Bloggers meet at art exhibition.

The exhibition at Marjorie Wood Gallery in Red Deer was a blast. My show apparently had two openings, one on friday eve and one where I was present on sat July 9th. Wonderfully olde friends came to view and bought two beautiful butterfly paintings; thank you so much dear ones. May the butterflies forever brighten each day.

I excitedly met the kind blogger who suggested I apply at the Kerry Wood Nature Centre, I say excitedly as staff informed me they heard me squeal when we met. Thank you Keith, I appreciate your taking the time to attend.

Here we are, two Alberta bloggers posing for my delightful daughter whom kindly snapped photos. Of course I am the one dressed in brown. My children drove a couple hours to be present and give generous support, thank you to my son and daughter.

Many viewed the paintings with intensity and left with a smile. For some memories were triggered, for others inspiration surfaced. Some people came specifically to view the show and meet the artist and others who had come to the Centre to walk the grounds were surprised to find fifty paintings on display.

Each one who attended made the day extra special.

 The staff at Kerry Woods are all so wonderful, and I must say a great job was done in the arranging of all the work, whew, what a job. I used to be employed by Galleries and know that it takes a fair amount of work and a good eye to hang an exhibition, especially one of this size.

 It has been a busy time. The following day we went to Medicine River Wildlife Centre to take behind the scene photos of injured birds. Then once home we packed our camping gear and headed west to Jasper, oh how I love being in the mountains. One week and over 4000 images to sort through, I am definitely trigger happy. Next post will be on the Nations of Jasper camp and totem raising.

May your days be filled with the warmth and brightness of a hug. 

Hugs!

Chickadee x2

Blackcap Chickadee

Acrylic on canvas 8"x10"

Ball-o-Fluff, Boreal Chickadee

Acrylic on canvas 8"x8"

 These two chickadee paintings were finished just before the Red Deer exhibition. I have been posting a lot of photos lately, though aside from the last few weeks I have been painting. This is the time of year when I take a lot more reference photos as withe warmer weather its much nicer to get out for walks. We went for a wonderful stroll tonight and what did I see?

 Shadow play with daisies.

Shadow play with young Magpie; poor thing was panting in the heat. I would guess that its not old enough to know to seek out a shady spot, though its sibling figured it out so hopefully this one followed.

Remnants of Canada Day, or should that be Kanata Day.

Baby Bluejays, ooo, they are so sweet. They were under a tree waiting patiently for the parent to bring yummy bugs for dinner. Its really amazing how parent birds keep track of juveniles once they start hopping about going different directions; these ones are pretty young and stayed put.

And on another happy note I have been invited to submit a painting for an upcoming group exhibition in Sept at Kings University in Edmonton. So fab, I am looking forward to that. Its wonderfully delightful to have my work appreciated. 

Big Hugs!

Rainbow Story Teepee

Guard pug on watch duty at the rainbow story teepee Gerald and I made for our grandsons birthday.

Of course I never seem to be able to keep anything simple so this took eleven full days of cutting stitching and appliqué to create. Suppers were late, lunch got missed altogether some days, ahh the price of a creative rambling mind. Thank goodness I have a wonderful supportive spouse who honours my creativity by helping where he can and vacuuming up my mess of bits, threads and fabric dust.

I designed an applique pug and min-pin to be on permanent guard duty.  

 The stars and circles are a sheer material to let the light in.

Gerald took a few photos outside before loading the Teepee for our trip to the party. The poles are seven feet tall.

The door flaps are held open by way of buttons.

Looking up the smoke hole, see how I made sleeves for the poles to keep them in place. I also stitched the bottom of the pole sleeve shut so the poles would not scratch floors. Gerald drilled holes in each pole near the top and run a shoelace through the holes which make it easier to set up and fold in for storing when not in use. I do believe we need to get some small wooden beads to place between each pole at the top as we found that the string twisted a bit and I had to untie it and retie it so the sides would flare out.

its been a full crazily busy few weeks but I am sure it will give many hours of playtime fun.

