Jackson and a New Truck

Barrie's new Pickup

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Barrie has never driven anything but hand-me-down or borrowed "junk" vehicles in her life! She has been shopping around for the last six months or so for a nice truck, and found what she wanted at Teton Motors. (online shopping). She had wanted her dad to go with her to Jackson today to look at it, and for some reason, he balked. When she came by this morning, I told her I thought we should go to Jackson, so we did. And she drove her new truck home. It's not a new truck, but has low mileage, and looks brand new. It is "GM Certified" ( I think that's the term) which means it has a good warranty. Her payments are affordable, and she is walking on Cloud 9. She will have to put a flat bed on it in the future so she can put her dog boxes on it.

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My friend Dee send me e-mail with a bunch of photos of "retiree" bumper stickers. This is one of my favorites.

Friday

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If you are familiar with the book by Betty Edwards "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain", you will recognize this drawing by Picasso, which is one of the exercises in the book. I found this in one of my old sketchbooks. I drew the figure upside down, and it still amazes me how problems in drawing are so much easier to spot when you view it upside down. Drawing things upside down is a wonderful exercise, and I need to do it often. You can literally feel the "change" in your brain.


This is a drawing of a poinsetta I found in one of my old sketch books. It was fun to do.

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A beautiful sunny day today. There is a slight breeze, but nothing like the horrible winds we have had the last couple of days.

I am still working on the "negative drawing" of the grass in the calf drawing. I should have just drawn the grass and ground like I usually do. Oh well - it's not like I'm pressed for time!

Bad Color in Photos

After I looked at the photos of Vicky's watercolors yesterday on my large desktop monitor, I saw how bad the colors were. I took the photos under fluerescent lights, and far from the window, so they all had a bad color cast. I should never try to edit my photos on my laptop computer. The screen is so small, and is not bright enough for my old eyes. When I look at them on my 24" desktop monitor, it makes a huge difference.

So here are Vicky's paintings again. Much nicer color.

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Here is Conley working on his latest painting. He does such beautiful detailed work. He has promised to demonstrate to us next week how he uses a spray bottle to do his skies and background.

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I finally had my driveway plowed yesterday. It is a curved, drive-through driveway and on a hillside, so it was not an easy job.

Art Day

I enjoyed meeting with the art group this morning, but I didn't accomplish a thing. Well, yes I did! I enjoyed the company and the visiting, and ate cookies and drank coffee. I also photographed a couple of Vicky's paintings, and am showing them. She is SO talented. And she is too modest.

I photographed Conley working on his latest, and will post it later. Another very talented artist.

I was disappointed that Terry was not there today, and that she had taken down her paintings she had displayed in the art room. I will get her later.

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Vicky's paintings

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Aren't these great?


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Cold and Windy Tuesday

Woke up this morning to wind and below zero temperatures! Brrrr. I don't believe it has gotten above 8 degrees today. My little "weather station" says it got down to 20 below last night. The wind has not let up all day.

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This is my mother's watch. I don't know how old it is. The "chain" was included in the photo just because. It is not the band. It is such a pretty and dainty looking watch.

This is a photo of Barrie riding for Charles P. on the drift. It was taken several years ago, and published on Pinedaleonline.

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I finally got my act together and went down and renewed my drivers license today. It has been expired more than a week.

I am getting my driveway plowed tomorrow. They would have come today, but I noticed Barrie had left her snow machine trailer in the driveway. She will have it gone tomorrow.

Vicky has laughed at me - I am going to have the neighbors' place partly plowed too, because they sometimes have 7 or 8 vehicles down there and are parking in the street and blocking my driveway. I have called the cops and they came up and had them move some pickups one night. If I knew who they were, I would have called them myself instead of calling the cops, and I would rather have a place plowed for some of them to park than call the cops . They are not really bad neighbors, but are just "dumb kids". Besides, who knows, I may need to ask them for help on something some day.

I'm looking forward to art group tomorrow at Rendezvous Pointe. Lynn says the room has been "uncluttered". It really was getting to the point where things needed to be reorganized and stored somewhere. I just wish whomever is doing it would come and do the same thing in my house!

I want to remember to take a camera tomorrow, and maybe Vicky, Terry, and Conley will let me photograph some of their work and post it. Hope so - they have some beautiful work.

New Snow

I woke up this morning to a beautiful new snowfall. We must have four or five inches of new snow. Everything looks so pretty. When we don't get wind, the snow piles up on top of fence posts, tree branches, and bushes.

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A couple of drawings from old sketchbooks.

I have been enjoying Cristy's portraits so much!

I had forgotten all about these portraits I did of first graders years ago. I'm not sure why these two are still in my old sketchbook, as I sent them all home with kids. I would choose one student a week, have them "sit" for a portrait while their classmates draw them. Then each student would write something about the model, and we put everything up on a bulletin board. I know I drew quick sketches of the student, but have no idea what became of them. I probably threw them away. These drawings were done from photographs I took. I wish I had not thrown away the sketches.

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The new heater I bought for the downstairs bedroom worked very well. It has lots of settings, as well as a timer. It is nice to be able to put Kasey in there for a nap - where she's not distracted by things, including a cat who wants to play with her.

Sunday

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This is obviously a well-used sketch book. It is held together with duct tape. It says "Take Me Along", and I did. It has been to a few workshops, and is also the sketchbook I used when I started working through Betty Edward's book "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain".

