Cwtch growing up

My little found kitten is growing!

Big round eyes!

He is entertained by watching videos for cats on the computer screen.

Cwtch is as big as Roscoe now, although still weighs less.  He goes on walks with us all the way to the river which is half a mile.  He gets a little scared crossing the field, and won't go past the cows if they are too close.  But he especially loves walking through the woods and climbing trees, pouncing on leaves.  He has an appointment with the vet on Saturday to get neutered which I hate to do but it must be done.  He is so much fun!  I hope the neutering doesn't change his personality.

Self portraits

Today I'm sharing some self portraits I have made over the years.  The one above is one I created in a Laly Mille class I took online this year.

I used the same self image that I had used for this one which I created in a group challenge years ago.  It is titled Wind Tangled.

This is the photo that was my inspiration.

Here is one from an art journal, a more whimsical rendering.

My most recent self portrait is one I have been using as my Facebook badge.  It came about because I feed the crows every morning on my walks.  When I get to the fence where I put food on top of the fenceposts I call them. "Crows!!  Crows!!  Crow-de-os!!" I yell. They usually come flying in.  So this one is a fantasy of me feeding them.  They don't really come to my hands and I don't really wear a skirt.  I do have birds that come to my hands.  Chickadees mob me at times, demanding a peanut from my pocket that I keep just for them.  Nothing sweeter than a little chickadee landing on my hand, trusting me.  Gray Jays and sometimes Pine Siskins have also come to my hands.  So fun!  If you look closely you can see my three dogs in the picture too.

 Finally this picture is not a self portrait but one done by my neighbor Gwen, the one who has the cows I share pictures of.  I just love this, she shows me on a walk with Windy, Roscoe and Gunnar in front carrying a stick, and me with my nose in a book.  I sometimes bring a book along to read as I walk if the weather is dry.  The dogs don't like it when I do this, they can tell they don't have my full attention, so I don't do it very often.  But sometimes it is hard to put a good book down.

I think that's it for now.  I'm planning another self portrait soon, similar to my Crow girl one but one where I am dressed more realistically in muddy boots and jeans.  Maybe.  We shall see.  Until next time,
Be well.

Family time

I've been enjoying lots of visits with my family this summer.

Nephew Nathan and his wife Becky and their 3 kids and 3 dogs came over.  They all enjoyed touring the yard while the dogs romped.

 Nathan's brother Justin and his wife Brittany also came with their dog. 

The dogs played and played and then they rested.  Mia took full advantage of the fact that we allow our dogs on the furniture.  Justin will have to retrain her after visiting Aunt Jan's!  It was funny because if Mia began to get too rough with Roscoe, Windy would step in and divert Mia.  Such a good big sister she is!!

It was good to see them all.  They might move out this way some day.  I'd like that.

 I gave Brittany this bracelet I made.  Looked good on her pretty arm.

We went to visit my cousins at their place near the beach at Pacific City, Oregon.  Most everyone camped on their property.

 Lots of cooking and telling stories around the campfire.  Plenty of dogs too, almost as many as there were people.

 Windy and Roscoe and I enjoyed walking in the old mossy spruce forest.

 Beautiful trails on the cousins property. 

Plenty of good eating too!

I used to call him Chainsaw man but maybe I should change Steve's name to the Chef because he sure seems to be the main cook at these events!  This is at my brother's.

Our next visit took us to my brother's where 4 of us siblings and our families spent a few days.  My nephew's are so athletic and spent hours jumping on the trampoline shooting hoops.

Of course then they needed their rest.  The little dog is Rosie.  She and Roscoe spent plenty of time playing too.

We managed to snap a group shot although not everyone got in it.  From left to right are Marshall (nephew), Debbie (my sister), Tyler (nephew), Beth (SIL),Rick (my eldest bro), me, Steve (my older bro whose home we were at), Robin (SIL), Dawson (nephew) and Riley (nephew) holding Debbie's dog Lucy.  I think there were 7 dogs altogether here.

So now I'm home again.  The hay got done in July and now we are beginning to put up veggies.  We canned 14 quarts of green beans from our garden yesterday.  The weather has been very summery, hot and dry.  The afternoons are spent being quiet.  I like hanging out in my studio then, it stays pretty cool in there.  

I hope you all are keeping safe and enjoying your summer, if indeed it is summer at your place.  Till next time,

Be well.

Progress

Progress is being made in a couple of areas.  Best of all, the progress between Charlie and Roscoe:

One might think such a large cat would have no fear in the first place of such a tiny dog but one would be wrong.  Charlie hid in the basement for more than two weeks after Roscoe arrived.  I finally began carrying Charlie into the house slowly when Roscoe was tired and calm.  The next thing I knew, Charlie followed me into the house on his own one evening and spent the night on the bed next to me and Roscoe and things have been just fine ever since.  Yay!!  It is so nice to have everyone getting along, no fears!

In the meantime, I have been stitching on my latest Ghost Dog series piece:

 This one represents the first dogs I had after moving out of my parents home.  Bilbo was part Collie, part German Shepherd and probably the smartest dog I have ever had.  Then I got Heidi and Gandalf, brother and sister, part Dachshund, part Beagle.  Oh I loved those dogs!  They were with me through many transitions in my life and all are buried here on this property.

I rummaged around in my "jewelry" box and found Bilbo's dog tag so I put that on there.  I also found some puppy teeth which you can see in the first photo, they are glued on the strip of red fabric.  I'm still putting some finishing touches on this, and when it is finished I'll hang it on the wall outside the studio.

Here is the studio wall so far.  I hung the small colorful quilt up there today.  I've had others up there before but only for a day or two at a time because I didn't want them to become weathered and faded.  This one I plan to leave in place.  Why not?  It has been aging in a box for years.  It is kind of a weird experiment that didn't really turn out that great, so now its colorfulness will slowly fade in the sun but I rather like it up there.  My other pieces of the Ghost Dog series are hanging to the far right of the door.

Just a quick post for today.  I wanted to share my excitement about Charlie and Roscoe.  Hope you all had a great Summer Solstice.  On that day I went to the wedding reception of my longest term friend, Larry.  We have been friends for 43 years!  Sheesh!  I really like his new wife and am glad I was able to attend this event.  Forgot my camera though dang it.  It was a grand way to celebrate the solstice.

Till next time, be well.

New news

Been busy with outdoor work and also finding time for some art.  One other thing has been grabbing my attention but I'll get to that later.  First, I'll show you my recently completed art work. 

 This is sort of a Dooleybobber.  Rather different from the others but then they are all different, aren't they.  I used some cut off pieces from another work and then needle felted, stitched and beaded it.  I had my embroidery stitch book open and was trying different stitches, it was fun. 

 Most of the threads I used were some that I got from Maggi.  The colors are gorgeous.

This is what it looked like in the beginning stages.  Sure looks a lot different after the stitching and working on it.

 I did a challenge/trade with my creative group after being inspired by an article in a recent Somerset Studio magazine article, the Jan/Feb 2014 issue.  These are ATC/Matchbox art.  Fun!

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I used a paper napkin for the background of all mine.   I have a bazillion of them but did you know you can buy single napkins on ebay?   Who'd have guessed?  What a selection!  Now I have two bazillion.

 I decided to experiment with some non woven fabric stuff I had laying around after seeing something like it on a blog somewhere.  Sorry, I lost the link so can't share that.  I used different paints on pieces of this stuff, I don't know what it is but it starts out white.

 Then I rolled them up and hit them with the heat gun and they turned into these neat beads.

I found that if I painted different colors on either side, they looked cool on the edges with the reverse paint peeking through.  If anyone wants some of this stuff just ask and I'll mail you a piece.  I have a huge chunk of it.

Mike

I have begun a new series that relates to the dogs I've loved.   I started to say all the dogs but I can't quite say that, there are too many to make art about all of them.  Above you can see the first of the series, it shows a photo of my family and our first dog, Mike.  He was a German Shepherd mix.

 I love this photo.  It captures my love for dogs beautifully.  That is me, gazing into Mike's eyes with love.

Duke

 Our next dog was Duke, a German Shepherd.  Duke followed me everywhere through my growing up years, walking with me through the neighborhoods and to the store, waiting patiently outside, unleashed.  Can you imagine now, seeing a big German Shepherd dog sitting outside a big grocery store, not tied or muzzled or anything?  He used to get in ferocious fights with other neighborhood dogs.  I'm glad I know better not to allow anything like that to happen any more.

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See the brown/orange plaid fabric at the back of the piece?  That was the scarf I wore when I was a teenager.  It is rather moth eaten now but I have held on to it and finally found a use for a piece of it.  I also still have Duke's collar, 40 some years later.  (No I'm not a hoarder!!) I am going to hang the collar from the wood hanging rod.  The plan is to display all these dog pieces outside and allow them to weather.  I might hang them out in the woods or maybe just on the wall outside the studio.  The coyotes (Trickster) tend to steal things I put out into the forest.

