House Arrest

 It may not be house arrest but it begins to feel that way when we're stuck in the house for days at a time on these heat and air quality advisories.

This time after finishing the tiny painting and mixed media project to using all of the left over bits and pieces in even wilder combinations of materials and themes.

Here are some photos of my recent projects:

Fun Fling with Leftover Paint

 Hello Painting Friends!

Here's my favorite way to loosen up while using up the last bits of paint from tubes and jars. Think of it as out with the old and in with the new. I clean up the last bits of everything before getting ready to settle down and start new work.

Here come the pictures:

Give it a try sometime. It's great fun and I often make mine into cards that people seem to love.

Happy Painting,

Julia

Oops! this photo of the  Green Dragon is on it's side here but I think you get the idea anyway.

On this one I decided to take a step back and stop bordering everything with those white dots to see if the colors and design can stand alone without them. 

 

Here I tried adding some pastel lines. My sister said it would be better with the white dots so I went on to add them in the next photo.

Be sure to let me know which you prefer.

I think she was right and it did improve it. What do you think?

This one attempt to tell a bit of a story and works for me om several levels. 

These next few seem  to more or less speak for themselves.

It's been a long but really great project and I hope you'll attempt something similar with wild abandon and a sense of fun.

Abstract Floral Painting, Start to Finish

 

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

Dream Garden/ Garden Dreams

I had to give up plating fruit or veggies in this planter box next to the studio. The animals insisted on digging it up and throwing every thing out. 

They don't bother the flowers as much so here's this years compromise.

This is my favorite place to be in spite of the fact my mobile planter (built on a wagon) blew a tire and doesn't go anywhere, any more.

This planter box that we built on the edge of the driveway is full of beans, carrots and cucumbers.

I'm potting up a few more things on this end of the garden where the sunlight is better.

I end here with a long shot of the driveway where my garden lives. Just a few blocks away from the main streets of the city but worlds away when things get quiet and we listen to the birds.

I dream of being able to sell off extra plants and produce out in front of the house to help pay the bills here it doesn't seem likely but that doesn't mean I won't stop trying.

Wish me luck and chase some dreams of your own,

Julia

 

Pleasant Mornings in the Garden

 

During the hottest days of summer we take our coffee out to the  garden, relax a little, work some more and pick a few things on our way back to the house. i put my coffee cup to work this morning when I noticed a few green beans to toss into something for lunch.

It always amazes me what lovely flowers a lot of vegetables have on them. These are Beans.

I settled for just 2 container Tomato plants this year and am eager to see how many tomatoes i get of each variety so that I will know what to plan for next year. 

 

I like to add one investment flower each year. This year it was this delphinium i put up by the tea tables.

Come fall it will be added to one of the flower beds for next year.

We were especially happy this year to be able to pick raspberries right up by tea table. In fact sometimes you can just turn your chair around and pick some.

Keep in mind, we didn't plan or plant this bush here. It just popped up from the back yard. We're enjoying the convince we know people that are allergic to bees so it will have to be trimmed back and transplanted elsewhere at the end of the season.

The daisies have been a nice addition too the garden as well and I've finally gotten back to drawing them again.

These are supposed to be perennial so I'm planning to move it over by one the lilac bushes this fall.

The raspberries keep coming like this everyday so the freezer and are bellies are filling up pretty fast and we also give away as many bushes and berries as we can every year.

I think you can see why I love my little garden so much even though it is really just a chunk of the driveway and a few planters.

I guess happiness is just in the way you look at things.

Keep Creating! 

The Lost Post, June 26, 2021

 This text got lost in the shuffle around here because I was tired when I got back into the house so I wrote out bits of it by hand as I drifted off to sleep.

I just found the notes over by my recliner so I thought that I would share them with you now.

Today was pretty hot so we didn't stay out too long. Thank goodness there was a nice breeze that made it easier to tolerate.

We sat back and had a cup of coffee as we decided what  we wanted to do first.

I started by tearing down an old section of wooden trellis so that we could remove the remains of an old, wooden, raised bed planter box that was long past repairable. (of course the few bits that are OK will be saved for another project so I stacked those off to the side).

The lattice panel I was talking about is here on the far right side of the photo, attached to the back of a planter box.

Yes, this mess is or was a flower border with lilac and rose bushes.

In the spot where that box used to be we put in 3 "daughter" plants  from a lilac bush in one of our border flower beds.

The only thing that I know for sure about all of this is that we will love the lilacs in the corner of the TEAGARDEN instead of that broken old planted box.

It's been a long time since I've had company for tea in the garden so I'm really looking forward to it. 

In the time after I wrote this post I've hosted one small but very pleasant tea and really enjoyed the way that things are arranged now.