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A New Post From an Old Friend

Today I'm featuring a post from my friend Jenny as I also include a link to her blog. She has too many fields of expertise to mention so I won't bother listing them here. The things that make me want to share her interests in this blog are that she's also an artist with an amazing background and skill set that I'm sure you'll find interesting.

Julia

Here's what she had to say:

Whenever I visit Julia’s painter’s garden, usually along with my friend Margaret, I always have a great time. Everything always starts with a tea party. Julia provides the tea and the rest of us, including her husband Doug, contribute goodies like cheese, nuts, fruit, and sweet rolls.

One of the things that makes the tea parties so special is Julia’s presentation of the table. She has an eclectic collection of blue-figured ware, hand painted china, and little extras that most of don’t bother with, like dishes specifically designed to hold used teabags. Things may not always match but they always achieve synchronicity. And then there are the cake stands, tea cozies, decorative tablecloths and vintage flatware. I spend as much time looking as I do eating.

There were 5 of us for tea but there was so much going on that we didn't get any group photos until the end.

The tables were also  more elaborate in the beginning but with all the things people brought and  a bit of snacking and visiting before we settled in it kind of got lost in the shuffle.

We often do group arts and crafts projects together. One time the three of us each painted one of the birds on her birdbath; it is now one of the many wildly variegated ornaments in her yard. Last time I was there I watched a robin splashing away happily in it.

We’ve painted china and colored the line drawings of seashells I created as adult coloring designs, made Christmas crackers, and countless other projects. Margaret and Julia sewed a courier bag I designed to look like it was made of spacesuit material, lined with a star field. I use it at all the science fiction conventions I attend. It holds keys, money, badge, and up to 2 paperback books.

Julia paints everything that doesn’t run away; the mailbox, the ramp railing, the lawn furniture, whatever. Before she got into creating Dala horses, her favorite subject was irises. She has them displayed on Zazzle as decorations for note cards, phone cases, pillows, and anything else that can be worn, written on, or used to cover something else. Here’s one of my favorites, a sticker: https://www.zazzle.com/watercolor_iris_classic_round_sticker-217967621406143742

I can hardly wait to go play at Julia’s house again. I think there’s a Thanksgiving/Christmas visit in the future.

Jennifer McDermott

www.artpal.com/kttymartyr866

Here are a few photos from other teas:

Making Changes to Old Paintings

The longer I'm stuck in the house staring at the same old paintings, the more I find myself in the mood to change them. Here are some of the recent changelings.

This top one is between 10 and 17 years old and used to have all purple flowers. A few years back I made 2 of the large ones white. This time I felt it was time to reintroduce some bright colors to it.

I just wasn't happy with that third big lily so I had to make one more change before considering it finished.

Three of the other paintings displayed in my living room with this painting had stargazer lilies in them so I couldn't resist putting one into this one too. 

This rose painting is from the 1980's and I was never really happy with it. the stems were to thick and the leaves and flowers were never quite right anyway.

So far I've blended out the roses and I'm looking through my garden photos trying to decide what I want to paint over it next. I don't plan to change the background because it matches the narrow band on the frame so well. this was one of the last expensive custom frames i ever bought so I want to preserve it.

I had also been going through some of my old drawings and decided to cut out a few to save time on this painting.

Instead of doing a new sketch, I attached my old drawings with modge podge ( I was out of acrylic gloss medium which I usually use for things like this)

Once they were firmly attached I painted over them with a coat of modge podge and let that dry before applying paint.

Next I free handed in some leaves and stems to pull them together and began to paint the flowers.

 I felt that I had added too many leaves and stems so I painted them out and tried again the next day.

I like the lighter treatment that I gave it here.

It took a number of layers before the ink lines disappeared.

 I'm still not satisfied with the petals on the flowers but have re- hung the painting to look it over and decide how to approach it before I attempt any more changes.

I just can't seem to make the petals look like the layers of petals stand out from each other and get the shading and shadows quite right but that's a puzzle for another day.

Indoor Garden Experiments

One day I was so bored that I looked at the strawberries I was eating and wondered if they'd grow from seed so I grabbed a toothpick and took a few seeds off of it to dry.

I put them in my aero grow hydroponics planter and here are the results so far.

I also planted a seed from an orange or tangerine to see how that would do.

A third pod has both types of seed to see which would grow faster.

By October 20th 2 of my 3 experiments failed. The only one going strong is that first strawberry plant that I started.

Halloween 2019

I'm pleased with how well this strawberry plant is growing but took the machine apart, cleaned it and started out with clean water because the 2 failed experiments that shared the planter for a while left a green slime a couple of inches across floating on the water and some tiny bugs on the strawberry. I cleaned and rinsed of the strawberry every day for 1/2 the week to completely eliminate the problem and noticed the plant stand a little taller and seem healthier now so I've apparently solved that problem.

November 17th, 2019

Now I'm wondering if I should plant other seeds in the other two wells in the planter to keep the strawberry from being overfed.

I decided that the bug and fungus problem wasn't going away because the strawberry was still in the gro sponge that it had been  in with the 2 failed seed trials so I slit the sponge down the side and removed the strawberry plant.

This time I was taking no chances. we completely emptied, cleaned and refilled the water tank and I root pruned the strawberry plant to give it a fresh start and make it easier to put into a new gro sponge.

So far,so good I thought until the next day when it looked quite transplant shocked and I ended up removing some leaves as well.

I also filled the 2 other places in the planter with miniature tomato plant seeds so that the food will be better distributed. 

This should keep the strawberry plant from being overfed. Wish me luck and check in again soon.

The Cherry Tomatoes Come in from the Cold

I ended up with one nice plant with seed saved from last year and as it gets too cold outside I brought them in to finish ripening in a vase of hydroponic growing water.

There was very little waste as I trimmed things down to the most promising parts of the plants.

Outside in the garden this plant was over three feet high and 6 feet long/wide.

Here's the way it looks now.

Detail Photos

The change seems to be doing them good. There were 4 more ripe tomatoes this morning.

First thing Wednesday I pruned some of the leaves away so that I wasn't wasting resources feeding parts of the plant that we can't eat.

Everyone has been enjoying being able to pick and eat tomatoes without having to leave the house to do it. The most important thing at this point is to remember to change the water often.

This is where things were at on October 20, 2019

This photo was shot on October 24th, after that I just ate them as they got ripe and stopped bothering to photograph them. 

 Considering this was all grown from seed saved from last year's plants and was more or less free, I'm happy even though so few seeds germinated.

Next year I'll plant a variety I really like and try several different methods of seed saving to see whick works best.