The Last Round Up

As those of you that follow me know, I always stop and sort every thing out and clean things up in between projects.

I had just finished making a bunch of collages and was out of matte gel medium so I figured it was time to put everything away until I could get more.

As I got to the bottom of the first pile I found part of a picture of a cowboy and thought "as long as I'm rounding every thing up and had been watching some old westerns on TV that I would make one more collage and call it " the Last Roundup".

The Thought both amused and inspired me. Here are the results.

I had been stumped on what to do with this painting for a long time. I'd kept painting things on, then paint over them again. sometimes I'd add bits of paper but always ended up painting over them again.

Then I got the idea to cut the cowboy so that it looked like he was taking cover behind the flowers and let my imagination take it from there. 

It got to be fun after that making up a bit of a story from old sheet music and antique books. I felt so good about it that I cut this big smile out of a magazine and added that in there too.

I thought that the various paper bits looked too white so I attempted to antique some of them to make thigs vary a bit. I don't know if it's art or not. All I know is that it makes me happy and cleaned up the room a lot and that helped too.

I hope this gives you some ideas about making the best of things and creating joy.

I'm wishing you happiness too,

Julia

Going around the place looking for an idea

 

There is no shortage of bees here and we are getting more comfortable with them as the years go by. there are times that these sedum are neary covered with them.

It is surprising how many places this little guy can get. He seems to spend most of his time trying to get to the birdfeeder, tunneling through and eating my garden and generally keeping us busy.

I was truly amazed at the size of this one zinea plant was. It had fallen over and filled an entire planter. It wasn't until I pulled it out that I realized that it wasn't A group of separate plants.

We've always got downed and dead tree branches so we're always ready for a campfire when permitted. As long as we're burning anyway we like to reward ourselves by cooking a snack or a meal when things burn down to the embers and over the years we've come up with a lot of different things to make using a few basic tools. It's wonderful to spend some time and cook outdoors. That's really made from scratch and it nourishes your soul as well as your body.

As the leaves changed color and began to fall I decided to bring the cherry tomatoes in the house to finish ripening. These day's they live in the dining room where they're being picked as they're ripe.

I seperated what was left of the shasta daisies and transplanted them for next year. I'm happy to say that this one plant bloomed twice for me and seemed like a great bargain and I'll love it even more if it comes up next year because i divided it into 4 different plants.

We also dry and collect the seed from the marigolds to plant in next year

wish me luck!

Here We Are Again Between Projects

 Between projects is a very uncertain place to be. It can be the creative equivalent of quicksand or it can be a wonderful time for nurturing and discovery.

Which way this current bout will go is yet to be seen. please continue to follow along with me to see what happens next.

The first thing that I Played about with was some changes to one of my paintings.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I had fun choosing phrases from old art books and workbooks to  weave a bit of a story around the painting.

I'm pretty content with it now. What do you think of it? Leave a comment. Thanks.

Thoughts on this years garden and Plans for next year

 Nothing in this years garden can really be considered a huge success. There are many reasons for that and a lot of excuses. I won't go into that here except to state that I plan to purchase the seed that I want and would ask that people stop sending or giving seed to me. I have very limited garden space and will need it all for the things that I to be growing next year. Thanks for your kindness but please confine it to cash donations or physical help moving things around in the garden. Thank You.

Part of next years plans include planting seeds saved from this years produce and tracking the results. Trying other varieties of plants and seeds including running a test bed to see how zinnias  grown from seed compare to zinnia plants bought as annuals.

I'm looking forward to the whole process and I hope you will find it interesting to follow as well.

Happy Planning for next Project,

Julia