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Kasey and Barrie having a "spitting" contest.

One of Kasey's favorite things is "In me mouth". When she sees me with my spray bottle, she comes up with her mouth wide open and says "in me mouth" - and I spray water into her mouth. She squeals and giggles and opens her mouth again for more. Who can figure?

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It got so foggy last night about 10:30 that I couldn't even see the highway. I expected to get up this morning to heavy frost on branches and fences, but the fog was gone, and no frost. I was kind of disappointed. I love it when everything is covered with frost.

I am working on the drawing of the calf, but it is going slow. I am attempting to put in the grass by "negative drawing". Mike Sibley, in his book "Drawing from Line to Life" gives several demonstrations on how he does it, but my attempts are not too successful.

Because I got frustrated with the grass, I started a new drawing of a cow and calf moose. What's that you say? When am I going to finish something??

Saturday

I am just now getting aound to getting on the computer to check email and to read blogs.

Barrie and Kasey arrived this morning just as I got up (late, as usual). I tried reading another book and discovered I had read it before. So I went to bed fairly early. I was awake at 2:00. I got up and took some Tylanol PM, just in time for the cat to feel frisky and start to play with her bell balls. I did go sound asleep after a bit, and didn't get up until 10:30!

Barrie decided to just hang out instead of going out to run dogs. I cleaned up the kitchen, and made a pot of potato soup. Kasey took a good nap in the back bedroom away from the cat. I just got a new electric heater for back there. I think it is probably more energy efficient and safer than the old one that was put in the wall years ago. I remember Lynn saying some friends loaned her some when their furnace didn't work, and I decided to try one. My back bedrooms were built on a slab of concrete, and there is no way to vent the furnace back there. I usually just keep a heavy curtain across the opening in the winter.

I finally have all the ornaments boxed up for the basement. I repaired the skis on the little wooden penguins, and found the last of the little balls behind the couch. In the meantime, the cat had knocked the box of balls off the table and broke four of them.

Really searched hard for missing things today. Started out with Kasey's juice cup missing, and we found it after Barrie had brought in the new one she just bought. Then I found the missing ornament, then found the little wooden hammer for the pounding bench, then one stacking ring and the ball that goes on the top. We are still missing two stacking rings.

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I picked out a couple of things from my old sketchbooks to scan today. The first is one of the earliest drawings I rememeber doing. I sat and make sketches of my Mom, Dad, and their dog, Louie. Barrie and I got a laugh out of these.

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I took Tracy's senior pictures, and this drawing is from one of them. I think this is probably the best portrait I ever did of her.

Friday

Some more old photos from scanned slides.

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This photo of the Tetons was taken when I took the photography class at Teton Science School. Got some great shots during that week.

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Barrie, about 5 or 6 years old, waiting out an August hailstorm at Fremont Lake. She is barefoot, wearing a swimsuit, and her down jacket and knit hat. And protecting herself from the hail with the lid from a cooler. We had gone about half way up the lake in a boat, and I wonder why we were smart enough to have her coat and hat with us?

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Old Sketchbooks

Tonight I got all my old sketchbooks out and looked through them. There are about 12 of them. A pretty interesting trip back into the past! So be prepared to be bored with scans or photos of some of the pages! My drawing skills were better in the past than they are now, and I think it is because I did so much more drawing and sketching.

Almost all my old sketchbooks have pages on which my girls, and also Kelly, drew pictures . I'm so glad they are in there. I don't remember drawing when I was a kid. I know art classes were not offered in school back then. I don't want to say how long ago that was! I just remember being upset because girls could take "home ec" class, but not agriculture.

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Do you think cats have a separate nerve center for their tails? My cat appears to be sound aleep sometimes, but the tip of her tail is still twitching. And sometimes she watches the tail twitch, then hisses and attacks it.

Thursday

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I worked on this painting yesterday in art group at Rendezvous Pointe. It is pretty close to completion. I am rather pleased with how the elk turned out - they're not perfect, but I have not painted many elk before. Especially just a couple inches high!

I will try to finish this today, and compose another one. I think I would like it better with soft subdued mountains in the background instead of that big hillside.



I have so many sketchbooks around, some of them are really old, and none of them are full! Sometimes I look through them, just to see what I have done in the past. It is pretty interesting. I found this drawing I did - an attempt to copy a drawing Albrecht Durer did of his mother. I wonder if his mother ever saw it, and if she hit him if she did! It's an excellent drawing, but surely she wasn't THAT ugly!

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Lynn's applesauce and apple pie sure looked good. Several years ago, a neighbor of my brother at Riverton had a couple of apple trees that were loaded. I don't know what kind of apples they were, not the kind you polish on your sleeve and eat. They were kind of small, and tart. I ended up with a lot of them. I canned some, made applesauce, froze some in slices, dehydrated some, and made a couple of pies. I found a recipe for apple pie filling (canned) that was delicious. I think I canned about 7 quarts for pies. Lynn mentioned how tiring it was peeling and slicing all those apples. After I did all my apples, I saw a hand cranked apple peeling machine advertised. I wonder how it worked.

I bet it took me more than two weeks to get through all those apples. I don't do that anymore!

I put all the apple peelings out in my back yard, and the next day there were several deer there eating them. Later, I took a bag to my mom's house in Riverton, and picked up a bunch of crab apples off her lawn. The deer enjoyed them too.

I am so envious of all the things Judi and Rolli are seeing. The old missions are so beautiful and so interesting.