Clio Newton Charcoal Portraits – Take 2

Towering Charcoal Portraits of Women by Clio Newton

by Christopher Jobson on August 28, 2017 – Colossal

 

Swiss artist Clio Newton has been hard at work on a series of larger-than-life portraits of women portrayed entirely with compressed charcoal. The towering drawings can reach nearly 8 feet tall and capture near photographic detail of her subject’s faces, hair, and bodies. Several of the new portraits will be on view in an upcoming show at Benjamin Eck Galerie in Munich titled ‘Realism‘ that opens September 14, 2017. You can read an interview with Newton on Quiet Lunch and see more of her recent work and studio photos on Instagram. (via Supersonic Electronic, Gaks Designs)

 

Thanks to Christopher Jobson of Colossal for this article on Clio Newton

Dani Ives Felt Paintings – Take 2

Incredibly Lifelike Felt Paintings of Pets and Plants by Dani Ives

by Laura Staugaitis on August 22, 2017 – Colossal

Fiber artist Dani Ives conjures the natural world in her unique take on the traditional craft of needle felting. Ives describes her method as “painting with wool,” in which she applies her love of animals and her background in biology to build intricately layered portraits of a variety of flora and fauna.

 

Dogs, cats, birds, and farm animals come to life alongside toadstools and fruits, and Ives’ ability to capture the moisture and glint of animal eyes and noses adds an impressive degree of realism. While her plant life depictions take more of a traditional botanical angle, most of Ives’s animal subjects take center stage on the embroidery hoop, peering out at the viewer, further adding to the strong sense of unique personality, and it’s no surprise that she is in high demand for pet portrait commissions.

 

 

 

Ives sells originals and prints of her work on Etsy, and she continues her love of teaching by traveling from her home in Northwest Arkansas to lead workshops around the country, as well as offering e-courses in needle felting. You can also follow her work on Instagram.

Thanks to Laura Staugaitis of Colossal for her articles on the artwork of Dani Ives.

This just amazes me.  I just can’t believe this is SEWING!

Goals

graphics

Yesterday we had our quarterly primary doctor appointment.

Our doctor was really happy with our blood test results.  I’m doing well on my current dosage for thyroid and my numbers otherwise continue to improve – all in the normal range now, when I used to have high cholesterol, triglycerides, etc. My blood pressure was the best ever. – 124 over 68.  My husband’s A1C showed the best results since we had the scare about a year ago. His number then was 16.1 (this is a ‘call-the-medics’ SCARY number on diabetes). It is now down to 7.3. We’re shooting for under 7, and our doc says this is doable, and he was REALLY happy with my husband’s efforts to cut out sugar. :0)

Now, all ‘I’ have to do is get the lard off.

To date I’m down 25+ pounds and 18-1/2 inches.

We’re following a low carb diet with as low numbers on sugar as possible. I’m trying to stay under 1200 calories and 40 carbs per day.

Yesterday I had my best day ever on steps – almost 8,000. I’m seriously trying to move more – a bit of a challenge lately since my back keeps having spasms. My doc checked it out, confirmed it was in the muscles rather than the spine, and put me on muscle relaxant meds for about a week. He wants me to take them for two days and then I can EASE back into my yoga.  Then I’ll try for a yoga session and a half hour on my elliptical daily.

I’m tracking what I’m eating and my exercise on MyFitnessPal.com. The fixing of problems on their website isn’t great. The main page where you can see how many days in a row you’ve checked in, see how much weight you’ve lost, etc., is STILL not working (over 3 weeks now), but their foods data is the best I’ve seen, so I’m staying with them.

My husband and I are finally on the same page on motivation to eat right. This is really helpful. My willpower isn’t that great, and it doesn’t take much at all for me to throw in the towel and go get a pizza. Last night, though, when we were exhausted from our efforts all day long, my husband suggested we go to Subway. I can get a double chicken, bacon, and ranch salad that is really good and on my diet, and my husband can indulge in a foot long sandwich. He was good last night, except for getting 2 oatmeal raisin cookies… :0)

SO – WE CAN DO IT!

I’m hopeful that by the end of September, I can report a reasonable weight and inches loss. I’ll keep on keepin’ on, and concentrate on

 

TaoLife.com

Thing Three – Garden Scooter

This cute thing arrived in a big box a few days ago. My husband put it together for me, finishing it yesterday. I’m not sure what it’s really called, but I’m calling it my garden scooter. There is a string with a handle on the front to pull it out where you like it (such as working in the trio of brick planters between our front yard and the driveway I was working on the other day). As you’re sitting on it, you can raise up just a bit and scoot it easily in whatever direction you would like. The seat turns sideways. There is a basket on the back for tools, plus the black think under the seat will hold gloves, tools, etc.

