merry christmas!

Hope your holiday was lovely and filled with cheer!  I have a couple of hummingbirds overwintering here and they've been delightful to have around.  I've been fretting about them on cold nights but they've been doing great and even made it through a snow storm.  The lights keep their feeder from freezing overnight.

Looking forward to 2014!

Happy Thanksgiving! And a discount for you!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!  Even if you don't celebrate it yourself, it's a good reminder to be thankful, I think :)

I'm so thankful for all the wonderful opportunities I've had in the past year, and all the amazing people I've met online and in person.  So to say thanks I'm having a little sale in the online shop.  Use coupon code THANKFUL13 for a 15% discount from now through Monday.  I'm also doing free gift wrapping for the hand printed accessories in the shop, example above.

Here's to a lovely and tranquil holiday season!

not-quite-spring cleaning!

I decided it was time for a change and freshened up my portfolio site a bit.  It's not drastically different but I like it.  It's the same company as before but an updated version of the software that gives me a little more flexibility in the formatting and such.

I've also been working on getting some shows set up for this year which involves lots of writing emails and reading calls to artists and not so much actual studio time.  I'm back in there now and I'll have a couple new pieces to put up here shortly.

I did a lot of sewing and crafty things over the course of November and December.  I've got to stop making handmade Christmas gifts!  It sucks up all my studio time and makes me a little crazy every year.  I need to pick maybe one thing that's small and goes to somebody who appreciates it properly.  Or skip it altogether...  

And then my January has been kind of a wash too!  We flew to CA to visit family and I always catch something when I travel.  This cold just won't go away.  I had a great time in the studio yesterday and then today I feel like death again.  Can't wait for spring...

Ok, that's enough grumbling.  My fingers are crossed that things will be getting back to normal soon.  

things I've learned in the past week or so: a list.

(Cat included not to show scale but because you can't take a photo in this house without a cat stepping into the shot)

While talking to my mom about my pinhole lens for my digital camera she mentioned she still had some of her old cameras. So when I was home visiting this month I had a look around the basement to see what I could find and possibly use for my own purposes.

The little Brownie Holiday at the top is the camera is the one she used when she was a kid and it appears to be still in working order as far as I can tell. The other two look like they still work too...the Pentax takes 35mm film so it will be easy to find out if it's still working but the other two take 127 film. I assumed that anything I found that took an odd film size would only be useful for looking at or doing through-the-viewfinder images but apparently you can still get film for them online and even still get it developed, although not surprisingly you have to send it out. I think I'll get some film just to see what they can do. This may be a short-lived project since I don't really miss having to deal with developing film now that I have a digital camera but the temptation to try Mom's little Brownie is too strong to ignore :)

So to sum up some things I've learned:

I want to buy film for a camera which hasn't happened in forever

You can buy some really weird film formats online

Film people (as in, people who scorn digital cameras) are kind of scary

My mom keeps a lot of random stuff in the basement

And some things I've learned recently that do not involve photography:

If you think that you can go riding even when you have a miserable cold because once you've gotten the saddle on the horse, the rest should be easy, think again! Once you're away from your handy step to get up on the horse, you have to get on from the ground! And in my case this meant that even while standing on the uphill side to get a better start I still almost didn't make it. Which would have meant walking back to the house.

Double check that your new mp3s actually are on your mp3 player before driving back to your hometown (5 hours there and 5 hours back, for me).

30% chance of rain might mean anything from "a 30% chance it will rain at all" to "it will rain 30% of the time today" to " the air is made up of 30% rain." I had one very exciting ride this week :P

garden interlude

June is rose season around here. Most of the roses are putting out their first flowers around the same time so it's a great time to go shopping and see what you're getting.

I've pulled out a few more big euphorbiums from this bed that died over the winter and the blank spaces seemed like they needed new roses. Last weekend was lovely and sunny (not that you'd know it from these gloomy photos from today) so me and the boy went shopping.

The top photos are of my own personal method of garden design: buy some pretty things that go together and then move the pots around until I like the effect :) I'll leave them in their pots and make sure I'm happy before I put them in the ground. I like making a composition out of the flowers and it feels very similar to putting together a collage - all the pieces are cut out and I just move them around until it all works (I hope).

The roses are (from top): Darcey Bussell (new), Eden, Rose de Rescht, Gertrude Jekyll, and Heritage.

little vacation!

We went to Hawaii with my sweetie's family last week. We got some good family time in - they all live two states away so we don't see them nearly often enough. I played with my new camera and lenses (although I must always add the disclaimer that I'm not a proper photographer). So I took pictures of fishes in tide pools (above)...

...little bitty crabs on the beach...

...and as required by law, I took many pictures of the sunset from the beach.

Of course, now I'm feeling all jet-laggy and weird so I should probably have another vacation to recover from this one, right? :)

tiny birds

It's that time of year again...the garden is growing out of control (including the weeds, unfortunately), there's a horse who needs exercising, and I have several sewing projects to put together for summer.

So there's no art in this post but am I apologizing? I am not. Things happen. It's ok. The only problem is that I tend to post here when I have art to show you so when I haven't been in the studio much I sort of feel like I have nothing to post. But today I am sharing with you some tiny little hummingbirds so I hope that will be ok :) I got a zoomier lens for my camera and I've been practicing on these little guys. Hummingbirds are so tiny I've never gotten a good picture of one before. They're all buzzing around looking for a fight so if you go out in my yard right now you're likely to be divebombed and chirped at within an inch of your life.

new member of the family!

