Barn Fire

Gus headed out to the barn after lunch and set aside his pending decision about what to grow in the north field. Instead, he set to work prepping the barn door for a fresh coat of paint. 

 

He mused that even though he might be older than most people, he has collected more memories. One particularly stunning memory was a barn that caught fire in 1954 when he was 6 years old.  After getting the animals out in time, his family stood back and watched. He felt the terrible heat while listening to the crackle of the fire.  They watched their barn burn to the ground. At times, though terrifying, such events could be awesome as well.  

 

Barns can be rebuilt, as was this one.  As was the previous one. Except for the doors, this latest one was made mostly of metal and concrete. 

 

And the days of flammable gas lanterns were long gone. 

 

These memories made his solitude more interesting. And he was happy to have survived some of the more gnarly ones. He has reached a point in his life where he enjoys looking back and appreciating all that life has had to offer. 

What to Plant

As Gus finished plowing the north field, it started to rain. He had just enough time to make it home for before it poured.  He looked forward to a nice lunch of a BLT on buckwheat bread with tomato soup. The buckwheat seeds he bought last month would find a home in the south field. But he wasn’t yet sure of what to plant in the northfield. Should he plant corn like always or try something new. He didn’t have much time left to decide. But Sunflowers would be so much more exciting. He just wished more people wanted sunflowers. Gus would try to decide this afternoon as tomorrow was planting day.

Sandra

Both Sides Now

 

Here's to all of us that indulge in bouts of melancholy while bathing in beautiful clouds, poetry and music. Thank-you Joni Mitchell and Judy Collins for making it cool to look at life from BOTH SIDES NOW.

Rows and flows of angel hair

And ice cream castles in the air

And feather canyons everywhere

Looked at clouds that way

But now they only block the sun

They rain and they snow on everyone

So many things I would have done

But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

From up and down and still somehow

It's cloud illusions I recall

I really don't know clouds at all

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels

The dizzy dancing way that you feel

As every fairy tale comes real

I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show

And you leave 'em laughing when you go

And if you care, don't let them know

Don't give yourself away

I've looked at love from both sides now

From give and take and still somehow

It's love's illusions that I recall

I really don't know love

Really don't know love at all

Tears and fears and feeling proud

To say, "I love you" right out loud

Dreams and schemes and circus crowds

I've looked at life that way

Oh, but now old friends are acting strange

And they shake their heads and they tell me that I've changed

Well something's lost, but something's gained

In living every day

I've looked at life from both sides now

From win and lose and still somehow

It's life's illusions I recall

I really don't know life at all

It's life's illusions that I recall

I really don't know life

I really don't know life at all

Mercy Ship

\

My mother died in hospice coming up on 8 years ago. My sister and I were present and holding her hands as she passed. During this time an image came to mind and has stayed with me ever since.  And it is this image of a battleship on the horizon taking her back to her homeland. Once the ship vanished into the horizon, I knew I would never see her again.  In my mind it was a good ship. A protective one that knew I would try and swim to her if it were smaller and more inviting.  A formidable ship is not something to take lightly. It had her and they were going going gone. 

 

And then it occurred to me this morning that my grandfather worked on a Mercy ship as a medic in WW1. Maybe he was the one who picked her up. Maybe he is living out his heaven healing those wounded soldiers that didn’t make it.  

Sandra

 

The Erratic

 

Here sits an erratic, boulder that has arrived on the scene over 10,000 years ago during the end of the last ice age. It surfed into place on top of an iceberg and then was dropped in place during the iceberg melt. Now it lingers as a permanent outsider that has become welcoming place for travelers to sit and ponder which way to go next.

Trees and Mushrooms

 

Sunset on the Smokey Mountains.

 

Rock Painting

I am using gouache and a wet to dry technique. My teacher Justin Donaldson is amazing. I am learning so much. I feel like a kid again.

 

Sketch Journal Practice Two

 

Working with lessons from Celia Yadro again. She is a gouache expert and I have so much to learn. I like her face. She is intense and still a bit confused about what to do next. 

