Cathy Cullis

I've spent a very pleasant morning reading back through Cathy Cullis' blog. She inspires me so. I am so in love with black and white and stitching and the moodiness of her work. Above is one of my favorites.

I was so pleasantly surprised to find one of my paintings in her mosaic monday series! I think I didn't know about it, don't know how I missed it, but if I did know, I'm thanking her again for posting "Their Mother Waits For The Garden". Thank you, Cathy.

Cabin in Plain, WA Leavenwerk

I was privileged to be invited on a long weekend at a snowy cabin. I got to be the 'mom' to a bunch of youngsters, it was beautiful and we had such a good time. Thanks, Chelsey.


Topless snow angel, as loss for a prolonged poker game
Mckinley
Nurtz
Poker
Bedroom
Camp Leavenwerk
Mckinley and Brewster
Sweater for Asher, almost done, he might be able to wear for two weeks before he grows out

A tree fell

Last night, big windstorm and a tree (ornamental cherry, covered with ivy)in our backyard fell and took out very nice neighbors power and squished their shed, among other things. It has done some damage to our fence and there is a big mess, but my anxiety is for them.

Songs

These are songs I love right now:

Love Remains The Same Gavin Rossdale

Ari Hest Cranberry Lake

Bitter Heart Zee Avi

They are In Love The Weepies

Falling in Love Matt White

Lille Lisa Hannigan

Lets Stay Together Nick Driver

Chasing Pavements Adele

Make You Feel My Love Adele

News

Thank you to all who have inquired about where I have disappeared to...

We have had our 18 month old grandson for 24 days, and before that we had him a lot. That means, although my life is full of happy baby screams and laughter, tickling and kisses, there is not much time for creativity, hence, not much of an art life.

We took our house off the market and had to adopt out our beloved greyhound because she was not trustworthy around him full time.

I did paint something the other day when I took him to daycare for a much needed break, and it made me so happy to paint again, I know I am going to have to find a way to keep doing that.

Thank you for caring about me and my art and for writing and letting me know. It means a lot.

Apple Crisp from "the cabin"

Years ago, years and years ago, we used to go to our friends, Sherry and Kirk's cabin in Eastern Washington near Lake Entiat. We often went in the fall and got apples. One year, we decided to make apple crisp and found this old cookbook with this recipe in it. As far as I am concerned, it's the best. It might be because it has so much butter in it. It's crazy good. Those were some good times.

8x8 pan, buttered. Oven 350 degrees

4 tart apples, peeled and sliced

1/2 cup dark brown sugar

3/4 cup butter, room temp

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp salt

lemon juice

Place apples in buttered pan. With pastry blender, cut in butter and sugar, add flour, salt and cinnamon. Sprinkle the apples with lemon juice and then crumble the topping on top.

Bake at 350 degrees for an hour or until apples are tender, and the crust is lightly browned. Serve with Vanilla ice cream.

Love and Happiness

A song by Emmylou Harris, wishes for her daughter. I have the same wishes for my children.

Love and Happiness

Here's a wishing well
Here's a penny for
Any thought it is
That makes you smile
Every diamond dream
Everything that brings
Love and happiness
To your life

Here's a rabbit's foot
Take it when you go
So you'll always know
You're safe from harm
Wear your ruby shoes
When you're far away
So you'll always stay
Home in your heart

You will always have a lucky star
That shines because of what you are
Even in the deepest dark
Because your aim is true
And if i could only have one wish
Darling, then i would be this
Love and happiness for you

Here's a spinning wheel
Use it once you've learned
There's a way to turn
The straw to gold
Here's a rosary
Count on every bead
With a prayer to keep
The hope you hold

You will always have a lucky star
That shines because of what you are
Even in the deepest dark
Because your aim is true
And if I could only have one wish
Darling, then it would be this
Love and happiness for you
And if I could only have one wish
Darling, then it would be this
Love and happiness for you

What I Did On My Summer Vacation

A good book I read, The Lace Makers of Glenmara.
Beer batter fish and chips. It was delish. The boys caught the fish, and also 12 crabs, but some guy that was there when they unloaded, threw them all back! He was a just a guy, not a game warden. But you can see they got over it. That crab sure would have been good... Dumb guy.
Fisherman
Fisherman and fish and fry fryer

We spent our 35th anniversary at Salt Creek again. It's near Port Angeles, WA. We had friends that came over the weekend, Micah, Amie and Sean, and then we got to move to a prettier camp above a beach on the Strait of Juan de fuca. I took video of the beach and spot 56 so you could see our cool spot and hear the waves we heard all day and night. Better than a spa.

