Wienie Roast!

Went to an old fashioned wienie roast last Saturday. To protect the innocent, I won't name names, but this is a good way to share photos with them. It was a cold night with warm people.

Cincinnati

Didn't take a single photo on my day trip to Cincy today. Cincy is on the Ohio River. The leaves are only just beginning to turn. We ate a very late lunch at a restaurant right on the picturesque river. --- It was a work trip and was very good, though my back ached from the non-ergonomic conditions of the inventory I conducted. My co-workers are fantastic people and good at what they do. (Much like most in my old job, which is very heartening to me.) (Hey! Who on earth uses the word 'heartening'? Where did that come from?) We learned a lot, such as how to make our own situation ergonomically correct and able to facilitate the best work by the short, the average and the tall. My co-workers received many vicarious compliments on their facile grasp of the new concepts. Yay, team! (Funny coincidence...I headed the Purple Team at my old job and I left with us as top performers. This new team at the new company is ....the PURPLE team! I had nothing to do with it, but it bodes well.)

Boss is out the rest of the week, but I will have plenty to do nonetheless. For one thing, I will explore the entire (huge, old) building - and locate the TP to replenish the private room - as I am the only woman in the testosterone-rich office setting.

Forgot something important - I need to have Friday, November 20th off as I will be attending a watercolor workshop in central Indiana with my good friend Donna that day. Oops!

An old wedding set

Forgive me for cleaning up my files. I had never posted this set to my website and ran across it this week. This lovely bride had me letter the return address, the response card and envelope, the invitation and envelopes.

Copperplate tidbits

Here are a few small pieces I did this week in copperplate. The piece on ships had to be lettered twice (one on top of the other) because the first white lettering sank into the paper. The Oprah quote is one I lettered much larger several years ago. I hope to do a few more little pieces this weekend. Head start on Christmas gifts or an art show I plan to do next year. It's been a long time since I've lettered just for the fun of it - and I'm loving the feel of the pen on the paper.

Diana's Sandi Goddess

My friend Diana came over this morning and asked me to take some photos of her latest piece. It's for a woman named Sandi, and the form looks like a goddess to me - therefore the name of today's blogspot. It is a full sheet of Stonehenge paper - about 30 by 22 inches. (The white at the bottom is a separate piece of paper, not part of the piece.)


Here is a photo of the entire image, but because much of the lettering is in pastel colors and some is very small, I am also including some detail photos of some of the areas. The quote is a Nancy Woods poem about writing her life in the stars upon the universe...very pretty. There are some small jewels in the sky of the painting along with the name Sandi debossed into the soft-bodied Stonehenge paper. Some shiny parts are due to collaged-on gossamer paper. It looks more like simply texture in these photos, but in person it is very striking.

ET Wedding monogram

I did this wedding monogram of the bride and groom's first name initials a few years ago. Just found it when I was looking through files for something else.

A Pear is Like a Lady

Thanks to Georgia Deaver for supplying me with this quote. I'd painted some pears in the past, and when I saw the quote I knew I wanted to put them together. Today I did this little piece in calligraphy on watercolor paper and added a pastel drawing of a pear. It's my first rough for a larger piece.

Bees!

Bees are swarming on my hummingbird feeder. Yesterday there was a mound about the size of a 50cent piece. Today it's at least double that size. They're really emptying the feeder. A friend told me last week that she'd like to have a beehive...she's welcome to the bees! These photos were taken through my kitchen window screen. Sorry, but I didn't want to risk being stung. I'm not National Geographic photographer crazy.

Painting today

I began a new set of paintings today. They started out white...gesso and paint mixture. Added pastels in three colors. Added more gesso and acrylic to add some tone to the white. I will wait to see what they tell me to do next. These photos are a little dark.





I am also experimenting with the pair of orange paintings I did a few weeks ago. I want to add some bright, bold blue to spark against the orange, but am taking it slow to see where it needs to go. I have varnished them and they look really good without the blue - but I keep thinking a spot or two of blue could make them better.

Took care of legal things today and shopped! Bought a new red leather Fossil bag at Dillard's and a beautiful new suit jacket in browns and black and gold at Stein Mart. Bought some new canvases too...have to have the raw materials when the painting bug hits!

One door closes, another opens

(A doorway in Savannah)


Left a (stress-filled) job that I loved and some great people on Friday. No more driving across the bridge to Louisville every day. No more seeing the progress on the new arena being built next to the Clark Bridge everyday - if I was even in town, that is. Will miss my clients and teammates and others, but new, exciting things are happening. Life is unbelievable!





