April is National Poetry Month

NaPoWriMo, or National Poetry Writing Month, is an annual project in which participating poets attempt to write a poem a day for the month of April.

I've done this challenge before in 2015 and 2017. I published a few of my 2015 efforts and the whole 30 that I wrote with illustrations in 2017. Creating and publishing every day was time consuming and I decided I was too busy to try in 2020. At least I thought I was too busy a few weeks ago. But things change (sarcastic laugh). So come back in April and see what happens. I'll publish the prompts and my efforts but don't look for pictures every day.  Until then, here is one of my poems from March 2010.

MARCH

Rotten snow rusts.

Gardens and forests still sleep.

Wind’s iron fingers smear shadows.

We ache inside

Homesick for spring.

Hope you are all well and staying safe. Best wishes to you and your families.

National Poetry Writing Month website

PINT JARS

I sold a couple of paintings in the last two weeks so I had to get busy and replenish the inventory of my Etsy Shop.  I like the challenge of painting glass and reflections so I set up two of my old pint jars and filled them with some vintage marbles from my collection.

Canning jars were once very much a part of everyday life. They were filled with garden and orchard produce at the height of readiness to be processed and stored against the dark days of winter. Now some antique jars are used to hold other items.

After working out a composition and making a sketch or two I transferred a pencil drawing to watercolor paper and stretched it.  When it was ready I painted in a neutral background and began the shadows of the foreground

After that it was mostly just reproducing and enhancing what I'd selected from my reference photos.

It took several days and hours of work to finally work my way through all the details of the marbles and the glass of the jars.

So there it is, "Pint Jars" ready to be purchased as a gift for someone who likes antique glass or for a present for yourself; ready to be framed and displayed.  See it for sale here.

JARS AND BOTTLE

This painting is done using some of the bottles from my collection of antique glass.

Here is the final result.  It is 9 inches wide and 12 inches high and is painted on Arches 140 cold press paper with Winsor Newton and Daniel Smith professional pigments.  It reminds me of warm afternoons helping my grandma can apricots from the tree in her back yard.

After penciling in a sketch, I masked out some of the areas I wanted to remain the white of the paper and then floated in a wash of purples and greens for the background.

Then I went to work adding details to the big Mason jar.

It took several hours over several days to finish all the details of the glass and the reflections in the surface of the shelf.  This painting and many others are for sale at my Etsy site, Watercolors by Leenie.

CLOTHESLINE

My previous painting, "Special Delivery" would be a great Father's Day gift.  This one which I'm calling, "Clothesline," would be a nice one to give on Mother's Day.

I grew up long before most homes included an automatic dryer so I've done my share of hanging out clothes.  I even blogged about it here.  And this isn't my first painting on the subject of hanging out clothes.  Another one I posted about here.

And I'm well aware of the job becoming a miserable chore when the weather is freezing or rainy or when a big wind full of dirt comes up.  Still I persist in remembering the joy of white sheets against blue sky with birds singing, accompanied by happy baby babble.  

So I drew up a composition and went to work layering in colors of green for the trees and lawn, working around all the areas I wanted to retain the white of the paper.

I got to this point without much concern.  Trees and grass are pretty forgiving even when the artist gets a little sloppy.  The dog went okay with his happy smile and floppy tongue.  But I had to put the whole thing away and think about it overnight... 

...before I got brave enough to take on the faces of the mom and baby.  This and many more of my paintings are available for sale at my Etsy Site, Watercolors by Leenie.

PRACTICING FOR THE APOC-ECLIPSE

Our little town in Idaho is smack dab in the path of totality of the Total Solar Eclipse USA 2017.  We've been inundated with info and warnings for months.  All rooms are sold out including Air B&B's.  Did we ask for this? NO.  Although I admit it IS exciting to think of being able to view the show from the comfort of our own backyard with cold drinks available in our fridge and the aroma of barbecue in the air.  Yes, we're hosting an Eclipse Party.

In anticipation I've purchased a solar filter for my camera and have been playing around with shooting the sun.  

This one is a sample of over-exposure on a clear day before being nearly socked in by wildfire smoke.

This one is under-exposed with smoke.  Can't move the smoke any more than we can move the sun.

This one looks okay to me, even with smoke.  Hope the air clears before the big day, but even if it rains we'll be glad the air is being cleaned out and we'll just move the party inside.

Special thanks to the firefighters for all they do to save timber, wildlife and property at the risk of their own lives.

PORCH ROCKERS--another version of a favorite subject

I've already painted and sold three other versions of this setting.  The location is our front porch where we enjoy spending long evenings watching the sky go from blue to pinks to deep violet.  Late summer is that time when all the hard work in the garden is paying off and it's finally time to enjoy the fruits of our labors.  The street in front of our house is narrow and is often used by runners, young families pushing strollers and friendly neighbors out for a walk.

I used reference photos I already had on file to create a composition, and then a full sized 11x14 inch sketch which I transferred to heavy watercolor paper.  Then I stapled the paper to gator board and masked out the areas I wanted to remain white.

