Two!

 

          Two!

          That’s how many eagles I saw sitting in a tree.

          “There’s two eagles!” I exclaimed excitedly to my handsome mountain man as he zoomed along at sixty miles an hour.

          I didn’t have my camera up and ready so I missed the shot altogether.

          “You have to turn around! It’s a special picture because they were sitting side-by-side! Pleasepleaseplease?” I implored with no breath between the pleases.

          Mike frowned but he turned around. He slowed as we came to the spot and I took as many shots as I could. They were pretty far away and this is the best one.

          I cropped it and sharpened the image.

          And that, my loves, is the most exciting thing to happen to me this week!

          My beautiful, feisty, red-headed neighbor saw two eagles, too — but not at the same time. Whether it was the same eagle twice or two different eagles, we’ll never know. Once it was sitting on the dead tree that extends over the creek and Miss Rosie saw it from her dining room window. The second time he was flying down the creek. It’s really cool that we have an eagle living and hunting in our area.

          Seeing two eagles in the same week isn’t the only thing Miss Rosie and I have in common. I guess we were on the same wavelength in another aspect, too.

          “Why do you say that?” you wanna know.

          The short and simple answer is cardinals.

          Miss Rosie and I exchanged Christmas gifts. She gave me a whole bagful of wonderful gifts and a plate load of homemade Christmas goodies to boot. It was surely a five-pounder! Not what the treats weighed, but how much more I’m going to weigh after eating them all! They’re so yummy. She even included an extra big bag of homemade peanut butter fudge. She knows it’s my favorite.

The Christmas card she gave me had cardinals on the front.

          And my gift to her was also cardinals.

          “Do you recognize the piece of wood I painted it on?” I asked her.

          “No.”

          “It’s your old picnic basket. I assume it was your mother’s too, since her name is written on the underside.”

          “Yes it was,” Miss Rosie said, flipping it over. The writing is faint so I pointed it out to her. She flipped it back over and as she gazed at it (and maybe her mind flooded with all the memories that picnic basket held), her eyes welled up.

          “Thank you,” she said.

          While I was there, Lamar showed me the quilt his sister had made him from handkerchiefs. It was his birthday gift but wasn’t done by his birthday. Isn’t it just gorgeous and fun!?

          Miss Rosie is absolutely the queen of cards. Whether it’s a birthday, holiday, get well, or thank you card, she’s prompt in getting them written and sent out.

          Mine arrived in the mail this week. I read and re-read her sweet words.

          Thanks for making my eyes tear up and my heart fill up with joy and gratitude. The painting would have been treasured on any format, but you — dear and special you — have made it so much more by putting it on the lid of my mother’s picnic basket. It touched me deeply and is so special to me. Thank you.

          Gosh, golly, gee-whiz! Here I thought I was the only one who thought I was special!

          Speaking of my paintings...

          Mike’s cousin Dennis gave his son the framed painting of Charli for Christmas.

          “They love the picture!!!!” Dennis gave it four exclamation points.

          I finished the portrait I was working on. I did deepen the shadows but I could maybe deepen them even more. Remember I said I wasn’t looking for photorealistic, just recognizable?

I took it to church with me on Sunday.

“Don’t say anything,” I warned Mike.

“Like what?”

“Like, ‘Do you recognize him?’ or anything like that. I don’t want Pastor to have any clue that it’s someone he should know. I want to see if he recognizes him.”

“Wanna see what I painted this week?” I asked Pastor Jay.

“Sure.”

I stood in front of him and flipped up the cover of the block of watercolor paper.

A grin spread across his face. “Wow.”

“Do you know who it is?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s my dad.”

And that’s who it is.

“He’s here this week if you want to show it to him,” Pastor said.

That was an unexpected and pleasant surprise.

I did show it to Pastor’s parents and they both knew who it was. In fact, everyone knew who it was; even the kids knew!

Mission accomplished!

          “What are you working on now?” you ask.

          I’m working on a commissioned piece, but I can’t show it to you yet.

