Playing Possum

We had a momma opossum coming through the yard every night for some time. She liked the cat food that got left out. I saw her one night climbing up the other side of a chain link fence. I had a flashlight and as I got close to her I could see ears and eyes peering out from inside her pouch. Then I hadn't seen momma for a couple of weeks. Two nights ago I walked out into my carport where the cat's bed is and found this little baby comfy and cozy. It was sooo cute I wanted to keep it around but we decided to relocate it out by the Sacramento river and away from our cats. I didn't want it to become the cats' new plaything.

Wildflowers and Clouds

Okay, this time I've gone way overboard with my blog posting. Well, you'll see why. It was definitely worth it. I've been incredibly busy going to school, making sculptures, playing in my garden and firing my kiln. Firing my kiln is what started all this. Or maybe it was the wind and rain that came first. I needed to fire the kiln but we had had two days of wind and rain and the kiln is outside so I need calm weather. Then Becky and I had decided we were going to go to Table Mountain on Saturday. By Friday I knew that Saturday was going to be the perfect day to fire the kiln. What's a friend supposed to do?


This is the view I came home to after being stuck inside all day at school. I knew this must be serendipitous and I knew what I had to do. Call Beck and go a day early. Of course! Besides, who could pass up these gorgeous clouds for photo opportunities. Thankfully, the spontaneous person that she is made my plans perfect. I picked her up in the late afternoon and we headed out.



This is the view that opened up before us as we headed out towards Butte College.


Oops, I missed the turn off because we were talking so much and I continued up highway 70 and we pulled into the Vista Point parking area where we were presented with this gorgeous panorama.


We headed back down the highway and finally made it to Table Mountain, hopped out of the car and Becky pointed out this rainbow behind us.


The late afternoon light was warm and perfect for showing off the gorgeous wildflowers still springing up everywhere.



Becky looked so cute sitting in the middle of this patch of flowers (trying to avoid sitting on the cow patties!)


I think maybe we took as many pictures of each other as we did of the landscape.


The shadows were lengthening...


and the cows were pretty used to people running all over the place.



The clouds started to turn pink as the sun was setting and we were racing back up the hill to the parking lot so we would have a better view of the sunset.


Out of breath, but delighted with our adventure, we snapped our last pictures.

Spring Wild Flowers

I went up to Table Mountain with my friend Jennifer yesterday. It was a beautiful day and the flowers are just gorgeous. I was impressed that Jennifer knew the names of almost all the flowers. I'm going to have to do my homework though. We walked all over the place and we hiked down a cliff to see a waterfall. We haven't had much rain so it was not very big. It was really nice at the bottom by the waterfall. There is a really nice wide grassy area with trees and shade. A perfect place for a picnic. I'd love to write more but I've got to go get ready for school.

Photoshop Fun

I spent the morning playing around with my mushroom photos in photoshop and this interesting image is what I came up with. I'm trying to come up with images for laser transfers to put on some of my sculptures. I've never done this before. I think this image might be too dark for the transfer process. I haven't played with photoshop for so long that I'm having to remember some stuff. It's coming back pretty quick so I am happy. I'll probably do some line drawings or use some images out of my sketchbooks for the transfers since I think I need something that is not so busy. I think less detail in the image is supposed to transfer better. We'll see. Wish me luck. I'm usually at church at this time but the hubby and I decided to go at 1:00 instead of 9:00am. I better go get ready.

Sculpture

Last Monday we were supposed to be done with one of our projects and were supposed to have "crits" which is basically a critique of everyone's projects by everyone else in the class and the instructor. We ended up having a last minute guest artist which was great for me because I was not ready. I wasn't really thinking about when the make-up crit would be. Towards the end of the week I decided to glaze up these pieces that were sitting in my locker. The tech loaded the kiln the very next day, lucky me. Even luckier, I found out we are having the crit in two days. I stopped by the university to see if the kiln was cool and pulled these out. I'm definately feeling good.