After gently wetting down the whole thing I floated primary colors over the scene and let it dry.

I added another layer of colors after masking out another section and let it dry again.

Then I got so involved in my work that I forgot to take more photos.  So this is the final which I've put up for sale at Watercolors by Leenie.  I like this one a lot.  It will be hard to let it go, but I guess I can always make more.

THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--Day Twenty-One

A photo a day for thirty days

The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the lawnmower is heard in our land. 

Song of Solomon 2:12--edited  ;-)

It was also a great day for a bicycle ride.  

View of our valley from the overpass.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bicycle races are coming your way

So forget all your duties oh yeah!

Fat bottomed girls they'll be riding today

So look out for those beauties oh yeah!

Queen

THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--Day Twenty

A photo a day for thirty days

TREE HOUSE

A tree house,

A free house,

A secret you and me house,

A high up in the leafy branches

Cozy as can be house.

A street house,

A neat house.

Be sure and wipe your feet house

Is not my kind of house at all--

Let’s go live in a tree house.

Shel Silverstein

Postscript: This is one of Treehouse Master's creations.

And it has a bathroom.

THIRTY DAY CHALLENGE--Day Five

A photo a day for thirty days

\

The sun was warm but the wind was chill

You know how it is with an April day

When the sun is out and the wind is still, 

You're one month on in the middle of May. 

But if you so much as dare to speak, 

A cloud comes over the sunlit arch, 

A wind comes off a frozen peak, 

And you're two months back in the middle of March.

Two Tramps in Mud Time

Robert Frost

BIGGERING CONTINUES--EARLY MARCH EDITION

In January I put up a post about the loss of our scruffy but shady trees along the canal by our house.

As the trees went down the girders went up for a multi-story addition to the assisted living complex nearby.

 The construction workers have put in long hours assembling this big structure.  They wake us up before sunrise with banging and rumblings and are still toiling away long after dark.   It looks like a life-size K’nex Toy set at this point.

 At the same time a new bridge is being built to provide access across the canal.

 Manufacturing skills of all kinds are being put to use.

A variety of heavy equipment such as cranes, fork lifts, bull dozers, and cement mixers come and go all day.

 No matter what the weather the workers have been busy making this job happen.  A few weeks ago the outside walls started going up in a shocking shade of green.  We’re hoping there will be an outside layer to cover that up.

 We watched three stories and an elevator shaft take shape.

 Then some kind of rooftop decks appeared.  Oh, great.  Now there will be neighbors watching from above as we come and go.

 

They brought in the big gear to rip out the tree stumps and move the canal over so our street could be widened.  A wider street with curb and gutter may be nice but it will also bring more traffic to our quiet neighborhood.

 Another backhoe arrived to take on shrubbery which had overgrown the canal banks.

 The debris was cleared and hauled off in dump trucks.

 One day there were so many rigs at work that it looked like the sandbox at a daycare.

 There were three backhoes in the canal, plus a front loader, dump trucks and a compactor.  There was also the beep-beep backup alarm from the crane and clanging from girders coming from the nearby building construction.  At least when this is all over the new neighbors should be very quiet.

 It was entertaining to watch this backhoe operator work and work to loosen and pull up the old tree stumps.  Even though there is only a city block of canal bank to clear, we are guessing they will be at it for days.

 Still, it is amazing what can be accomplished by one guy in a piece of heavy equipment.

NEVER SAY "NO" TO PIE

I’m not sure why three or four butternut squash plants grew in an empty space in my garden last summer.  We weren’t home a lot of the time.  Maybe some guy traded his cow for seeds and ditched them in the dirt before he went home to avoid defending his irrational act.

 

 I let them grow since they discouraged weeds, but they never grew tall enough to climb.  Still, I didn't think we’d have a growing season long enough for butternut squash to mature.

 I was wrong. 

Then I had the challenge of what to do with a dozen squash.

 We gave away a few to neighbors.  Our granddaughter painted up a bunch to decorate our place for Halloween.

 I tried a butternut soup recipe I saw on television.  The general consensus on that dish was, “Meh.”

 We like baked squash. But even after all that we still had a stack of the guys, now with faces, staring at us when we walked by their spot in the  basement.  And months later they were still as good as the day we picked them.

 So I peeled and scooped out the seeds of one, cut it in chunks and steamed it in the microwave oven for about 10 minutes.

When the squash was cool, I mashed it up…

 …and used some of it instead of pumpkin to make pumpkin chocolate chip cookies.

I still had about two cups of squash left.  It was pie time.  Using Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie recipe: 

I tossed the cooked squash chunks into a blender, poured in the evap. milk, and the eggs and some grated fresh ginger and kicked it on.

 I added in the sugar and spices and poured the whole mix into a waiting unbaked pie shell.  Soon the whole house smelled like Thanksgiving.

 The not pumpkin pie was a hit.  DH said he liked it much better than pumpkin.  So did I.

  

"Vegetables are a must on a diet.  I suggest carrot cake, zucchini bread and pumpkin (or butternut) pie."—Garfield the Cat