I just unwrapped the biggest canvas I've worked on so far. 30" x 36". Finally starting a painting I've had in mind for at least six months, but the size is a little intimidating!

brumazon featured Mike Stilkey's art recently and I've been looking at his site. I especially like his sculptures/paintings where he stacks books and paints a character on their spines. Don't want to use his photos here without permission, but you should check him out!

Taking advantage of a temporary puddle that formed in the field. I run into these guys most days on my walks. They can be pretty intimidating when they get offended and charge across the grass. They're also incredibly noisy, but it's nice to have them around.

Thought I'd give you all a break from the macro photography. Enjoy it while it lasts!

As usual, I have a backlog of photos. This one's from last month. Taking the pictures is a lot more fun than processing them!

I shouldn't complain. Digital photography is soooo much easier than using a darkroom. I still might participate in the "Shoot a Roll of Film" day that Kyle Cassidy is instigating over on photographers. One of the items on my 101 Things list is to get back to shooting film and I have my dad's film cameras sitting around. This challenge could be a good nudge to get started.

Spring is everywhere.

Edited to add: I may change the cropping on this photo because its open rebellion against the rule of thirds is causing conflicted feelings in me.

Spring is coming.

Today was the first rainy day after a run of gorgeous springlike days but I don't even care because the trees are budding and daffodils are blooming everywhere and my forsythia is covered in yellow.

Do you ever have one of those phases where a topic will come up over and over in random ways? That's happening to me right now with the Dominican Republic. I didn't know anything about the DR until a couple of weeks ago when I watched the movie Sugar, about young Dominican guys trying to make it in major league baseball. Then on Wednesday I finally started to read The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which turns out to be about Dominicans. Then yesterday I was opening a pack of kids' paintbrushes and noticed the sticker said "Made in the Dominican Republic."

Maybe this is like getting a new car and suddenly noticing all the other cars of that model on the road.

Sugar, btw, is an interesting movie. I didn't know the major league teams all keep a presence in the DR for recruiting and training young players, or that around 30% of the players in the minor leagues are Dominican. The movie is about chasing the American Dream, and what happens to these young guys when they can't cut it and end up not making it to the majors.

So far Oscar Wao is great too!

Two photos from this morning's short walk. Today I got back to dealing with household stuff after a week of healing a pulled muscle in my shoulder. I had a great birthday last Wednesday but that night my shoulder started hurting. I don't even know what I did to it! This is the worst I've ever pulled a muscle, and it was probably in some random little way I didn't notice at the time.

It's almost all better now. In the meantime the dryer broke, so I spent this afternoon waiting for the repair guy and cleaning up the house.



The upside to forced downtime was that I got to read a lot. I read The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. She also wrote Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. I enjoyed The Little Stranger. It has a gothic feel, though it's set just after WWII.

Big box of art supplies arrived today, like an extra birthday present. I got a variety of acrylic mediums for experimenting with different effects. I'm looking forward to seeing what I can do with them.

While I'm posting links, here's some footage of San Francisco in 1906. The camera is on a streetcar so it's rolling through downtown SF, showing what everything looked like only four days before the earthquake. My great-grandpa lived in the city at the time of the quake. He was 14.

It's fascinating (for me, at least) to see the people walking around and the old cars and know that this isn't a movie set. Check out the ladies' hats at 3:06!

I've been enjoying this blog of Vivian Maier's photos. The blogger bought a huge batch of negatives at an auction without any idea what he was getting. They turned out to be the work of a woman who took thousands of photos on the streets of Chicago in the 50s and 60s but apparently never showed them to anyone.

Someone on Facebook posted the link and now I can't remember who it was. If it was one of my friends here, thank you!

I don't want to post any of the photos here without permission, but you should check out the blog.

Since I'm back to going on daily walks, I'm taking a lot of texture photos. It's a good time of year for that.

I was hoping to go to First Thursday tonight but it's not going to work out due to family stuff. Buuuuut, I just remembered that Christian doesn't have to work tomorrow! That just improved my mood quite a bit. Maybe we'll go to some galleries tomorrow. We won't get to see the artists selling their work on the street, or any of the usual hubbub, but on the other hand it won't be as crowded. Besides, it's raining steadily and there might not be much going on anyway.

Fungus on a log in my yard. It reminds me of hobbit architecture.



More crocuses, this time from someone else's yard.

Photo for today. :-)

I'm excited because the sun is shining and I started a new painting. I've been reading Rethinking Acrylics and it's given me some interesting ideas for materials I already have, as well as a shopping list for the near future. More tooooooys!

On the down side, I pulled out one of my larger blank canvases and it's warped. I'm not sure if that happened while it was in storage or if it came that way. It was probably from being stored, since it was packed in a box with several others. I looked around for ways to straighten it. One person said she was able to weight a canvas' corners and fix it that way but other people said there's not much hope other than restretching. We'll see. My skills don't extend to stretching my own canvases. Yet.

Edited to add the song I've been listening to over and over. Not sure why the uploader titled it "Sunday Shining." It's a cover of Bob Marley's "Sun is Shining"--appropriate for today!

I uploaded this one on Facebook a while back but never posted it here. A friend visited in December and we drove out to the Columbia Gorge, where the fog was so dense we stood at Crown Point and couldn't even see the river. I don't think I've ever seen fog this thick before. It was pouring down the hill from the right. If I'd had more time I would have taken a lot more pictures!

I've been waiting for the crocuses to poke up and they're here! I have a feeling I take this same shot every year but I don't care. I just love them.

It seems early for nesting but on my walks I've been seeing broken eggshells under trees. They're pretty big so they might be from crows. We have a lot of busy crows in the neighborhood.

judywatt recently linked to a great blog called Abstract Minimalism. It's written by an older gentleman in the UK. One of his past posts was about the wabi sabi qualities of dead hosta leaves and how he can't resist taking photos of them. I also like photographing wilting flowers and dry stalks. So here's my wabi sabi contribution for today:



Edited to add: Here's another view of the leaf. Which one do you prefer? I can't make up my mind between the two.

In the woods at the nature park, we spotted this guy crossing the path. According to my field guide, it looks like a Roughskin Newt.

The weather was surprisingly nice this morning. Maybe we're heading into our usual two weeks of false spring. It was great to feel the sun on my walk!

We started watching the Twilight movie last night. They did a good job with the setting and atmosphere. It's nice to see the actors infuse some personality into the characters, too. When I told Christian the basics of the story he said, "So it's like Roswell?" Once he said that, I kept noticing more and more similarities. I wonder if Stephanie Meyers has seen Roswell.

It was so beautiful today we went for a walk in the park.

Hope you all enjoyed the holiday!