Cardinal Rework

"Winter Cardinal"

I have been having a very hard time with not being able to paint so I've worked on the painting of the cardinal again.  Nothing major - it just didn't look finished so I added some snow flakes.  That was within my grasp as they didn't have to be placed exactly nor did they have to be perfectly detailed.  Not a major painting but it did help with the restlessness and frustration of not being able to paint what I want to paint.

However, I did start a watercolor painting.  That is also within the realm of things I can do as I can work on it in small increments of time. 

Also, watercolor is by nature somewhat looser than other media (most of the time) so I don't have to have perfect vision to paint.  Not much done on it so far as I'm working in very short periods of time to avoid headaches.  Watercolor is nice as I can give my brush a quick rinse and walk away from everything.

I'll post it when I finish if it comes out well.  There's not enough to show you anything right now but I'll tell you it's a flower.  Not only am I fed up with not being able to see well, I'm also fed up with our gloomy weather!  A bright flower seemed the perfect option - hope it really is!

We Missed It!

Happy New Year everyone!  I regret to say that I just couldn't make it to midnight last night so missed ringing in the new year.  What an old fuddy-duddy I've become!  Or maybe it's because I've seen so many new years in that I now need to catch up on my sleep!

And the new year is not the only thing we missed.  Every year we have a tradition of going into the tiny, tiny town next to us on Christmas Eve to see the lights and Christmas decorations people put up.  Our granddaughter from Maine was here with her husband so we spent much of Christmas Eve day with them and honestly forgot about going out after they left. 

We went out last night to see if there were still any decorations left up but they were few and far between.  I guess people started taking them down soon after Christmas this year.

So, I guess 2013 could be classified as the year of missed opportunities - we'll try to do better next year!

Christmas Toys

 My husband and I used to play around cutting bottles and turning them into things like vases or lamps or other questionably useful items.  This was nearly 30 years ago so I guess we were into recycling long before it was popular!  lol

Well, we were given these beautiful blue wine bottles so we drug out the bottle cutter and I looked online for inspiration as to what to do with them.  I like the look of engraved glass so used an acid etch to put a design on some old bottles for practice but just didn't like the look of it and didn't think it would work on these blue bottles

I guess Santa knew that because I woke up on Christmas morning to find a huge box under the tree!  It had to be from Santa because my husband and I don't exchange gifts - we usually prefer to buy what we want when we want it so the box was a huge surprise!

In the box was a 245 piece rotary tool set with 2 rotary tools, a flexible shaft for detail work and every imaginable bit and doodad ever made for it.  I immediately grabbed up the diamond bits and started in on a beach scene on one of the bottles.  Remember, this is my first try at glass engraving so don't laugh too hard!  I'm told the glass is pretty forgiving so hope I can recover from any mistakes made!

The dolphin and the waves are patterns but the seagulls on the opposite side are free-hand and still in the process of being engraved.  I also plan to add another gull and maybe a lighthouse in the distance. 

What will I do with these bottles after I engrave them?  Hmmmm, I'm not really sure!  I've seen some lovely patio lights made from recycled wine bottles and also some wind chimes - I'm sure something will eventually come to me but if you have any suggestions, feel free to let me know!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Wishing you and yours a wonderful Christmas and New Year!  May all your dreams come true in 2014!

Cheers!

We have some wonderful "neighbors" (about 3 or 4 miles away!) who very generously share their garden with us and we trade various flower and vegetable plants with them.  The wife especially likes margaritas so I bought some inexpensive glasses and painted some Mexican designs on them.  We're going to get a bottle of margarita mix and give it to them along with the glasses for Christmas.  I hope they like them.

It was really difficult painting these small graphics and I was so frustrated by the time I finished, that I went to my optometrist's office and ordered a pair of bifocal eyeglasses!  It's been over 2 months since I was able to see everything clearly and I was so tired of it all that I just sort of snapped.  I have an appointment with the surgeon to have a stitch removed this coming week and still have another follow-up appointment with my optometrist in January and I just couldn't bear to wait any longer to see well.  Even if I need to take another route to see effectively, I wanted the glasses for the interim.  They should arrive next week and I will be so glad.  I was looking forward to not wearing glasses at all and my distance vision in one eye is 20/20 so I know I shouldn't complain at all.  And there still may be something I can do so glasses aren't needed but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it!

Anyway, still not doing any actual paintings but hope to be able to do something in the coming weeks.  I'll keep ya posted!

Fried Green Tomatoes

I think I told you that we had a volunteer tomato plant loaded with green tomatoes when frost was expected.  We harvested all the tomatoes right before we got a killing frost.  Some of the tomatoes went ahead and ripened and some I used green for an old Southern favorite - Fried Green Tomatoes and one of my favorite foods.

I don't indulge very often even though I use healthy oils to fry in.  My OH doesn't care for them and that's another reason I don't fix them that often.  But since I had several tomatoes that would ripen before we could eat them, I decided to fix this simple delicacy.  They were delicious!

Unfortunately, the frost has killed off or put most of our plants into hibernation.  We still have rutabagas, arugula, parsley, spinach and cilantro in the garden and it's great having fresh produce this late in the season.  It's been a very cold fall this year and I don't know how much longer even our cold weather plants will survive. 

No art has been done by me for a very long time as I still don't have really good close vision.  Fortunately, I have an appointment with my doctor tomorrow and he'll see if my vision has stabilized enough to prescribe glasses or a contact lens.  He had said he'd give me a trial contact lens to see if I could adapt to monovision so I'm really psyched to try it.  If it works at all, I'll try to paint something soon!  Of course, we have to get through Thanksgiving first!

FedEx Update and Painting Attempt

Just wanted to let you know that FedEx delivered my package yesterday and the young driver apologized for not getting it to me the day before.  I didn't even say anything about it when he told me he'd had the package then got a long way away from our house before he realized he hadn't delivered it and since it was so late he decided to deliver it the next day.  It was nice of him to apologize but it didn't make me think any better of FedEx as a delivery company. 

I told him I wasn't a happy camper about it especially after seeing the tracking update about not being home or the business being closed.  He said that was a sort of catch-all box to check when there were extenuating circumstances.  Hmmm, was still a lie, don't ya think?

But, good news.  I've been trying to paint in spite of not being able to see well up close yet.  I had cataract surgery on both eyes but I'm told it may take a while for the eyes to adjust to seeing both close up and at a distance.  I found a blog online where a guy with pretty much the same circumstances as mine had surgery a couple of years ago and who detailed some of the results and some of the things he found out.

I thought the way I see now was the final result but there's a good chance my eyes will continue to improve.  Or maybe I should say that my sight may continue to improve.  Sometimes the brain compensates for the uneven vision and actually adjusts to see things the way they're supposed to be seen.  Unfortunately, it can take months.  Fortunately, I can wear reading glasses if I really need to but, according to that blogger, the more I try to read or do close work without them, the more my vision is being "trained".  I also have a progress check at my optometrist on Monday and can see if things are heading toward improvement.

But, back to the painting.  I did paint this with the help of some reading glasses but even then couldn't see to do some of the really small details.  My husband and a good friend both said (at different times) that the painting looked "patchy" but I didn't know exactly how to fix it.  I did work on it a bit more and my husband said it looked much better but he may have been trying to be nice.  Anyway, here's the painting.  It's been painted in gouache on watercolor paper and is about 6 x 6 inches: