So many ideas, so many alternative creating adventures.

I took a break from painting this summer. I could use the excuse it was due all the yard work that needed to be done even though I mostly held supervisor position rather than the worker per say. Truth be told, creativity ever continues as my brain generates many ideas for projects, paintings, mixed media work and I would drive me absolutely stark raving mad were I not creating in some manner. So here are a few items I have created these past few months.

Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose. Every artist needs to make a piece of kitch art in their life time, so here is mine.

Garden art, "Mary Mary Quite Contrary how does your garden grow".

Sea shells, marbles, buttons, etc and Mary placed under an upside-down fishbowl.

 Two blue plastic fish I bought off sweet little six and seven year old gals at their garage sale.  The fish were originally for another piece I am working on but they work rather well teasing at the skirt of Mary.

 The pearl flower was my grandmothers clip-on earring.

 Oh, look at Mary's bow!

From the top down, marbles glued with weld bond glue to an antiquish jar I have had since youth, cheap mardi-gras beads adhered to lip, small glass container, flat glass bead drops glued upon an upside down fish bowl encasing Mary watering her sea garden, all of which sits atop a sandy looking ceramic canister.
It is meant to be a garden piece though I am a bit afraid it may break outdoors in the elements. It may have to go in a sheltered shop.

Our dear ones came for an early thanksgiving and sleep-over. It was wonderful to spend time with our grandchild and our families. As our floors are all stripped to bare cement to ease morning cold foot syndrome I made a rag rug to place by the bedside in the guest room. It took two full days to complete, I have renewed admiration for the work that goes into the Hutterite rugs I see at the farmers market, I now know they are well worth the 60-80 dollars they charge.

My rug is pretty lumpy, bumpy and rustic, though feels good on the feet. I was near completed before I figured out how to slip the pieced strips together with less bulk. Its a three braid rug stitched together with strips of sheeting. I broke the needle three quarters of the way through the project but thank goodness there was enough  body left in it to complete the job.

I love going to garage sales to chat, laugh and enjoy rummaging through other peoples lives. The tiger panel was garnered at such a sale for a mere quarter, wow! Bargain! Ya, and it was brand new to boot. I used it to recover a cushion for extra flop-down sprawl across the floor seating in the front relaxing room. It took me 5 whole hours to design, cut and stitch the cover.  How time flys when I get focused, I forgot to eat lunch I was so occupied.

Another flea market find, this weird shaped piece of wood was in a freebie bin, of course I figured I could use it to create????

With two large circles cut into it it reminded me of an owl, so yesterday I spent all day designing an stylized owl. I used the photos I took at the Medicine River Wildlife Recovery Center as reference, how lucky was I that the owl had fluffed his wings and hissed, just perfect for the cut wood shape.

I'm having trouble with this silly blog "correcting" as I type which is frustrating to the extreme as it keeps changing to words not of my choosing. I need to figure out how to prevent automatized word changing crap otherwise I become too frustrated with blogging. I am slow at writing but this is making the process even slower as I continually have to keep changing words back to what I was trying to type in, grrr, damn technology is getting summer. And to detail expressly what I mean... in the previous sentence I wrote "dumber" and the system changed the word to "summer" grrrr!

Sadness is

We went to collect my exhibition at Kerry Woods Nature Centre in Red Deer on saturday. It felt sad to take down the show, though it was wonderful to briefly visit friends as they came to retrieve their butterfly paintings. Initially the exhibition was up for the month of July though wonderfully was extended till last friday so many people were able to enjoy my take on Nature. One young woman complimented my art by saying she was happy to see wildlife art that is "vibrant and Not boring" I am glad to have brought some colour and joy into peoples lives.  As usual we did a small walk to the duck blind where dragonflies were abundant and a few ducks and coots still present.

 Muskrat swam by, don't you just love those sunlit ripples.

 Dragonfly

 Autumns golden pathway.

 Dragonfly or Darner?

 Two honking geese flew overhead.

Beautiful Coot, these birds are crazy and endearing I must really do a portrait of one soon.

