Pots in the Making

I finished this series of eucalyptus pots last night--I should have been putting my granddaughter to bed, but instead I had to play with my pots--I felt compelled to stack them for a photo shoot.
Here's a few pictures of them being made...

Sanded, painted with holes drilled...

Lids attached, toothpicks whittled and the flat beads drilled...

Pine sap collected--a sticky job...

A fresh batch of pine sap, beeswax, and crushed charcoal, to glue the toothpick inside the pots and on the ends of the beads--another sticky and dirty job...

Strings attached with small beads for closing...

My type of fun!

Sycamore Leaves

I noticed that the sycamore leaves blowing off the tree, took their time to reach the ground; they flew, fluttered, glided  swayed and changed directions--slow enough to catch, but unpredictable enough to make a great game of trying to catch one.

We waited for gusts of wind--missed many--but then Grampa caught one--I caught one and finally my granddaughter caught hers.  We never let them touch a surface, not even a table top, and strung them up with thread.  Leaves that have never touched the ground!

More Pots

I'm making more little pots from eucalyptus seed pods--I tried out a basket type lid with pine needles and rattan.  These are very tiny pots and can only hold very tiny things.  The black glue on the ends of the beads is made of melted pine pitch, beeswax, and crushed charcoal.

Plant Life up Close

I remember my dad saying how he loved overcast days for taking pictures--I agree--I like the overall evenness of the diffused light and how the colors stand out on a gray day.
This tiny little plant lies flat against the ground.

Coyote Brush going to seed

Dried California Sage flowers

I'm not sure if this is a Lemon-aid Berry or a Coffee Berry bush, maybe neither

This is a non native invasive vine, but I can't remember what its name is!!!

a fungus growing on the dirt's surface.

flowering baby pine cones on what I believe is a Torrey Pine Tree

A large branch on the Torrey Pine Tree

Frost in the Morning

Frost up close--it doesn't last long, just a few hours in the early morning--I'm happy to see it while my granddaughter and I walk across the campground to catch her school bus.

The sun will melt this in a minute.

A Look Inside my Dream Journal

People ask if I've been doing my art lately--right now, drawing in my dream journal is just about the size of it!  Here's a few dream images I've been working on:

Sweet dreams!

My Stencil in White

I tried the stencil that I had made months ago on our door window, but in white, to make it look like it had been etched on the glass--sort of.  I'm using my new camera with a macro feature for close ups!

Crazy Line Wall Hangings

This is my latest art lesson with my granddaughter's class--I wanted to experiment with line--how to control it--to create an optical illusion, and use a dusting of color with chalk pastels.

We cut out the wavy shapes to fit on a strip of mat board with holes--saved the scraps for some crazy fringe--then added a length of string to hang.

Art Lessons

Here's a few art lessons I did with my granddaughter's third grade class before their winter break.  We painted meditative circles, one inside the other.  The children stood, dipped their brushes into the black paint, then, with their whole arm, painted the circles going around and around many times--it's a peaceful meditative feeling and we did this in total silence--dipping back into the paint when their brushes became dry.  We created the 3D tube effect by repeating a curved line around the tube. With a dry brush they shaded the inner and outer edges of their tube.  (I didn't let on that these would become donuts!)
    The next week, I had them guess what these could become and they liked the idea of donuts.  We drew on the sprinkles with colored markers, cut them out--cut out a big bite--glued it onto a background and glued on the crumbs.  Another possibility for this lesson would be to make some fluffy clouds with white chalk pastels on the background--to have that large donut in the sky effect!

These note pads were created in one, 1 hour lesson, but with a lot of prep!  I wanted the students to make a possible gift they could give during the holidays.  I used old computer paper that has the holes on the sides which I happen to have a large stack of.  I cut this up so each pad has 12 pages.  I sewed across the top for the perforated line to tear out pages.  Cut, threaded (plastic yarn needles of which I have a classroom set of), and knotted the 25 strands of yarn.  Cut a variety of the color paper, using the thin paper on rolls from the school's supply room--(this paper is thin and flexible for ease in folding and cutting through layers).  I made a batch of wheat paste and dolled that out into small sealed containers for two students to share.  To lessen the mess of glitter and eliminate a glitter station were students would have to get up while other's waited, I wrapped up just a few little scoops of glitter in some tiny cupcake liners for each student.
   After sewing the tops and doing a very simple end off, they scribbled on the top page with colored markers--folded and cut shapes into the color paper--putting a piece of newspaper under the top page, they painted the wheat paste over the scribbles to smear the marker and to adhere the cut out paper--Then the sparkles!  Please excuse the details, I'm listing all these steps of prep and the making of, for my own benefit.  I can then easily look this up if I were to do this lesson again sometime. 

Reading

I caught myself reading...in the light of a winter's afternoon--a good book by Alexander McCall Smith, one in the Isabel Delhousie series, titled, The Uncommon Appeal of Clouds.  My favorite bookmark was made by my granddaughter, she had made a power card and had given it to me--on its back she wrote:
fairy glisten
water bowl
trees may grow
animals scamper
flowers grow 

Tiny Sea Creature

A tiny dried out translucent sea creature taken at Montana de Oro.

The Tail End of 2012

a recital,

a birthday,

Christmas,

skating with a beloved aunt,

breakfast in bed, (doughboys are wrapped in the napkin)--a send off breakfast for my daughter before her 10 hour ride home!  We had a great Holiday--I hope you did too!