I Get Obsessed ...

I've been on a sketching binge. It started a year ago but was interrupted after only a month and I didn't get back to it until this spring when I finally had some time on my hands.  

I joined the Urban Sketchers even though I'm a bit of a fraud - never leaving the front seat of my car when I sketch. 

Or just staying home and sketching in my house.

I'm not a natural sketcher. What comes naturally to me is drawing, rendering, watercoloring or painting. 

Think about the differences in those activities. Sketching as I want to practice it is loose, rapid, a brief notation. Those other things are something else.

So before I start I have to loosen up and get into the spirit of the dance.

Anyway, it's been fun. And even though I have a pile of pens I just ordered a Lamy Safari. New pen! Happy!! 

I want to join the Portland Urban Sketchers next month to force myself out into the streets but so far I've always come up with excuses.

 Maybe this will be the year.

Journal pages.

I have more than one obsession.

Yesterday I revisited a journal from 19 years ago. The handwriting was even different. 

It was like visiting with a stranger. She seemed smarter, a better writer, but less emotionally mature. 

My goals for today are to cut roses, do yoga, make a smoothie. Sit in the sun. Paint, draw, write. 

Always a few hours in the studio. It's June. 

Everyone should be as lazy and lower their standards in June I think.

 Here in the northern hemisphere it is the time to exhale, bliss out, and welcome summer.

Ahhhhh ......

May News

In and out, back and forth. This time to Arizona to visit my grandson and the old hippie gang. One of the old geezers has cancer (actually he's younger than I am) so a bunch of us decided to surprise him with a visit and then his wife organized a full on party and reunion.

Beautiful Mt. Hood out the window.

We've all slowed down (the people from the Big House) and a few of us have gone ahead but we still managed to make a party of it. I drove by the house I grew up in and visited Nathan. It was an emotional roller coaster. Some of the old friends I hadn't seen in over 40 years. 

I brought back the quilt I made Nathan for his high school graduation 10 years ago. It needed repairs and I got right on the job. So glad to see the wear and to know that he loves using it. 

Nothing says love like a hand made quilt.

John harvested his first garlic this week. Let the good eating commence!

And the peonies have arrived. What show offs they are.

Before my Arizona trip I assembled a friendship quilt that a group of us created for our friend Lorraine Lewis. The girls sent their squares to me and I assembled the quilt.

Jackie Cate, Stephanie Lee, Renee Plains, Jeanne-Marie Webb, Katie Kendrick, Jenny Wentworth, Misty Mawn and I each made the quilt squares.

This is my square and shows a bit of the border.

And this is the finished quilt.

We have roses!

Columbine.

Dahlias.

Awesome peonies by the armload.

More scratches and scribblings. It's miraculous how painting and making marks soothes me.

Life is such a gift. And you don't need to be rich to paint. More proof that life is good.

This and That

A quick catch up before I leave for Arizona on Sunday. Going to visit old friends there; a reunion of the "big house" gang; old hippies who spent a crucial couple of years listening to Led Zeppelin and doing other hippie things together back when we were all testing adulthood. It's going to be terrific.

Here's a little side project I took on. Cut off a long linen jumper and turned the bottom into a big pocket. This is for wearing either over a dress like an apron or with leggings. It hits me about tunic length.

Mom had an apron with a similar pocket when I was a kid. I love pockets.

Got some licks in on a separate sewing project as well and I'll tell you more about that in the next post.

Spent a day with my play-date friends. When people get together to draw, paint, share food and listen to music, they get a lot done and leave with a feeling of love and gratitude. Organize your little groups, people. We each bring a sandwich and something to share. We solve all the problems in the world while we work. It's awesome.

John brought in some pea shoots for our stir fry. Mushrooms, carrots, onions, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, hot peppers, sake and tamari sauce. Over quinoa. Trust me.

Here's the farmer surveying his planting holes for the tomatoes he's going to put in the ground today. The pea trellis is in the background. 

Here's the old old grapevine.

Peonies.

Kales.

A mish mash of roses. Every one of them fragrant and happy.

Figs ripening.

Mulberries.

Black beans on the left and kale on the right.

Siberian iris.

Buff Beauty.

Trellis.

Peppers.

We started this rose from one stem that we purloined from the roadside.

Taters.

Golden Showers.

My studio door.

The awesome Siberian.

Blatherings. I'm afraid I'm getting wordier all the time.

 

But I love writing. Love pouring it all out.

Time to pack a bag with very summery clothes. It's been 100 degrees fahrenheit in Phoenix. I won't be seeing so much green on that desert.

I hope your May is gentle. xo