 

Now I can garden in much more comfort as I work my way around the yard!

Thing Two – Tower for Critters

We had an extra section of tower when we got the parts for our ham radio tower awhile back. My husband had put it in the pile of stuff we would take to the next city clean-up. I suggested we use it to display some of the critters we make.

My husband made a form recently and dug the hole a couple of days ago. Yesterday we got 4 bags of Ready-Crete, mixed them up and poured the concrete for the tower. This pic shows the project before we started mixing the concrete.

 

Here’s a close-up of the hold before the concrete was poured.

We plan to attach things like shovel birds, dragonflies, and other weird things we make to the tower at various points. The tower is beside our ‘watermelon’ propane tank and will greet people when they get to the top of our driveway.

Thing One – a Mixer for the Garden!

A couple of days ago my husband saw an ad on Craig’s List for a mixer. This one was used to mix up peat moss and other stuff. We finally got in communication and arranged to go see it yesterday afternoon.  The man and my husband got it into the back of our truck and we got it tied down securely for the trip home.

We backed the truck into our shop to where it was under the chain hoist. We were able to hook it up and raise it so we could then drive the truck out from under it and then let it down. My husband is going to put handles on it.

We will put it out behind the shop beside the bins under a tarp. We can then plug it in and use it to mix up the components of Mel’s Mix for the raised square foot garden. The black thing running along the side of the mixer is a handle that you use to turn the mixer over. I’ll then be able to dump it into a wheelbarrow to be taken wherever I’m adding Mel’s Mix.

I’ve mixed up the peat moss, vermiculite, and three kinds of compost in the wheelbarrow using a hoe, but it never got as mixed as I would have liked. Now I can do a good job of mixing things with a LOT less effort!

Cutting the Cord

We used to have a ‘bundle’ of TV and Internet from Dish.

About 6 months or so ago we changed our Internet to WOW (World of Wireless) which gives us our service from a radio tower on the ridge line across the valley from us. We are VERY happy with the change, realizing we’ll probably never live to see the really high speed, high capacity service out in the sticks.

Lately we’ve been researching cutting the cord to their TV service. For a long time it was the best we could get. There was basically Dish and DirecTV, and we’ve been on both over the years.  Our present service costs over $98.00/month. We think this is outrageous, but it was the best we could do, until now.

We started reading articles that encouraged us to look around. We got a TiVo to get OTA (over-the-air) channels with an antenna. THEN we found that we could use all kinds of services that gave us almost everything we have now at a MUCH lower price. I had never heard of most of these things: Roku, Hulu, AmazonPrimeTV, and another one I can’t remember the name of.  It looks like our total cost per month will eventually be around $36.00.

We just sold the TiVo today on Ebay, getting enough money back to be reasonable. We will soon stop the subscription to Dish. We will either change our NetFlix subscription to stream only or stop it altogether.

We’ll have to change some habits, but that’s good. We’re in the process now of building a spreadsheet that tells us which service to access to be able to watch the shows we like.

This is a fun, MUCH less expensive, new way (for us) to get entertainment that doesn’t make us cringe every month!

Ham Radio Tower Project

We have had to put off erecting the 45 foot ham radio tower we put together for a month or so, due to nearly constant rain here in Arkansas. I’m NOT complaining – certainly not in the face of what the good people of Texas and Louisiana are currently going through. We’re on top of a ridge line and this has just been a minor annoyance, at best.

 

We have contacted various people, trying to get this thing standing up and then tied down into place. One company said they couldn’t get their equipment up the hill or through the relatively small space between trees, the house, and the place where the tower is. Many companies didn’t even return our calls.  We have a friend who did a lot of brush hogging for us, who thought he might be able to help. We also thought of the man who uses a tractor with a front loader on it who might be able to help, but my husband is worried that the tower could be hurt with those, or that the tower might end up on my greenhouse.

We called a new company yesterday, now that our land is relatively dry. The remnants of hurricane/tropical storm Harvey are forecast to go to central and eastern Arkansas, missing us. This company is supposed to call us and come out today to give us an estimate. Fingers crossed we can finally schedule the tower to go up.

 

The angle of this picture almost make it look like the tower is on top of the greenhouse. It’s closer than I would like, but once it’s up and bolted down onto the concrete pad, and guy wires attached in three places in the ground, it should be as secure as anything can be. Here’s hoping that the new company can, and is willing to, help us, that we can afford it, and that it can be done soon.

Amazing Animals Pictures – Take 2

 

 

 

 

Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.

