random photo catchup--

just some photos to catch up on the last couple weeks of my surgery recovery, and  some additional ones taken since I started back to work:

 this is a beautiful 'get-well' flower arrangement sent from the folks at Tom's office: an assortment of flowers in gorgeous pinks and purples, displayed in a pink and white teacup and saucer. The photo above was taken when a ray of sunshine came through the window just right and spotlit it-- gorgeous!

 the photo above is the same flowers, edited with a 1960s-ish type of color filter, just as an experiment. (I think I like the naturally-lit photo better, actually.)

 While I was recovering from the second surgery, I didn't feel up to any 'really serious' art-making sessions, but I did eventually feel good enough to have a lot of fun with one of my most recent coloring obsessions- a $4 (gotta love those 50% off coupons!) student-grade pan watercolor set from Michael's. It was a really good choice, actually: enough colors that I don't have to mix my own, and simple enough that I could easily create some colored art-journal page backgrounds without needing too much in the way of supplies- just paper, water, brushes, and paper towels.

another great recent purchase was this 5x7 inch notebook (only $5!!) that I picked up at a local art store... I wanted something to mess around in with my new watercolor paints, and this is a smaller size than the two previous journals I had worked in, which looked interesting to me. 

So, just to recap: $4 watercolor paints + $5 spiral-bound notebook + $2.50 for a set of 3 brushes = countless hours of creative fun: priceless! (In the next couple posts, I'll show you some of the pages from this new journal, along with more pages from one of my earlier journals.)

 Random photo of Ariel: she likes to snuggle right up to the window-- so she can prop herself up, upside-down, I guess? But, apparently, the light was too bright for her, here?!? she's a crazy kitty!! 

Just a shot of a random outdoor temperature from a couple weeks ago- summer is finally here! 

and since summer temps are here, so are the dust storms. I got to drive home through this one (last Wednesday, my first day back to work). It's really sort of eerie to see them approaching like this... it was also sort of weird to see the local television channel helicopter hovering out in front of it, shooting footage for the nightly news!

Driving through one of these storms is sort of like driving through a snowstorm; visibility is greatly reduced. (And, unfortunately, there were just enough raindrops to wreak havoc on my freshly-washed car: insert frowny face here.)

Yesterday afternoon, I hauled my spray inks, stencils, paints, etc. out onto the patio... 100+ F temps makes for really quick paint-drying times! 

and lastly, a photo from Tuesday afternoon, when we had rainclouds and rainbows (but sadly, no rain). The rainbow was huge, and we could see the whole arc in our backyard; if you look closely, you can even see a second rainbow (which we could see better in real life).