          “Why?” you ask.

          Well, I’m not sure it’s done, for one thing. For another, because I haven’t shown it to the buyer yet. I’ll show it to you when I can give you an end to the story and let’s leave it at that. Just know that I’m working on something and I have at least two more projects rattling around in my head that I want to try.

          “What projects?” you ask.

          You’ll have to wait and see.

 

          I only have two more photos to show you this week. This handsome guy, waiting and watching for his people to come out of Walmart.

         And Raini and I went out and took a sunrise picture for you. She doesn’t know what all the fuss is about but when she sees me get my camera, she takes off for the door!

I had a visitor at my feeders on Saturday. I was putzing around, getting things ready for the dinner after church the next day, when I crossed in front of the window and caught a glimpse of a hawk lifting off from one of the branches under the awning. He definitely wasn’t here for the birdseed. He was hunting the smaller birds that come to my feeders.

Several times this summer I’ve noticed feathers scattered around the yard. I always blamed the cats. But now I’m thinking it’s entirely possible he’s been visiting all along.

And, with that, we could call this one done, even though it’s not even four pages long.

          “Show some more pictures from your trip,” I hear Miss Rosie say in my head.

          Let’s do that.

          These photos were taken on our trip to Missouri and Kansas this past October.

          This is a stretch of highway we always recognize and call Elmer’s Hill. Our old friend used to have a towing business at the top of the hill and made a living pulling trucks up the hill in the winter. As you may well imagine, that was many years ago.

          We didn’t see a lot of buggies but I happened to take a picture of this one.

          A little farther down the road, I see this gal standing in the driveway. Do you think she’s waiting for him?

          They ran strings from the overhead lines for climbing plants. Is this allowed?

          I’m not sure I’ve ever seen them flip the round bails up on end like this before.

That would be a yummy place to work, don’cha think?

 

          Let’s end with another sunset photo from that trip.

          Until next time, remember, you’re all in my heart.

          Done

Miss Rosie Says

           I spent my week painting. But I bet that comes as no surprise to you. Other than showing you what I’ve been painting, it’s been a rather mundane week.

          “I bet you have pictures you could show us,” Miss Rosie says.

          And she’s right. Sitting right here in my computer is a file with over two hundred road pictures I took on our trip last October. Two hundred would fill a lot of pages!

          But first let’s start with what I painted.

          When I painted Christmas cards, I had a hard time deciding what to paint for Miss Rosie. I know she likes chickens — and I did find some Christmas-themed chickens. I know she likes cats. I painted a cat for her for Halloween. I know also that she likes birds. When I saw this image of cardinals on a mailbox, I decided that would be the one I’d paint for her.

          This image is one that I’m legally allowed to reproduce, so no worries about copyright infringement there. Just thought I’d say that outright since you know that’s been on my mind

.

          My mentor, California Susan, follows my painting career. I always show her what I’m working on and I showed her the cardinals.

          She fell in love with them.

          Since Miss Rosie had no idea what I was painting for her, she wouldn’t know I’d given her intended card away.

          Unless I told her.

          Which, I did.

          “Since she’s going to send it to someone, she needs to have it in time to mail it.” Miss Rosie understood. “You can paint me another one before Christmas.”

          In my mind’s eye, an image similar to this one came to me. “Why paint the same thing twice when I could paint something else?” I asked her.

          “Whatever you wanna do,” she said.

          I looked at the image and decided I really did like this one better.

          I got so far as to transfer the image to my watercolor paper, but hadn’t yet picked up a brush, when I remembered something.

          “What’s that?” you wanna know.

          I remembered, two years ago, during the church’s yard sale, Rosie and Lamar had donated their old picnic basket. Now, I won’t say the basket was trash, but it was definitely well loved.

          “We took the girls on a lot of picnics with this thing,” Lamar said as he was packing his leftover donated items to take home. “I’m going to burn it,” Lamar said.

          Well! Me being me, couldn’t have that!

