Sea Anemone.

I have to be careful not to accidently take a sip of the glass of orange water that stands in front of me and which I have used to clean my brush.

Today we had quite a little quake. It lasted a long time and everything that could rattle, rattled. I had read that animals sense an earthquake in advance but Athena clearly does not have that knack. She slept until we started to feel the house shaking and was as surprised as I was. She then sidled up to me, seeking protection, and I had to shoo her out the door because even though our earthquakes are never severe, I thought it might be better to be outside. The  5.8 magnitude earthquake's epicenter was 22 miles southeast of Calexico, in the Baja.

Mastercarve rubber stamp.

 

I had this big block of Mastercarve just waiting to be sliced into. I used a soft pencil and drew the design on paper, turned it over and, using a bone folder, transferred the drawing onto the Mastercarve. With a Speedball lino cutter I cut away the parts I did not want to print. It was surprisingly easy and the slicing and cutting very therapeutic and relaxing. With a very old ColorBox pigment stamp pad, which still worked very well (must be 10 years old), I quickly printed up some correspondence cards which I am now off to write and get into the letterbox before the mail lady comes by. Sharing is more than half the pleasure of making things.

I have 'ColorBox - various colors' on my shopping list for when I go into town this week because I know I will be making more stamps.

Hydrus.

Pen drawing using Dr. Ph. Martin's Hydrus watercolor.

Yupo.

Yupo is a synthetic watercolor paper. In fact, it's not paper. It's 100% polypropylene. I haven't done much watercolor painting ever but when I did do it, the wetting and stretching of the paper seemed a lot of work and even then my paintings bubbled. Yupo did what it promised and it was easy to work with and on. Worth a try if you are into watercolors.

Cactus.

Clearly can't get enough of posting large photos.

This weekend I received so many pictures of the snow in Europe that I thought I would show a Christmas picture from the Southwest. We are still at 21 degrees C during the day and oh my goodness, we are going down to 18 degrees on Wednesday.
I like living in a warm part of the world and then again, I don't. There is something about snow this time of the year providing you don't have to drive or walk in it.
Let me remember. No, this is definitely better.

My brother sent me this picture of a tropical bird in his garden in the Netherlands. It is quite amazing to see that whole flocks of these kinds of birds appear to have settled quite happily in wet and presently cold little Holland.

Rosettes.

I have not only been playing with photographs but have almost finished a rosette pillow made out of folded felt circles. This kind of work is called fabric sculpting, which is a really good description. I will be looking for more of this.

Mexico City.

The brightly-painted open-topped trajineras (barges) that trawl Mexico City's mysterious ancient canal system past "floating islands" (chinampas).
Having fun with this and using older pictures.

Monterey California.

I have just found out how to post larger images on my blog. The one below is a picture I took of a shed at the Botanical Gardens in Tucson. The photo above was taken from the pier in Monterey.

Shed.

Life is a serious business.

She laughs when she chases a ball, but other than that I have a very serious model. 

Rome.

It seems like a very long time ago that I worked in Italy. I have had some wonderful opportunities in my career to get to know other places better. You work on your assignment during the day, and in the evening you have to find a restaurant to eat and take your camera along. This was not such a good shot but I have been Photoshopping and added some purple, some pink and a vignette and I like the results. Got to start somewhere to learn. The picture was taken in Rome.

Guinea Fowl.

Nothing better than brewing a pot of tea, putting on some music and just coloring in a drawing. I drew the bird a while back and had been wanting to give it some color. I am working on a rather large project that requires  quite some drying time before I can move on and what better to do in the meantime than get a brush and some acrylics, the pot of tea and coloring away.