"The Farm"

This is actually my vegetable/fruit garden, but since I have some potted tomatoes planted by the trailer, I call the big garden "the farm".

We have squash of all varieties, a watermelon, a cantaloupe, many cantaloupe seedlings, which aren't doing too well. We also have 2 pepper plants - a banana and a red, an orient cucumber (which has a curled good size cuc on it now), Four string beans. We have three tomatoes, and many cosmos (flowers), and lettuce volunteered from last year.

We are grateful to Jim and Josey for all the work they did on this garden last year to make it such a wonderful place to grow stuff. The soil in heavenly and Jim hauled every rock from the river to build these beautiful terraced gardens. I'll show you a better picture of that next time.

We have corn planted in this circular area as it gets the most sun. Put seeds in June 18. Am watering and fertilizing, hoping for "knee high by the 4th of July". D'ya think they'll make it?


I am not there to protect my plants at all time, so Lilly Lu is on point to fend off the birds. But having an ancestral attachment to Alfred Hitchcock, they are impervious to her flailing arms.


.... also, I don't think she looks menacing enough... too smiley....




Finches love sunflower leaves. I sprayed soap suds and then sprinkled them with cayenne pepper (the leaves that is) and this is how effective that turned out to be. Next time the birds will get the treatment.








These are acorn squash plants given to me by my neighbor Shirley Haynes. They are the healthiest and fastest growing plants on the farm.
Patio tomatoes, Quick Pick. This is an early variety... they are just starting to look a little translucent. It might be awhile before we'll be adding these babies to our salads.



Flowers:

Geraniums and petunias.





Pansies and a mystery plant in the middle. I sprinkled seeds which my friend Connie gave me years ago. Not sure what they will become.



Petunias and Lavender.









Variety. A rooster comb and a pumpkin plant, which is something new my Gardner Barbara passed on to me. We'll see what it does. Another mystery flower coming later in the summer.

The alysum and lobelia are loved by something cause they are dying and disappearing... maybe good nesting material.


As much as the captain is itching for salt air, I am really enjoying being land locked this year. ...love having a chance to have a garden. We have been buying produce in Canada and Alaska the past few summers, so this is really going to be a treat! And we have already been blessed by the neighbors with green onions which measure 36" from root tip to green top tip. That really gives me hopeful anticipation for a Klamath River harvest.


luv/jo

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Painting off Walker Bridge photo - Stage 4

Stage 3

Stage 4

This is it..... the final.

The shadows on the right were not as cool as those on the left. So I added Ultramarine Blue to the under side of the bushes, which not only unifies the two sides of the canvas, also accentuates light hitting the tops of the bushes.

I found trees in the background that were reflecting the diminishing light of dusk. So I put highlights on them.

I put bare branches into the bushes on the left, and broke up the arch of dark blue that was front and center in the water. This emphasizes the last sparkles of evening sunlight reflecting off the water. There are now some small white riffles around the little islands that come in from the right front.

This is a dangerous time for me. I have so much fun with the highlights and details that I can get carried away with the "piddle, play, and putter" and end up with a "blend" rather than distinctive highlights. So I decided to stop here. I will look at this painting over the next few weeks and decide if I still need to do something, or if I can consider it done and ready to sign.

luv/joB

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Painting off Walker Bridge photo - Stage 3

This is Stage 3, and I must specify here that it is actually painted from the photo, rather than the "en plein air" location itself. This DOES affect the final rendition, as the atmosphere is not present in a photo... Susan Sarback says you get only "10% of the real thing" from a photo.



Sooooo what I am doing here is using the photo as a reference and asking it to spark my memory of what was actually happening with the sun and shadows at the time the photo was taken when I was there on the bridge painting.


As I study this stage, I am asking questions to fine tune the next stage.... comparing background, middle ground, foreground, and the actual focal point of this scene (which is the point of the lightest light and the darkest dark). Do you see it? It's where the sun is hitting on that water way in the back. These questions are: lighter/darker?, brighter/duller?, warmer/cooler?

Soooo..... 4th stage ahead.

luv/joB

"All for the love of art."

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Painting off Walker Bridge - Stage 2

This is stage 2.

Here I just define the shapes in a little more detail.



I finished this late in the day. I'll show you tomorrow.

luv/joB
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"Seeing Color" from the Walker Bridge

The art class we are currently taking from Nancy Kilmer is called "Seeing Color". It's the Hawthorne/Hensche style which is a modification of Monet's impressionism.

The first part of this class was the "drawing from the right side of the brain" exercises, and then the blocks still life.... painting the blocks and the shadows they cast. I showed those in previous blogs.

Now we are "en plein air" painting off the Walker Bridge, which is about a mile and a half down river from the community hall where we meet for class.

View down riber from the bridge:










My first attempt:



I am not happy with the way this is working out, as I don't feel I did a good "first stage".

The object of this whole process is to capture the light, color, and atmospheric conditions present at the time scene is being painted. I think I got the greens too bright, and since the oil paint has dried now (2 weeks later) I decided to start over last night.


Stage 1:

I started this last night in class - from the photo, which is not the same as "being there", but I think it's good practice for this first stage, which is the base, and needs to be correct. This is also the part where I have the most difficulty.


So this is where I am this morning.





I'll show you my progress as the day continues.








luv/joB
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Easter with the Red Hats

The week before Easter, my red hat group, The Red Hat Mamas, celebrated friendship, food, and frivolity at Chris Barney's home.


................. showing off our Easter Bonnet creations before the judging.




Lois was the Grand Prize Winner.
Karen (or should I say Carmen Miranda) in the background won second place. She actually had potted plants intertwined with bunnies, umbrellas, and little chicks adorning her hat. She shared the plants with us for our spring planting.

I think Judy (in the foreground would have gotten 3rd place if we had awarded one.) She had the Easter bucket theme going. Miriam and I were the subdued ones in the group. I have an edge over the other gals, as my Easter bonnet is serving a dual purpose as a beautiful spring wreath decoration.

Chris had beautiful decorations all thru her home, and I couldn't resist sharing this one of the bunny, the jelly beans the the little bee buzzing around... reminded me of my alter ego "joBee", and also reminded me that I haven't been painting lately - beyond my "see color" class.


Next blog.... I'll share what we're doing in class.

luv/joBee

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Wow! It's been a long time

I can't believe it was February when I last blogged. I guess not a lot of activity you'd be excited about.

Spring is TRYING to pop in, with some success. The swallows have arrived and are nesting. We have seen the juncos and the morning larks and other migratory birds.




The robins and the quail winter here, so they pop their heads in all year round. These were taken a few days before Christmas.








Feb 4 our Art Class with COS (College of the Syskiyous) spring semester started.

Our instructor Nancy Kilmer

lead us off with "drawing from the right side of the brain" exercises in preparation for "seeing light and color" palette knife technique.



This process of "seeing" starts with painting blocks. We are being taught to distinguish: the color the block actually is in bright light, in shadow, and cast shadow. It's the Henry Hensche method of seeing light and color.

This is a challenging process, mainly because the first color you paint is NOT the color you actually see. It's a base (under color) upon which you build layers. I have been working on mastering this process for a long time. It seems to get clearer as time goes on. We'll see. We will be painting en plein air (outdoors) as the season progresses.

I'll keep you posted.

luv/joB

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