This is the next one of the series, I started stitching on it today.  It shows the first three dogs I got after I moved out of my parents home, Bilbo, Heidi and Gandalf.  Yes, combining my love of books and dogs with these names!  I'll show a better photo someday after it is finished.

Roscoe

Now, for my big news!  We got another dog!  Windy has been seeming lonely without a friend to play with so I got her a puppy;-)  Meet Roscoe, a 10 month old Chihuahua/Dachshund mix.  He is such a sweet boy and so playful and happy!  I call him Roscoe Bean, he has sure brightened up our lives around here.  He and Windy play and chase each other and the squirrels.  Charlie cat is not happy about it but he is beginning to venture out of the basement and testing the waters with a dog smaller than he is.  He'll come around, he always does.

Heidi from long ago

 Never before have I had such a little dog, I was wanting a bigger dog but this guy came along and I couldn't get him out of my mind.  Maybe because he reminds me so much of the first dogs I had on my own, Heidi and Gandalf were Dachshund/Beagle mix, brother and sister.  They were closer to Windy size though at around 30 pounds.  Roscoe is only maybe 10.  He is learning not to chase llamas or cows or horses or CATS!  Squirrels are okay, they never catch one.

 

 Here is Roscoe and Windy, snuggling in the bed together in the studio.  Oh, and Roscoe likes to sleep under the blankets with me at night!  I've never had a dog do that before.  Probably a good thing since most of my dogs have been rather large.  

Well, that is about it for now.  I'm sure I'll be sharing more about Roscoe in the future.  He is so stinkin' cute! He came with that name and I decided to keep it, it suits him.  Hope you all are well and enjoying your lives.  Till next time,

Be well.

Paintings

First I want to say thank you for all the kind words you wrote to me commenting on Sadie's passing.  I appreciate your thoughtfulness.  I have been channeling my sadness into this little mixed media piece I created in homage to Sadie.

Sadie Smiles

I used some lines from a poem by Kenneth Rexroth titled Asagumori and it reads:

"Through the dew and dusk I walk the paths you walked,
My sleeves wet with memory."

I have been memorizing poetry this year in an attempt to keep my brain nimble.  The first big poem I saved to memory was The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe.  Believe me, it was a fun one, lots of words I'm not accustomed to using plus it is 18 verses long.  Have you read the whole thing lately?  Here it is: The Raven.  So I had to make a mixed media piece in honor of this poem:

Poe's Pets

He writes of the Raven that it is a "grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore".

I created it on the back of an old record album.  This one too:

It isn't in homage to anything but I had fun using some new art supplies.  Namely, a stencil, some Inca Gold and some FW liquid acrylic ink.
The Sadie's Smile piece is created on a piece of wood I rescued from the wood shed.  This one is also on an old piece of wood:

Longing

It reads: "The sea always filled her with longing, tho for what she was never sure."

Close up where I attached some sand and beach glass and coral bits.

The words were written by Cornelia Funke.

Here you can see the side view showing the rough cut aspect of the wood.

And finally I will show you the book I created as part of my Pay It Forward giveaway.

The photo of the little sisters is my grandmother and her little sister.

 Dolly has received it so I can show it now.  We are in an online group called the Fiber Pirates.  Hence, the pirate card.

Some of the inside pages. I made it using a recycled mailing envelope and card stock cut to size.  It was a lot of fun to create.

It is odd only having one dog again.  No old dogs to walk very slowly with and to give pills to.  It seems I have had old or sick dogs for so long.  I used to have multiple dogs.  I found this photo in an album and want to share it with you.

Tasha, the Doberman, Kobos, the Pit Bull, Max, the little spaniel mix, and Pearl, the German Shepherd.  This is taken in about 1986? in my back field.  They were a great batch of dogs.  Tasha had been hit by a car once and it broke her leg so badly the vet decided to just fuse her elbow joint instead of removing the leg.  She couldn't bend it there and forever after people would look at her with pity and ask, "What's the matter with her leg?" and I would explain.  Plus she always had a raw spot on top of her foot because she would drag her leg along when she ran and it rubbed it. I tried bandaging it but the bandage would always fall off.  When she walked she would swing it around.  It never slowed her down but it got her extra treats from sympathetic people. 

 This is my favorite picture of Kobos.  She was my first Pit Bull and I have loved the breed ever since.

  I miss you all, my fine furry friends.♥  Wait for me!

Be well.