A new day has begun. Got a new job on Monday that I know I will love and will love me back. Exciting times! They wanted me to start today, but I am taking two weeks for R & R to prepare for the demands of my new role(s). One door closes...another opens. (Actually had two good job offers yesterday. Unbelievable! I chose the one I knew I wanted, which is basically being created as we go.)



(Another Savannah doorway...steps to climb!)

Celeste - my little mermaid - is 20

One of my sweet and beautiful nieces turned twenty on Saturday. Here are some photos. Family is good.


Birthday Girl - Celeste.


Celeste, Natalie, Andrea. My beautiful gurlzz.


Jim and Mom.


Celeste with Dee.



Here's the cake! Mmmm Cheesecake Ice cream cake.


Sisters/Moms.


Celeste and Andrea. My gurlzz.


Andrea and Dad.


Andrea and Grandma


Lovely Natalie - look at those eyes!

What a Life!

What a life Maximillion lives! Here he is curled up in his favorite chair. He has grown so much. And to think the vet told Steve that he wouldn't get very big! Ha!



One recent Saturday as I was crossing the bridge back home from Louisville I saw many sailboats on the Ohio River. I went home for my camera and snapped several photos. Here are a few of them.







This ladder on the rooftop of a building downtown always makes me wonder if it's for breaking in or for breaking out. I prefer to think of it as an escape.



The two matching buildings are part of the Galt House complex that overlooks the river at the foot of Fourth Avenue. The closer one in the center is on Muhammad Ali (the street, not the champ.) I like the window.



And last but not least, here is Maxi with his favorite toy - a rubber snake.



Today I made several birthday cards to round out my exchange. I can't share them until the end of the year, but I'll try to do something I can share with you soon.

Yesterday I stopped at Aunt Chris's cute little house on my way home from work. I took her some dinner and cleaned her bed and bedroom. I brought her draperies and bedspread home to wash, so I will probably stop there again on Monday to deliver the cleaned spread and hang the clean draperies. Maybe I'll bring more of her draperies home on Monday. My new washer is fantastic!

Changing art scene

Ha! These two paintings looked very different when I showed them to Diana on Sunday. They were almost monotone. Not much tonal variation. They were at the starting point and fairly placid looking. Not so now! All the black is the new part. Imagine these without the pop of the black paint. Boring. Pleasant, but boring. I think they look like a Mars sunset now. How did that happen? It was nowhere in my consciousness or plan. I wanted 'pretty'. This is only an interim stage, and I wish I'd photographed the beginnings. They will change again. Stay tuned. Hopefully the end will be an improvement.

Enough Labor! Heading to Labor Day

What a week! Work was Cra-Z. Met Laurie D and Steve S for lunch on Tuesday - a much-needed dose of camaraderie and goodwill - not to mention artists' companionship. Thursday was an off-site meeting with a client meeting thrust into a priority position. Friday another stressful meeting - same client. Much needed party-time with friends at Laura and Rob's yesterday - cookout, corn-hole (Hoosier name for backyard beanbag game), and then Yahtzee, which I hadn't played in nearly a lifetime. It was fun. It was good to see Jaco and Mariana, and good to spend away-from-work-time with Diane and Mark, Laura and Rob.

Early this afternoon I met Diana - freshly in from Florida - for a walk in the park (literally.) The Canadian geese have taken over the park since I was last there, and dweebs are not cleaning up after their dogs on the walking paths. Yuck. We critiqued each other's art projects, did two laps around the lake and then had salads for late lunch at Applebees. Celeste, my lovely beautician-niece, has just left my house after cutting my hair back short again.

Tomorrow I plan to work on my pair of orangey-hued paintings, incorporating some of Diana's suggestions and letting them simmer in my brain a while longer. I bought Pat Conroy's "South of Broad" the other day and may begin reading it and save the remainder of Barbara Walter's surprisingly good memoir "Audition" for my travel reading this week when I will be in Missouri and Illinois. Will also prepare for my trips, but other than that I'm planning nothing for this day even though there were some really enticing coupons for Michael's art store in today's paper.

Will post photos of the orange paintings whenever they are completed. It may be months. Time flies, but I don't.

Maxi is growing!

I knew it! I knew he wasn't going to stay little. He went to the veterinarian today for the remainder of his shots and he has gained 8 pounds! He may gain up to 10 more, probably will max out at 35. Big tall guy, he is. Long legs.