Last night I got to see David Gray and Ray Lamontagne at a concert at Marymoor park in Redmond. Ray is my favorite singer. It was awesome. Even better than I dreamed. They played almost all of my loved songs and that is my dream team of singers. Gosh it was good. I took video, but I doubt anyone wants to see my lam-o vid-e-o. I wish you all could have been there.

My Dog is Famous!

My awesome wedding photographer friend, Jenn, is doing an a-z challenge, and our Greyhound, Flight was G. Here's a link to Jenn's site.

52 Creative Exercises To Make Drawing More Fun

I finally got this book, which I've been wanting ever since it came out. It looks even better than I thought it would. It came at a good time, because we are going camping this week to celebrate our 35th anniversary. ( It was supposed to be the year we went to Italy, but...) I plan on using my spare time while we are camping to do the exercises in Carla's book. I'm hoping it will be the kick start I need.

I have completely lost my impetus for doing my print project. I haven't painted anything for weeks. I probably won't finish out the year. I think I will just go back to working on originals for now. I have much less time to paint while the house is for sale and various other things are going on, so it's just not possible to keep going.

Here is a link to the book on Amazon

Here is Carla's Drawing Lab Flickr Group

Carla's Website

Craigslist Rental Scam Alert

Our house was listed on Craigslist.org as a rental by scam artists from out of the country. I'm told they are probably based in Nigeria.

They just took the pictures and description from the real estate ad and listed the house for a ridiculously low rental price including utilities.

They email the interested parties with a story about how the owners are out of the country working on some charity and need to rent their beautiful home for 4+ years. They tell the people to come and look in my windows and that if they like it, they can have it, just mail the deposit and they will mail the keys. The people never get the keys.

My friend Mary's son sent $1000 for a waterfront condo that was another scam. The police said there was nothing they could do because he sent the money out of the country.

I feel so bad for the excited people coming to look at our house, thinking their dreams will come true, that they can lease a house in this desirable neighborhood for a low rent.

They even used my husbands name for the return email.

Here is an email they sent to someone interested in renting our house who recognized it as a scam and alerted us.:

Hello

Thanks for your keen interest in occupying my house,You should count yourself lucky to meet with this offer.Please note there's compulsory security deposit to move in and i need someone that is ready to take
good care of my house, the rent includes utilities(Water and sewer including
electricity, cable tv) and all amenities inside(Refrigerator, laundry,washer and dryer, ready for internet connection)..You can get back to me if you are truly interested.Just want to let you know that i
will be here for 4years and i have an intention of buying another home when i return but that should be in the nearest future. I intended selling the house but had to rethink that is the reason i looking for
a good tenant my self so i will not regret renting it. There is nobody there to walk you through the property that is reason i sent you the physical address in my first email so you will go see the house
from the outside and let me know if you truly love it so we
will discuss further. It is in a nice and secured neighborhood.
Rent $900
Security Deposit: $500
MONTH TO MONTH OR YEARLY IS ACCEPTABLE.
Below are the specifications: How ready are you to secure the house now? you know some others are interested but if you are ready to secure it then the screening will count. The house is available for you to
move in, so you need fill out this application for quick rental arrangement. As soon as i accept you as my tenant then we will discuss on the rent.
Kindly confirm your interest by filling the form below:
TENANT RENT APPLICATION

It goes on to ask for personal details from the applicant.

In Lion's Bay, British Columbia

I'm with two of my dearest friends, Sharon and Verna, in Lion's Bay. We are here enjoying a 9 day home exchange in one of the most beautiful areas of the world. This picture is of my friends at a viewpoint on the way back from Whistler. We have done some sightseeing, but mostly we have have been playing mexican train and drinking cosmos. Tomorrow, we might take a ferry to Gibsons.