Meet the new member of the family! This is My (short for Marigold, her registered name) and she just arrived this morning. She's not quite sure what she thinks about her big move just yet but she's settling in pretty well :)

quilt

Hello all! I'm dashing off to go to a friend's baby shower out of town and I thought my little quilt I made for her turned out cute. This is before I washed it so it's a tad wrinkly in these shots and let's just say I'm not a quilter at all so you won't be seeing any close-up photos :)

Anyway, hope your weekends were all delightful! I've got another project to show you but it'll have to wait until I get back, I guess.

more books

When my mom was visiting last week she brought over some books that she had found in their basement. If I've ever grumbled about how my parents had books that I wanted to use for art purposes, these are (almost) the books I was looking for. The ones I remembered were in my grandpa's shop/garage and were all old train books. Oddly enough, these are train books from my other grandpa. Like I said, there's railroads on both sides of my family - q.e.d. :)

As far as I can tell, he bought them from somebody at a garage sale or something - Fred Ackerland was the original owner and Robert Houx was my grandpa. Fred Ackerland (or is it Ackerlund?) must have been a teenager or so because there's a ton of random stuff stuck into the books with him practicing his signature. Isn't there a certain age where you are really interested in making your signature look cool?

Anyway, I've only just started scanning things out of these but I thought you might enjoy a small selection. I love that my grandpa left them all in there too.

Oh, and the Ryan Hotel is still there :)

whales

My mom was over visiting last week so I don't have any art-y things to show you but I do have whales! We went out on a boat and saw gray whales migrating past the Washington coast. I've never been out on the water whale watching before - my only other whale sightings were from land so they were not exactly very close.

I love having house guests because that seems like the only time I do things like this. Even though it's not very far away I never take the time to do some of the tourist-y things.

playing with string

I had a sudden whim (prompted by a gift request) to see if I could learn juuuust enough crochet to make a cute creature. Here's what I made - it's one of those learn-as-you-go projects since I hate making practice sketches/stitches/swatches. I'd rather just try it and see what happens - which is why any experienced crocheters out there will undoubtedly see tons of mistakes. It's nice to pick up a project that's low stress because I don't really mind mistakes if it turns out cute :)

The kitties have been also been playing with strings (see what I did there?).

festive

Our tree is up and decorated, and I'm even pretty much done with xmas shopping (although the wrapping is way behind). I try to add a couple new things each year and this year it was pom-poms and sort of Scandinavian looking straw things. The heart above the fireplace is straw and I got a couple little garlands for the tree. The pom-poms are made with this brilliant little item and inexpensive yarn. Full disclosure: making them is very addictive.

October sunshine

One of my projects last week (in between medications and wrapping a hoof and such) was to take some pictures of my pieces framed. Last week was still pretty nice out and sunny, so I wanted to make the most of it. Lucky I did, too, because over the weekend the weather changed and it's rainy and windy and miserable out today.

Anyway, here's what I came up with. It's kind of fun setting up little vignettes out of things that are sitting around the house. The main problem is keeping the kitties from wanting to strut their stuff for the camera and invade all the photos :) I guess that's my fault for setting up in the middle of a warm cozy sunbeam.

Pretending to be a photographer

While Boo's foot is healing, she's wearing a wrap/duct tape boot. It works pretty well but it isn't perfect, so even though I'm making a fresh one for her every day I go out and check on it frequently to make sure it isn't sliding off. So I'm getting lots of chances to take cute pictures with my phone.

I'm not a great photographer but I really like how these turn out. I think I'm definitely getting my $2 worth out of this app :)

Update

Nothing to show you from the studio - my mare has been having some trouble with a mystery lameness. I can tell you all about nursing an unhappy foot but I somehow doubt that anyone wants to hear the unpleasant details :) Let's just say that it's time consuming and kind of exhausting because we're still not sure what's actually going on.

In other news, as you can see from the photo I've been messing around with the Hipstamatic app on my phone. I want to use it a lot because I'm usually too cheap to buy a silly camera effect app that I don't need.

cute

A cute kitty picture on the internet! What a surprise!

I felt like I should share this one because I've been trying for weeks to get a picture of my kitty with her paws up in the air. She only does this last thing at night and I either didn't have a camera handy or if I did, she never rolled over. That's kitties for you :P

I've got houseguests this weekend...back in the studio next week. Have a great weekend, everyone!

I'm not ready for fall

Ok, I know that everybody seems to be delighted that fall is almost at hand...I keep seeing blog posts about scarves and leaves and hot chocolate. To fall I say "meh." I am not ready to let go of summer yet.

I'm still getting used to the idea that I live in a place where it rains a lot. Like really a lot. This year we had an unusually warm January - 50 degrees and rainy. And that is warm, for January. Here's the problem: it was also 50 degrees and rainy for the entire month of June. And it's been hot in spells but not for long. And now we appear to be skipping straight to October.

That horse you see up there? She does not go out in the rain. At all. She will throw an absolute fit if she gets wet while we're out. And I'm not ready to stop riding for the winter yet.

Enough grumbling. I haven't been in the studio much lately - more working on knitting and sewing projects that I can pick away at a little at a time. I keep forgetting to get pictures but I'll get around to it soon, I hope.