I love this piece! I loved it when I was making it but then I was having technical problems with the test piece. I was firing the test piece at a lower temperature and the glaze and the red cracked and popped right off the pot. My instructor suggested I put another test piece in with a high fire clear glaze and fire it at cone 10, almost 2400 degrees. This is the range that I am used to but I wasn't sure what the red underglaze would do as it is meant to be fired at about 1850 degrees. I thought I would completely lose the color. Impulsive as I am, I couldn't wait for the test and glazed it up anyways. Goody for me!

Tapioca Pudding

I made this super yummy tapioca pudding at the end of January. I'm thinking of when I'll have time to make some more. It was the first time I had ever used a fresh vanilla bean for anything. There are a lot of teeny tiny seeds in those pods. But it was delicious and worth the extra work.

Fresh From the Oven

Or rather, hot out of the kiln. I opened up the kiln this morning and this is what I found. I couldn't even remember what I had glazed up two months plus ago. It was a pretty good load and a pretty good firing. The only thing I lost were four porcelain pieces that I glazed too heavily and they ran and adhered themselves to the kiln shelf. Yeah, I might actually get excited about getting back into this. But I really need to rebuild the kiln. It's made of fiber and starting to fall apart. That is going to be a huge job. I'm not sure I want to tackle it. But at least now I have a few pots to sell at the farmer's market.

Frosted Fruit

I was up until 11:40 last night firing the kiln. I don't fire the kiln very often and it took a couple of hours longer than usual but I'm learning. Towards the end the kiln needs to be checked often and it is pretty hot. On top of it we had a warm day and the house was still hot. To cool off I rested my aching head on an ice pack and that felt great. I had a headache all day. Chico in the spring is beautiful and it smells great with all the blossoms but along with that comes all the pollen. The ice pack wasn't quite enough so I had to fill up this bowl with frozen fruit from last summers garden. I dusted it with some sugar and poured in some soy milk. It turned into a thick, delicious fruit slushy that did just the trick. Soon after finishing it I was able to turn off the kiln and go to bed. Tomorrow I get to open the kiln and see how it turned out.

I had to include this gorgeous picture of some of the first almond blossoms. The orchard is two doors down so I go there often to take pictures.

Beauty in the small details

It is so amazing the beauty we can find in the seemingly most ordinary things. I saw all these mushrooms while taking a walk in the orchard next door.

Kiln Load

I eventually survived finals and made it to winter break. I've been busy catching up and having fun but when it comes to the computers they have been frustrating. The desktop is about eight years old and the laptop six. They often don't like to do more than one thing at a time and have been especially picky about photos. The laptop decided to behave for me so I thought I should show myself while I still have a chance.



I have been so distracted by all the things I want to do versus what I need to do that it took me about two weeks of working on this load for the kiln before I was done. Wow, I usually have it done in a few days! I guess I shouldn't forget that I have been working at the university and working on my sculptures at the same time. So, I'm making progress. I'm just working on a lot of different projects.

Nostalgia

I was going through some old photos to use for a current art project and came across this one. This is Kyle when he was six years old. I took a series of black and whites for a photography class at UCSB during the summer in '95. I've really been feeling the empty nest syndrome, especially with the holidays coming up. I love the look of serenity on his face.


This is the one that I think expresses his personality most of the time. And maybe even now also. For this shot I used an old manual camera that was manufactured in Russia. I don't even remember what it was called. It took medium format film and was very easy to double expose if you forgot to crank the film forward to the next frame. I love the way it turned out. This has the vintage, distressed look because I left the negative in its plastic sleeve and rather dusty when I scanned it. Oops, I also scanned it backwards.

Harvest Morning

I should be working on my research paper, or getting ready to leave so that I won't miss the bus but I'm too distracted by the beautiful sun and the produce still growing in my garden. I can't believe I still have cucumbers. They are growing slowly but I still have four on my plant. I have tons of green tomatoes. Don't know if they'll ripen before the frost comes. I might try making a mini green house around them. Well, now I really need to be off. Have a great day!