Gorgeous spot of red, a delightful ladybug.

I love the Kerry Woods Nature Centre and Sanctuary. Its a wonderful stop point when we travel to Calgary. Tables out front by the parking lot make it a great place to picnic before taking a stroll around the lakes, though I must admit I have never made it all the way around the two lakes yet.

We decided to check out Bower Ponds in Red Deer as we've been informed it was a beautiful place.

 There are a few neat sculptures of beaver that look to be carved from red brick, how cool is that.

 Water trees dancing ripples.

 Fall flowers in bloom.

 Bleached Blossoms, these did not seem to be attracting the bees,

Though these ones continually had bees on them.

 Pesky photographer disturbing our nap, sheesh wheres a duck go for privacy these days!.

 Fountains contrast nicely with the yellowing leaves.

 Canada goos enjoying the pond amidst colourful reflections.

Three Amigos.

 Above the pond leaves exchange coats of green for sporty fall color.

Blue grass and blossoms, such a delightful park, hope you enjoyed the stroll.

Big hugs and Joy to you all!

Edmonton Naturalists Garden Delights

The Edmonton Naturalists garden beheld delights of Goldfinches feeding, 

 Chipping Sparrows basking in the warm sun,

 and a flash of orange.

 There was also a variety of bugs, this one is sporting a funky stripped jacket and

this butterfly attire has become tattered.

 Above us a hawk surveying the garden and at 

my feet a Teeny tiny Tree Frog, what a delightful surprise.

 Gorgeous color of asters and seed heads.

 Seedpod patterns to delight the eye.

False dandelion. 

 Paintbrush

and a splash of aster blossom and seeds.

Native Alberta Plants Garden

 Here is the Alberta native plants garden my sweetie has made. As the yard needed to be re-graded he moved the sidewalk off to the right to build the garden between the evergreens where it gets more light. So much nicer having stepping blocks rather than a solid sidewalk straight up to the house and rather than striving for perfection on placement of stones we chose not to cut out evergreen roots that were near the surface and went around them instead. Grass has been planted between the stepping blocks which is now coming up.

The view from our steps towards the street.

To build me this garden my sweetie went out and invested volunteer weeding time with the Edmonton Naturalization Group. I helped gather seeds and took hundreds of photos out at the garden. Now comes the work of sorting through the photos and putting the better ones onto disc for the group to use as they see fit. I enjoy going out to the garden where they grow natural Alberta plants. Its refreshing, and as a bonus the goldfinches are abundant.

Flowers at the Edmonton Naturalization Group Nursery Garden. There are goldfinches in these flowers though hard to spot as they blend right in.

A gift at our feet in the garden.

Alberta Wild Rye, we planted a small tuft of this in our natural garden by the stones that are outside the garden perimeter. The seed head colour is lovely.

We planted Prairie Blazing Star. I sure hope ours take as isn't it lovely. The resident jackrabbit ate one though thankfully left me with two plants. The White Prairie Asters are a different story though, he ate all of those yet left the yellow ones alone, and my Tall Wild Sunflowers, all gone. Ole Jack better watch out or he may become rabbit stew, just kidding; we will encircle the next bunch we get with wire to protect them.

There are quite a variety of wild asters , I cannot remember if we planted these type which are quite showy as a group.

Prairie Clover blossom.

Goldfinch on Wild Sunflower, this type is a southern Alberta flower.

Joe Pye Weed in foreground and Common Tall Sunflower behind, a sunflower that likes wet areas though I am told its pretty hardy and will acclimatize to gardens. These sunflowers are about 6 feet tall.

White Prairie Aster growing amidst Sweetgrass.

Garden Dragons.

Asters, the soft colour behind is Sage.

Bee and Gaillardia Aristata blossom.

Giant Anise Hyssop, a member of the Mint family that can be used as a tea that heralds a liquorice flavour.

Hopefully my garden will be sporting many of these wild blossoms next year.

Big Hugs, hope you enjoyed the mini-garden tour.