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!

The Fremont

We won tickets to see Taj Mahal at the Fremont in San Luis Obispo.  We were told at the door that he doesn't put up with any pictures being taken--not even without the flash.  I brought along my new camera and I couldn't resist taking these pictures inside the Fremont Theater.  This was before the show--he was not on stage.

This is the ceiling...

 and some of the walls.

What a great theater, and Tah Mahal put on a good show with all his various instruments to choose from.

2013 Calendar

My granddaughter's calendar design--I'm apt to help too much, but really I only added one rose and then helped with the painting, but she chose the colors!

I also helped put them together--we almost didn't make the calendars this year--(you can see our past calendars here and here), but I had a few people asking about the latest one and how they couldn't wait to get it!--hmmm, so we were able to pull it off for another year.  I'm glad we did!

A Fairy Store

For New Years day, my granddaughter and I built this fairy store for fun.  The green hanging moss on the right side, is suppose to be the changing room.  If we did sell anything in this store, we would sell clothing and food.  We made it from things found around our yard.  My granddaughter thought that the gate in front looked more like a trap for fairies until we pushed the gate down into the ground.  She wrote on leaves for signs, because she thought it looked more fairy like.  We are proud of our fairy store!!!

The block of granite under the sign is the counter top for the fairies to buy their things.  My granddaughter thought if fairies had money, the money would be seeds, in this case we decided on flower seeds.

"If you want a dress in a certain color, send me the petals."  We wrote this sign, because we don't have too many colorful flowers around here.  The white sculpture underneath, is suppose to be a clothes rack.

The leaf on the sticks is a sign saying free water.  We decided the fairies didn't have to pay for water.  The knitted square over the shell is suppose to be a tarp to protect the water.  We put leaves under the abalone shell so dirt wouldn't get in the water, because there is a hole in the side of the shell.

This is how the store looks on the outside.  My husband put old planters and Christmas tree trimmings around, because he thought it looked more welcoming.  We really like our finished project.  If you were a fairy, would you come to this store?      
 ( My granddaughter explained everything to me and told me what to write.)