my commute home in Illinois was never like this!

(I highly recommend click on the photos below to see them larger)

This is just one of the reasons I love where I live:

These photos are a good example of why the road about 10 miles north of town is called Wild Horse Pass...  today was a good day; there had to be at least 25 to 30 horses out there, right next to the highway in a dry riverbed. I watched them for about 20 minutes, took about 65 pictures- not very many of them turned out good, considering I was shooting west right into the sun- and even shot a couple minutes of video (once I remembered my camera shoots video, that is). 

Truthfully, I could have watched them for quite a while longer; hopefully I'll get another opportunity sometime soon.

more art and stuff...

it was really sunny outside when I was painting over the weekend- I put my pages outside on the gravel, and they dried in no time! My new / old paint palettes are two muffin tins I got from the Goodwill store; they work great, except they got pretty hot after sitting out in the sun to dry!

The page below was started a couple weeks ago when I was at the Honda dealership, getting my brakes repaired. Later, I added some stamping to it (the brackets you can sort of see on the right-hand side), decided I didn't like it, and covered it up with gesso and watercolor crayons. ...I like it much better now!

The page below is technically not a page yet; it's a piece of random paper I had underneath my work surface so it would get paint and overspray on as I worked. I like how it turned out, and will probably use it for collage sometime.

The two photos below are the 'stuff' part of this post! Last weekend (on Sunday, I think) we had the windows open in the morning, and Tom said he heard quail outside. I thought they sounded awfully close, so I looked, and took some pictures through the window screen. Do you see it? (just kidding; I don't think it's in this one-- it was moving kind of fast.) 

Here it is, in the photo below! This is a Gambel's quail, which is easily distinguished by its scaly-looking plumage and its funny, bouncy topknot. This quail meandered around the front yard, to our delight (and that of the cats!), and there was even a bit of a wildlife show-- he wandered out into the road where he met up with another quail who was in the yard across the street! There was a short scuffle, then he came back into our yard and the other one retreated back to the neighbor's yard. It was really fun to watch them, and I certainly hope they come back again soon.

This journal page is another 'doodled' page; it started out with a blue acrylic background, I added the large circles / bubbles, then added the gold ones in the empty spaces. After the paint dried, I added details with soft pencils in black and white. I really like how this page turned out, and I think this one is another 'art only' page; I don't want to write over it, or add anything more to it.

Here's a detail shot of the 'bubbles' from the page above:

Not sure if I'll do any more painting for a while again; I go in spurts where I want to do painting (and don't mind the mess), then switch to pasting, gluing, collaging, and doodling for a while. I think now that it's 105+ degrees out already, I may switch to collage and doodling till we get a cold spell! (but then again, that could take till October or November, though... lol!!)

random photo

just a random photo for a Friday afternoon... 

I was outside my building right after lunch on a phone call-- I was just randomly looking at the pink oleander bush while I was talking, and I happened to spy this little guy. Thankfully he sat still long enough for me to go inside and get my camera!! (the colors are a bit washed out- it's really sunny out there, being just after high noon- but hopefully you can still see him sitting there.)