My Art and Music

On the Nature Trail

Walt and I have actually been traveling a little as the trees are turning locally, and the views are fabulous.

 

One of our latest trips was to the Pontotoc Ridge Preserve of the Nature Conservancy in Southern Oklahoma.  This is a fascinating area as it is a mix of tallgrass prairie, crosstimber, some bottomland forests, and even springs and a fascinating cave that has a spring fed creek. 

It was a beautiful day - a little windy, but hey this is Oklahoma - we know wind!

As always, I love the flowers and although we saw some wildlife, it was the flowers that held my interest.
I have a fondness for prairie flowers.....they are exceedingly beautiful..

....and unbelievably delicate.

They have limited amount of resources, to make the maximum show and make their seeds...

....and to attract pollinators.

This year has been particularly trying as the record-setting heat and dry spell, challenged most flowering plants.

But with a little rain (which we had last week), the prairie comes alive with color and flowers.

If that wasn't enough, the Pontotoc has these delicate orchids, that if you're not careful you can step on.

And it is autumn with all the seasonal color.

The color is everywhere but it's hard to pass it up and no enjoy the natural splendor.

Here's out group trekking on Interstate 40 (the I-40 of the Pontotoc Preserve that is!)

One of our Favs in Yellowstone

The coyote is traditionally known as the trickster in Native American folklore, and you can sure see why when you stop and observe one.

We were on the Blacktail Plateau the other day and one just came up to us, then went out and got some quarry of his own and buried it - first time we had seen that!  Then just as snappy as you please walked over the rise, and wasn't seen again!  Now understand he had a group of us following him and he probably thought he just didn't want to share it just then!  That's just fine with us, we weren't really interested in raw rodent anyway!

But yesterday on the road from Mammoth to Norris, we found this cute guy, and such beautiful color.

Honestly the color on this particular coyote was just fabulous for fall...he had his new fall colors on!

 

Osprey Learns to Fly

We're back in Yellowstone...and just in time...this is the week Ospreys learn to fly and Walt caught one hesitant, but finally leaving the nest.

There's a lot of squawking going on here...this fledgling is NOT wanting to leave the nest - just cause everyone else has.....

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Aaaah - Mom has been to the grocery store for some fresh fish (the Yellowstone River just happens to back up to the Osprey family's back porch!!!)  Mom has already eaten the head and taking the rest back to "junior" at the nest!

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Just a snack before the first flight.  Amazingly enough, most naturalists who film birds of prey say that they discharge their waste before they fly, making themselves lighter.  Obviously this is something this fledgling hasn't learned yet.

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OK - time for a little "help" from the parent...time to fly....

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OK first attempt (to be honest, there were a lot of first attempts...)

...second attempt....

...sorta....

...the big leap...and.....

....ta da!!!  Flying!!!

This is a cinch!  Wonder what was holding him up before?

Uh - possibly landing?....yep after flying you have to land - this probably isn't the best landing...

...hey how about harassing big bro?....

....isn't it just like a little sis to come and mess up big bro's landing spot, after he's just gotten settled and all...

Oh well, another day of drama in Yellowstone!

 

 

Sunrise

Sunrise one morning we trekked down Blacktail Deer Plateau. I always thought of a plateau as being flat, but this was a flat drive.  But lots to see.

We came upon these cute little grouse (grice?...grouses?).

They were clucking away in the morning breeze.  Actually I think they were voicing their displeasure at us interupting their morning walk!

But since we were clicking and they were clucking, they didn't mind and went on their way in the fall color!

 

 

More Fun, Part II

As if once wasn't enough....here goes for the second table....in cherry....yum, yum!!!

A jig invented by the fine furniture maker himself....see below to see all the ins and outs on the jig.

Oooooooooooooo - just stained - pretty, pretty!

Nothing like resting on one's laurels!!!

One of about many coats of finish.

The legs and leg headers and various pieces get their stain and finish.

Look at that grain!

Just in the office - brand new

All broken in and looking goooood!

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Now about that jig -

But there's nothing like a movie!!

Something Fun

My art spans a lot of different mediums, but this is the first trek into woodworking

Isn't this beautiful.  Well, I thought it was spectacular, but I had no idea what was ahead of me!!!