Our House For Sale

This is why I am late with the prints, I've been whipping my house into shape to get it ready for sale.

Here are pics I took:

Behind on prints...

We are listing our house for sale today and I have been so obsessed with getting it ready, I have missed a week+ of prints. I will catch up, because I have a couple days of vacation now and I plan on drawing like crazy.

Tomorrow I will post another designer's chair, and Wednesday I will post some pics of my house all scrubbed and fluffed and as good as I can make it look.

I Designed An Adirondack Chair For Kathy Peterson!

Here is my chair! I hope you like it as much as me and Asher do!

The unwelcoming bird
Asher likes it!

Another unwelcoming bird
Foxglove, one of my favorite flowers
A magnolia and that scary bird!



Spiders!

A few weeks ago, I got a very interesting email, inviting me to participate with 4 other stellar designers to design a chair for Kathy Peterson and the Cedar Store.
I was excited about the prospect and when my chair arrived, all ready to paint, I was even MORE excited! This chair is made of cypress and when my husband put it together, he was amazed at how well it was made. And it did not even need any sanding!

I thought about my design for several days ( I had so many good ideas!) and then a friend said, "you should paint what you love" That is always good advice. So of course it was going to be birds and flowers. I laid down an underpainting of red paint, on a sunny day when everyone else was building us a new deck... and then I sketched in my birds and flowers.
Here is the chair in progress:

I painted over the red with my favorite blue and left bits of it showing. On the arms, I painted two of my favorite birds... they look kind of mad, which I find funny, like my chair is saying don't sit here! Which means I will get to sit there, because I painted the birds and they don't fool me. I also added a couple of spiders, to make sure my chair is available when I want to sit in it. By the way, the birds are from an amazing Taiwanese photographer, Sushyue Liao, I paint using his photos as reference by permission, but if you don't want to find your own amazing photographer, you could find some bird and flower images to decoupage on to your chair. You could start by using the red underpainting, then glue on your images, then paint around them with your favorite color, leaving a bit of the red showing through.

Please stay tuned for the other designers chairs every tuesday for the next three weeks.

8/3 Margot Potter http://margotpottertheimpatientcrafter.blogspot.com/

8/10 Kathy Cano-Murillo: http://thecraftychica.blogspot.com/

8/17 Julianna Hudgins: http://www.juliannaproductions.com/blog/

Here is Pat Sloan's chair from last week: http://patsloan.typepad.com/pat_sloans_corner/2010/07/im-a-design-my-adirondack-designer-.html

And CLICK HERE to Kathy's blog for sneak peeks and info!

And here is the Cedar Store website where you can buy your own wonderful cypress chair to paint!

Thank you, Kathy, for giving me this amazing opportunity. I loved every minute of it!

New print Week 13 print project "Looking for a Nest"

I have not been able to paint this week. But I just realized I could use this bird from the chair I painted for Kathy Peterson's Design My Adirondack for my print. This bird looks how I feel.

I have been working on getting the house ready for sale and my studio is so clean it hurts. I am being ruthless about getting rid of stuff. And hopefully soon, I will be finding a new nest.

Next tuesday I will be showing the chair I designed for Kathy Peterson.

As usual, the bird image is thanks to my Taiwan friend, Sushyue Liao

Camping At The Gorge

It was really hot. We camped at Wanapum State Park. It was windy. It was crazy windy. I did not go to the concert, but I had more fun this weekend than I've had in a year. It was fun because of these kids. They lift me up. They heal my heart.
Jakah
Chelsey
Micah and Flight after Jamie took her swimming
Micah
Dave, Zoe, Chelsey and Jakah
Niki
Jamie
Amie

Here's a picture of most of them with Dave and the dogs down at the lake.

Bryce, April, Chelsey, Coco, Dave, Zoe and Flight, Jakah, Niki, Amie, missing is Chris T, but not forgotten. He was out buying me some gin.