Gone To The Beach: 04.25.2022

Monday, April 25, 2022

A Gift from Afar and Some Little Paintings

Hi everyone! Another cold grey Monday here. Mo and I are waiting for the groomer and her spa van. Before I begin, here's a couple blog / Blogger bits of business.

Blogger has changed commenting format. Pls be sure your comment is typing before you expend a lot of effort.

And second, for my quilting friends, I promise I will do a quilt post soon, maybe end of the week? The finishes are on their way home from Lori C in Ohio, ooo the thrill!

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shells in the photos are mine, collected here and there.

Imagine my excitement! I won a prize in an Instagram photo competition. It was the sweetest, most gentle, thoughtful challenge, by Audrey @weepeaceofnature aka @oldnewvintageandblue [her personal page]. I love her writings and poetry and nature photos, so was very intrigued by her contest. She explains her ideas far better than I can so I'll let you read some screen shots, below.

I submitted a variety of photos over the week of entry [dandelion clocks are, btw, the single fluffy dandelion umbrellas, that blow in the spring winds, each carries a single seed.]. Upcycle, beachcombing, weird found objects, but I won for my new quilt label which features a dandelion seed umbrella, symbolizing my shared love and good wishes to the quilt or other objects' recipients.

I didn't know anyone in the UK to give my prize to, so pretty much begged to receive at least the pin and small poem/ wish.

@weepeace of nature generously braved international mail and my gift arrived last week. So thoughtful, so carefully presented. I'll treasure it always.

I made this scribble doodle collage to digitally send as a thank you. The words by me are from a writing exercise about ''mindfulness''.

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A couple weeks ago I had a run in with a woman on IG, who was scathingly scornful, along with about half her many! followers: "faux spring branches? Why? When just outside your yard and woods---and the markets--- are filled with fresh real plants.'' NO amount of explanation---we don't have flowering trees, we have snow; it's illegal to cut branches in parks and dunes and public spaces; market branches, if even available, are very costly and messy. On and on. Pissed me off so bad! So smug and entitled. You know what, everyone does not live in a big house with a big yard in a flowering woods, in warm Georgia, in March! Yeeesh. Surely my silk forsythia branches with their burst of happy sunshine yellow are not all THAT tacky, a harmless indulgence that I can afford? How rude. And they wouldn't find my weird object silk flowers from the street gutter amusing at all. So different from @weepeaceofnature, for example.

I had to unfollow the page before I got insanely troll-y. Yes, I know, ignore, please myself---but it really irked me.

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This past week's tiny paintings recap: @roomportraitclubweek 62. This week we were offered, I think, 4 scenes, all close up tablescapes, not really rooms. I did two views, cropped, both in watercolor and on the computer Draw program I have.

The first photo is to remind you just how tiny the watercolor cards are. Blog friends Julie and Penny have told me not to be critical of my paintings, hard for me as a work critique is [to me] a way to learn and improve, and very much a part of one's life and work and development as an artist? But I will refrain here, just documenting instead.