OK the truth is that I had very little to do with this except, "hold this," or "stand here", or "put your foot here", or "clean up this mess," or "hold that screw"!!!!  But hey, somebody's got do all that hard work!  So in reality the table couldn't have been made without me, even though I haven't a clue about woodworking!

I picked out the pieces and we put them together (which is a lot more complicated than I thought), and then rounded the corners with a router bit, which I'd never seen before, but aren't these corners beautiful?  Just what I wanted.

Next is creating dowels to insert into the leg bases that will then be screwed into the table.  This is for stabilization as one of the things I've requested is that the legs be sturdy so that the table isn't hobbling along the kitchen floor while some quest is sawing through a piece of beef!  Well, the table won't.

We've sanded the table down, and have applied some stain.  At this point I think the table's pretty neat, but then we apply the stain, and the grain of the wood starts coming out beautifully!

Backtracking a little.  This is a sample we made up to check a few things to make sure we could get a few things right.  We did, so this is just an added piece that's a new price for my assistant's home now.

Just after the stain has been wiped off.  This is a photo of the base of the leg which is screwed into the table top.  I thought this was a beautiful touch.  This was done to stabilize the table, but it turned out to be an interesting corner technique that I thought had a valid artistic quality to it.

Here it is with one coat of finish on it and ready for two more coats.  Then we have to let it cure for 10 days and then apply a wax that will make the polyurethane really pretty - according to the pros at the store.

Here's another picture of my kitchen table almost finished!

Workspace

No matter what sort of artist you are, having a space that is workable, its contents accessible, and organized to the point that the artist can use the contents and move around in the space.  The area should be organized in such a way as to invite the artist and not scare him/her off with voices of: "Do me!  I want your attention here!  No wait, turn here and look at me and fix me!" 

Now this doesn't look like something in need of help - just a little work and it's in great shape.  The truth is that this "before" picture wasn't really before.  This is more like an "in-between" picture.  The real truth is that things were much worse than this, and there was very little room to walk around in the garage, and tables were piles on top of piles of stuff.

But with some time and thought the "in-between" mess above evolves into:
 
Yes this is our famous fish eye lens at it's best, hence the distortion but the ability to catch all of the walls. 

Here is another view - what a workroom!  All ready to be used!

And of course what do you do with an organized, working studio?....you make something....that is to follow!

Studio Gallery and Ideas

I belong to this really fun gallery.  It's called the Studio Gallery, because we use it as a studio and a gallery - we're original thinkers that way ya know!!!

We have openings twice a year, to show off our new work.  We get ourselves all spiffed up and look really great with all our new art up.

We usually have a guest artist to add something new to our show.

And then we have classes in our gallery (it is a "studio gallery" after all)

 

But we also have other classes

 

This was a class for collage

We have a wonderful facility for other artists who might be interested in teaching or art workshops in the Oklahoma City area.  You can contact the Studio Gallery here for more information.

Christmas for babies

When you shop and do Christmas for babies, it's like you've discovered Christmas all anew again.  My friend has a grand daughter who we went shopping for today and I was in charge of wrapping all the gifts which is almost as fun as unwrapping....because of course that's what you think of when you're wrapping!

So here they are - all ready for a Santa delivery:

 

Mostly clothes and such, but a few toys to open on Christmas morning

 

OK - went over board on this one

 

All ready for Grandpa's sig

 

Here's a close-up of the Christmas Angel for Isabella!

A long-time dream come true - Spoonflower

This has got to be the coolest thing alive.  Spoonflower is a fabulous place where you can upload your fabric design and they will print it for you.  I've been wanting to do this for years, and am elated to get a place that will do this.  The cool part is that even if your design is a little quirky and something only you would be interested in, they will do it for you!!!!  And it's not all that expensive.

So here's my quirky little idea....as I'm a diver, love stuff that has fish, and that sort of thing on there - so this was my "test" design:
 
And

Now this matched together like this:

You can click this for a larger view.

Now lest you think that I'm some sort of genius....I arranged this from an old design by Esher which is this design:

What I wanted accomplish with my "test" was to see how well Spoonflower would match this design and needed something pretty intricate - I thought this fit the bill

So here's what I submitted to Spoonflower

This is a little different than the watercolors above, but I had to do some simplification - after all this was a test.....

So here's the end result:
 
Of course now I have to make it up!!!!

That will be the next blog!