Hugs!

When up to your eyeballs in baby-spit

These images taken tuesday night through a dirty window after a heavy evening rainstorm in waning light. 

Two babies who had earned their flight wings momentarily landed, then another parent landed and took off with the two babies in tow. This baby robin couldn't fly and stayed right close with its parent. Yesterday I noticed this one acquiring some wing flapping lift, enough to get it into the low branches to climb higher in the trees, so by today I figure it should be flying.

Hugs, and have a wonderful day!

Wagner Natural Area

At the beginning of June Gerald and I ventured to Wagner Marl Ponds to look for wild orchids. Now I don't know much about orchids yet figured I would take photos of any flowers in bloom then attempt identity later. I had expected the bugs to be bad but didn't fret, I knew that our natural mosquito repellant was in the vehicle and we could squirt some on our clothes upon arrival to the bog, but the repellant was not where it should be. The mosquitoes were abundant and voracious so it ended up being a speed walk with most of the images blurred due aggravated body jerks as the little beggars needled my hands and buzzed my face. Anyhow, today Gerald suggested we check out the Marl ponds again, but we got smart and stopped by the fabric store for noseeum mesh and I quickly stitched up bags for our heads, I wore my rain coat and leather gloves, but my goodness was I hot, too hot, but I wasn't bothered by mosquito swarms. The mesh made seeing clearly difficult so I put my camera on auto focus even though its not as good as manual focus I did get some okay images of wild orchids.

Saline Shooting Stars

 labrador Tea

Field of Saline Shooting Stars by the board walk.

 Marsh Marigold. These top four photos were taken beginning of June. The rest were taken today.

 A tattered Blue flitted about my feet on the path.

 Still have some flowers to identify, such as these pretties.
Common Fleabane

  Prickly Blue.

 Lady Slipper Orchids were abundant early in the month and many in bloom now.

 Not sure but these may be orchids.
Thanks to David I now know this is an orchid past flowering, these are pods of the Early Coralroot

Tall Bluebell 

Dwarf Raspberry

 Round Leaf Orchid, these tiny beauties are what I was after, the individual flowers are tinier than my baby finger nail, delicate and o-so-charming. There is a call out for orchid images for an exhibition in Oct so intend to paint wild orchids delicately in watercolor.

Bunchberry are in full bloom, these are very white. The camera doesn't capture white detail well on auto focus but theres no way I was going to lift my protective netting to clearly see to use manual focus.

 Bunchberry carpet.

Twinflower carpet.

Twinflower

 Marl Pond natural springs though the forest.

 Bog violet?
David has informed me this is Common Butterwort which is a carnivorous plant, how cool is that. Now I am excited to have the chance to return for a closer look.

 Shooting Stars were few today, most have gone to seed already. You can see the dampness reflecting off the ground cover behind the pretty stars. I like how they face opposite directions.

 Northern Green Orchid
I may have to send these images to someone in the know as I am finding it difficult to identify with conflicting names attached to it on the web.

 The flower close up, I'm not sure if its quite in full bloom yet.
confirmed, Northern Green Bog Orchid.

 The Marl Pond is a natural mineral spring fed pond. We are really quite lucky this area has survived as I have read that this is home to sixteen wild orchids species, of course I only found a few though am sure if we go out at different times we may see others as one lady told us that there were many more in bloom last weekend than now.

 The path is flooded with Toad tadpoles swimming about, we had to cross carefully.

Pink Elephants Head ?

 Our handy bug nets, they worked well. We heard various bird song throughout the muskeg forest though they were elusive.

Starry False Solomon's Seal blossom sporting a fly.

 Wild Rose complimented by a white spider sporting matching pink side stripes.

 Clouds brought in wind gusts and a wee bit-o-rain. Looking back at the path as we headed for the van.

 Tiny butterflies hid amongst the shrubbery to avoid the raindrops.

Star Grass