Beautiful Day

It has been a wonderful, warm and sunny day.  Too bad I have been sick in bed.  I haven't had a cold for a long time so I guess it was my turn.  It is hard to believe it is November already.  I still have lots of Zinnias in the garden and picked four cucumbers and eight bell beppers yesterday.  There wont be too many more of those.  I still have kohlrabi, turnips, kale, lettuce and basil.  I have a bunch of red onion starts to thin out and I still need to plant my garlic.  School and work study have been keeping me very busy and, thankfully, the garden is mostly taking care of itself.  I have started to get into the fruit that I canned up over the summer and it is delicious.  I need to get back out of bed soon and finish up a few projects before school tomorrow.  I can hardley wait for thansgiving break.

Portrait Study

Ann, this post is for you! Thanks for goading me into finally updating my blog. These are the kinds of things I have been so busy with that have kept me from updating like I have so adamantly promised and resolved to do. Well, maybe next New Year's resolutions will go better.

About the drawing. We had an assignment to do a colossal portrait that had to have one prop and one hand in the drawing. It was supposed to be on 30" by 30" paper but I accidentally cut mine at 28" by 29". Go figure. This project took me about ten hours to complete. The only thing I don't like about it is the bizare horizontal and perpindicular lines that show up in the background and on the shoulder. Hmmm. I think I'll try to remove them from the shoulder and emphasize them in the background to provide some visual interest.

Beautiful Accidents

I put the brown on these bowls thinner than I like and then went to grab a bottle of white which drizzles over gives a kind of spotty , swirled contrast. Instead I grabbed the red, they look almost alike in their raw, liquid state. But these came out beautiful with different halo effects around the red.

I'm falling asleep at the computer and making too many typo's so I think it's past my bedtime.

Crazy Cuke

I found this funny cucumber in the garden this morning. I've been into sketching swirls and spirals lately so this just fit right in. I've had a bumper crop of cukes this summer from just three plants and I've canned about 15 jars of bread and butter pickles and relish. They'll be great on sandwiches when school starts up again. Yum.



And this is Tiger. I know, it's a very creative name. That's what you get when you let your 10 year old name the cat. She's been feisty ever since bottle feeding her when she was three weeks old. This is what she does when she wants to play. It took me years to figure out that's what she was communicating and you don't dare touch that delicious belly or she'll bite you. She's the sister to the orange tabby boys, one of which absolutely loves his belly scrubbed up. We call him the dog.

Pottery and Cats

Whenever I'm outside, which is a lot, there is sure to be at least one cat supervising whatever I'm doing. I loaded all these pots into the kiln this past week so I'll have some new work out soon. Yeah!



Today was busy. I went down to set up at the farmer's market by myself. I couldn't wake the hubby up after the long night. He unloaded some hot pots from the kiln and came down later just in time to save me from being swamped. We came home after the market and I passed out for about three hours. Then it's been watering the garden, doing laundry and cutting up nectarines for the dehydrator. Phew! Time for bed again.

Lightning and Canning Nectarines

It's been an exciting week and I promised myself that I would update my blog. I've been canning all week and loading kilns. At the beginning of the week we had a great thunder and lightning storm so at 2:30 am I had to whip out the camera for this shot. We just finished firing the kiln and have to get up at 5:30 to go to the farmer's market and hubby is calling me to bed.
Zzzz.

I just finished my public art project for my electronic art class. I wanted to do something that I was passionate about so I created this billboard in Photoshop.



This is the first one I made. I really like all of the colors and I had a great time learning how to create textures and manipulated color. I finally decided on the monochromatic scheme because it puts the focus on Christ and our relationship to Him.

New Jesus Christ Website

Jesus Christ, The Son of God

Wow, another new website with testimonies and special witnesses of Christ given by the Prophet and his Apostles. It's a beautiful site. I'll have to spend some more time with it tomorrow.

I'm busy now trying to get last minute laundry through before it's Sunday. I hadn't washed clothes in a couple of weeks. The pile was getting large and I wanted it done before school on Monday. I hear the dryer beeping so I need to go. I did make the ruby slipper cake again and it was even better than the first. And I've got pictures also but you'll have to wait until tomorrow.