Oh dear. I am reminded of how hard it is to draw a symmetrical vessel. I think next time it might involve tracing the tow half to make a better pot. ON the upside I like the metallic like look of the paint. It actually looks shiny. I'll give this lesson another try soon. 

Sketch Journal Practice

My latest project is to fill up my sketch book with daily gouache paintings. I have taken notes on the back of each one evaluating the positive and negatives. 

This one is from a trip to the Grand Tetons in 2018

This one is inspired by an advent Calendar illustrated by Angela Hardin

 

 This one is from a photograph of my trip to Utah in 2022. The rock face was challenging but it was fun to do and I am eager to try it again.

This is an on-line video demo from Jess Chung.  I picked up a number of tips about using gouache with her.

This one was purely out of my imagination. It was fun to do and I am going to more intuitive landscapes in the future. It was quite relaxing. I am slowing getting better at making trees. 

Alex and I saw a varied thrush from on our bird feeder yesterday.  I did an illustrative look with these. So I wasn't going to anything too realistic. I love the way they turned out. I think I have an emerging illustrative style. Which is exciting because I can keep things simple and add more expression to my work. Justin Donaldson is always taking about communication and how our paintings can communicate a mood, a moment, something beautiful, anything we want. I am beginning to understand what he is taking about.  I hope that by the end of the month I will be able to identify a style. 

Hay Stack Rock Near Canyon Beach Oregon

 

Mount Vernon High School Reunion Part 2

 

Life Drawing at the Tacoma Art Museum

 

Last Thursday I went to a life drawing session at the Tacoma Art Museum. First time in 7 years and I had forgotten how much fun it could be. Each pose was 10 minutes long and I scribbled as fast as I could using pencil and paper. Then when I got home I did a digital transfer and colored it in. I look forward to future classes. 

Value Study

I am working on a value study today.

This is from a photograph I took while biking along  the Canal du Midi in 2012. I don't know if I am going to try to do this in color. For now, black and white feels daunting enough.

 

Still life of three pears watching the lunar eclipse.

Yesterday during out weekly painting session via FaceTime, Colette wanted to paint food. I chose pears and she chose gingerbread men. These are always my favorite painting sessions.

She is going to make a Christmas card for her crazy Uncle Muck with this one.

And here is her color challenge. She wanted to use every color from her mom's 85 comic marker color set to make this. Quite a challenge! I think she knocked this one out of the park!

Feels like High School All Over Again

 

Dear Ole' Dad

October 25, 2022

Happy Birthday Dad. You’d be 94 today. Always the reader. Reading next to your homemade BBQ pit was the ultimate afternoon experience. After reading the paper, he would use them to ignite the outdoor stove for dinner. Making good use of paper was so natural to him. In fact, both of my parents knew the value of material goods. They were not wasters. Let me put it this way, the garbage bin was always half full come garbage day. My dad didn’t even use shampoo. A bar of soap would do for all hair and body. The increasing use of plastic in our society was a real concern of his. Rightly so. He would surely "roll over in his grave” if he knew to what extent this next generation consumed. 

 

Note the shorts. I think he was the front runner of cutoff jeans. 

 

Love you dad and thanks for the civic lessons. I still carry them in my heart. Wish I could do better.

Flowers for Algernon

 Anyone who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind's eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye.

Quote  from Plato's Republic and used to begin the book " Flowers for Algernon"

 

October Orange

I painted this orange as an exercise in a class I took through #visualmindart

Melanie is quite skilled in using gouache. I am hoping it will rub off on me a bit.

 

Inktober Day 3 and 4

She told him a million times NOT to do his batting practice too close to the house!

Inktober Prompt BAT

The Centurion looks on from his vantage point of scalloped clouds. His vision quest has taken him to new heights in hopes of finding a better route to happiness.  His fans hope beyond measure that he can navigate around the climatic chaos.  What will he find? Stay tuned. 