          “NO! I’ll take it. Maybe paint something on the lid for Miss Rosie!” I said.

          Like I said, that was two years ago. You can’t get in a hurry about this stuff.

          Out in the cat room, way up on a tippy-top shelf was where the basket had been living for the past two years. I got it down and took it into the house.

          Prying the lid from the basket was a challenge! The hinges had been nailed on with little nails and the tips had been bent over. I had a fleeting notion of leaving the hinges attached because I was afraid I’d destroy the lid in the process of removing them but ultimately decided I wanted them off. If it was ruined, I’d worry about that later. First, I’d have to get them off. I stuck a screwdriver between the hinge and lid and pried. Surprise! They popped out with little to no damage on the top.

          I took it to the sink and washed it. It was while I was doing this that I noticed Rosie’s mother’s name had been written on the underside of the lid.

          “Can you send me a picture of it?” their daughter Jenn asked when I told her about it.

          I took a picture of Peewee and sent it to her.

          I didn’t know if I wanted to paint it landscape or portrait. I had a thought to use the elastic meant to hold your silverware as a way to hang it, but it fell apart when I pulled on it.

That’s okay. It made the decision for me. I painted it portrait.

“I have to learn to use acrylics all over again,” I told my handsome mountain man. 

It appears Tiger doesn’t care if his water is flavored with watercolors or acrylic paints.

If Miss Rosie wants me to paint WINTER’S WATCHERS on the top, I will. But if I put it on and she doesn’t want it, I won’t be able to take it off without sanding it.

I only have one commission on my plate and it’s not due for a couple of months. The other three never came through and I’m not going to sit around and wait for them, I’m going to paint.

          I feel like I was mildly successful at painting Andrew’s portrait, which I showed you last time. I wanted to try another real person portrait.

          After two days of painting, this is where I’m at. I know I need to deepen my shadows but I don’t exactly know what colors to use, plus it scares me.

          I put it to my peeps on my FB watercolor page.

          “If you’re looking for accuracy,” one of the gals said, “you’ll have to be bold with your shading.”

          “That scares me,” I told her.

          She offered this bit of advice. “I was talking to a professional artist friend of mine and told him I was afraid of ruining them by going too dark. He told me, ‘Oh, you’re going to ruin some.’ So, go ahead and take that pressure off of yourself and be bold! It will make a huge difference if you’re looking to achieve something realistic. You have an amazing start here!”

          I’m not going for realistic, just recognizable.

          Besides being scared of messing it up, I told them, “I’m thinking about a wash of Ivory Black.” It’s not as strong as Mars Black and I was hoping it would let the underpainting show through and wouldn’t completely cover it like the other black would.

          “Not black,” was the overwhelming response. “Use a complementary color like purple or Vandyke Brown.”

I was super surprised when I saw this comment. “Not black, maybe Burnt Sienna with a touch of red and blue.”

          Not because of the colors suggested but because of who suggested it. Rachel Parker Varner. She’s sorta famous in the watercolor world as a watercolor artist and teacher. She has a YouTube channel with over 58,000 subscribers. Rachel has many free tutorials but also has a Patreon page for deeper instruction. She’s sold paintings all over the world — and she took the time to give me advice! How cool is that!

          We had snow, which I’m sure doesn’t surprise you, either.

          I was running low on dog food so we made a run to the store.

          I took pictures for you.

          Our pretty little creek, both sides of the bridge.

          Colorful graffiti.

          Fire?

          Ladies’ day out? 

          Ice fisher.

          The weather warmed and we got hours and hours of rain. The snow all melted.

          Two birds sat under the awning, out of the rain, for the longest time.

          I decorated for Christmas. I hung up my Christmas cards and plugged in my tree. Done!

          Speaking of done...

This letter blog would be done because that’s all I had to talk about this week, if I didn’t have Miss Rosie’s suggestions to dig out a few of our vacation pictures for you.

          Let’s end with a sunset picture from that trip.

          Done!