post office.........just like Mayberry.
I wanted to go up on the porch and look in the window but I was afraid I'd fall through the porch floor........it looks pretty rickety!
The corn is as high as an elephant's eye.........This is the farm where I grew up and where my parents still live. The sweet smell of the corn in tassel tickled my nose and made me sneeze today bringing back memories of when I was growing up I was surrounded by corn and spent most days in a sleepy Benedryl haze!
After lunch it was down to the pontoon to clean it. It's amazing how dirty a boat can get! This is my handsome first mate cleaning the back of the boat!
Then it was out on the water. I got to be the skipper today! God, I love the water!!!
A hazy view from the boat........coming up on the RR tressel.
Going under the tressel.............. those are the railroad ties above us on the bridge.
Ending the day with man made functional art!
A perfect hazy last Tuesday of July 2008.
The wand is also a pre-Norman unit of length used in the British Isles equal to approximately the modern metre, apparently dating from an early use as a yardstick (originally as a generic term). The 'wand' survived for a time under the Normans. Then when the yard was established, the wand came to be known as the 'yard and the hand', and then disappeared, either slowly or by being banned by law. And you thought you were on an art blog.........not a PBS documentary on "The History of Wands"!
Now I can pretty much tell you with great certainty that the wands I make are not loaded with any magic, however I'm sure you can get a prepaid magic loaded card to charge one of these babies up at Wal-Mart. If you do load them up with some powerful magic, I am in no way responsible for people being turned into one of the following: frog, dog do-do or jack-ass. Also I'm not responsible for additional limbs, warts, missing teeth or green hair that may occur from an unruly swipe of the wand.
The two are sister witches and the black cat are slightly raised from the background about an inch. The background is a rich collage of decorative papers, stamps and vintage ephemera.
Even the spine of the book is decorated.
I then sketched the face on a piece of "pumpkinseed" (no joke that was the name of the color) and painted the face with acrylics and Twinkling H2Os.
I then painted the canvas board blue with acrylics and collaged book text painted over with gesso and a wash of light blue paint, glued on the devil and crow and stamped on the Oct. 31st stamp and ta-da!
I hope Heather likes it!
Amazon Garlic Girl!
My husband is a very skilled craftsman with wood. He does it for a hobby. Last summer he made me an awesome paper cabinet and this summer he is making me a new studio station. I currently have an "L" shaped table but the space for storage underneath is open and limited so he designed a new one for me. It will be 7 feet long with a Corian top spanning the 2 towers. He made it out of quarter sawn oak (wonderful grain pattern) and each tower is 42 inches tall (I'm 5'8" and I like to stand part of the time when I craft), and each tower has 3 shelves and 2 top pull out drawers. I'm so excited! I just spent the last 2 hours staining it in the beautiful hot Pennsylvania sun. What a gorgeous day to be outside! Next he'll spray it with a pre
Now my job is to nominate 4 blogs that I think are exceptional and let them know, which is hard because there are so many I like! But here are 4 artists that I enjoy:
This isn't a bumble bee, it's a humming bird moth (it looks like a cross between a humming bird and a moth), at least that's what my mom told me it was! It's smaller than a humming bird but bigger than a bumble bee and very fast!