#Inktober2022  Prompt Scallop

Inktober Day 1 and 2

 

Zoey is waving goodbye to her oversized dog who wears a gargoyle mask to help scare away her oppressors. She says goodbye as she has a gargoyle of her own now. And this one can use nature to nurture her growing garden. 

#inktober2022 Day 1 Gargoyle

Charlene is getting her kitchen renovated, and she is losing patience at the pace of the work -- it's the sixth day cooking on a stupid card table, and her contractor just called to tell her he won't be in until the afternoon. Again!

In 5 minutes she's going to have a little disaster, when then electric skillet shorts and the plug starts smoking. That fire extinguisher she always hated on her kitchen wall she will suddenly be very grateful for.

Story by my brother Mark Olmsted.

#inktober2002 Day 2 Scurry

Heavenly Skies

Although he clings to the twig to steady a gaze.

The sky is his heaven.

Without which he could not fly.

What is your sky?

My sky is this air I breath, 

the trail I walk 

and the day ahead.

 

My Bad Place

 This is what my bad place looks like. Where the words no longer make sense. When the flow stops and fluids stagnate. When talking about it doesn’t help because I can’t tone down the deafening vibration of my quivering heart. What to do next and where to step are questions for others because all I could do was stare at the wall or the sky and not really see anything

Fireworks over Richmond Pond. Happy 4th Everyone.

 

Celebrating 55 years of Journal writing

 

July 1, 1967 to July 1, 2022

I’m celebrating 55 years of journal writing today. The process has evolved over the years but no matter what I recognize myself in those pages. Always striving for the undoable and the unknowable. Often learning and doing as a result. But never really feeling like I successfully uncovered the mysteries of life. Sometimes I hatch plots and create goals and make lists. The best journals are ones that I make that have no lines so I have room to scribble and draw. These particular pages came from my daughter’s engineering office. They were on a long, huge roll used to print out architectural drawings. Now obsolete. I unrolled and cut them into 9 by 11 sheets of paper, used a three hole punch and voila. The sea otter cover appeared after splashing paint about and having no idea what would come of it. The sea otter just appeared as if to say…. Play with me. And so I will.

Mountain High

 

The best life has to offer me.

A letter to my husband on the occasion of our 42 year anniversary

My beloved,

Words will fail me, yet it is in the attempt that perhaps you will see a bit of truth.

 

I have spent the better part of this year with the explicit intention of developing a close attachment to nature. Afterall, if I am to profess a belief in God, then should I not start with an appreciation of this incredible planet we inhabit? 

I began by looking at the great views, the mountain and water scenes, the clouds, even the rain. Ahhhh, beauty is real and it can feed me, I thought.  Later I felt drawn to explore trees and flowers. Such majesty in the variety and detail. Taking a second and third look has only fueled my curiosity and sense of purpose. How have I allowed for my problems to overtake this heavenly backdrop? Why haven’t I really felt the depth of this amazing place before?

 

Even water droplets have taken on a new depth for meaning for me. I have begun to wonder about the water I drink… from where did it spring and where will it go after passing through me?...   GOD has been right here all along. Under my nose and on my lips this whole time.

 

My own self is part of nature, part of this planet and indeed a creation of GOD. Well that is the ultimate attachment. It is the simplest, least complicated way to see the world, and yet without becoming aware, keeping the eyes open it is so easy to miss. 

 

And so my beloved when I look at you. I see more than a date that worked out. Or a guy who can tell a really good joke, I see you as a gift. An exquisite man who has taken billions of years of steady sunshine to evolve into who stood before me 42 years ago to become my husband. 

 

We have moved one another, opened each other’s hearts, experienced joy and tragedy, witnessed our times change beyond imagining. As my man, you are the best sample of nature I experience. You have provided not only material things but more importantly your attention and care. How in the world can I say that in words, in a card or even in a smile? 

 

Happy Anniversary,

 

Yours truly,

Sandra