 

 

Portraits of Women by Clio Newton

Towering Charcoal Portraits of Women by Clio Newton

by Christopher Jobson on August 28, 2017 – Colossal

 

 

“Swiss artist Clio Newton has been hard at work on a series of larger-than-life portraits of women portrayed entirely with compressed charcoal. The towering drawings can reach nearly 8 feet tall and capture near photographic detail of her subject’s faces, hair, and bodies. Several of the new portraits will be on view in an upcoming show at Benjamin Eck Galerie in Munich titled ‘Realism‘ that opens September 14, 2017. You can read an interview with Newton on Quiet Lunch and see more of her recent work and studio photos on Instagram. (via Supersonic Electronic, Gaks Designs)”

 

Thanks to Christopher Jobson, Colossal

Felt Paintings by Dani Ives

Incredibly Lifelike Felt Paintings of Pets and Plants by Dani Ives

by Laura Staugaitis on August 22, 2017 – Colossal

“Fiber artist Dani Ives conjures the natural world in her unique take on the traditional craft of needle felting. Ives describes her method as “painting with wool,” in which she applies her love of animals and her background in biology to build intricately layered portraits of a variety of flora and fauna.”

 

“Dogs, cats, birds, and farm animals come to life alongside toadstools and fruits, and Ives’ ability to capture the moisture and glint of animal eyes and noses adds an impressive degree of realism. While her plant life depictions take more of a traditional botanical angle, most of Ives’s animal subjects take center stage on the embroidery hoop, peering out at the viewer, further adding to the strong sense of unique personality, and it’s no surprise that she is in high demand for pet portrait commissions.”

 

 

“Ives sells originals and prints of her work on Etsy, and she continues her love of teaching by traveling from her home in Northwest Arkansas to lead workshops around the country, as well as offering e-courses in needle felting. You can also follow her work on Instagram.”

Article by Laura Staugaitis, Colossal

“Ducks on Portativ – Do Re Mi Fa”

“Ducks on Portativ – Do Re Mi Fa” – Paul Militaru Photography

“Fetch?”

Can you see that Amber lets her tongue loll out to the side of her mouth and down? I think it’s hilarious.

She just doesn’t ‘get’ the idea of fetching and bringing the ball back yet. My husband has been out in the front yard with her a couple of days in a row now. He throws the ball. She runs to get it, picks it up, and then either drops it again, doesn’t want to bring it back, or – if she does bring it back – doesn’t want to give it back to my husband to throw again.

She did it right twice today – much better than yesterday. She got a treat when she brought the ball back and actually allowed him to have it. :0)

The best part about this whole thing is that she and my husband are having fun, both are getting good exercise, and Amber is much more calm in the house after a session. (She’s asleep on the floor beside me now).

PLAY BALL!!!!

“The Struggle for Existence”

“The Struggle for Existence” – Paul Militaru Photography

Another Way to Look at It…

Funny Quotes about Life Lessons

Real Skill

30 Hillarious Quotes and Sayings

TOO MANY PROJECTS!

http://www.wisegeekedu.com

We’re always working on something, but lately we just have TOO MANY PROJECTS going on at the same time –

• We hurried to get our quarterly blood tests this morning and get back again, trying to meet the man who is going to shore up our back porch ceiling after we stopped a rain leak. He wasn’t here and hadn’t called when we got home, so I called him. We’re on the list for today, but he was at another job and his wife couldn’t tell me when he would be here. That means we’ll have to wait until he comes and goes again before we can do our errands –
• We have a call in to the man who uses a tractor with a front loader attachment to drive up and down our driveway, smoothing things out as much as possible from time to time. We want to ask him if he will use the tractor to help us stand up the ham radio tower. The people we called before didn’t come and didn’t call, so we’re hoping that Eric will be willing to help us. If so, we’ll also have him fix the driveway so he’ll make enough money for his time.
• We wanted motion detector flood lights attached to the shop. In order to do this, I had to climb the ladder on the outside of the shop and hold the fixture steady while my husband attached it from inside the shop, also up on a ladder. I’m ‘height challenged – both in shortness AND being afraid of heights, so it was all I could do to go almost to the top of the ladder to hold the fixture. I had to go up fast, too, because my husband had shoved the screw through the fixture, but that loose screw was ALL that was holding up the fixture. We got that done, and in the next day or two my husband finished the wiring. ONE PROJECT FINISHED!
• We’ve been working for a couple of weeks to install a 4-camera security system. We got a cheap one, knowing we would have to run wires for it. This turned out to be a bigger deal than we had imagined, with a lot of hair pulling and hard work to get it done. Now my husband is trying to (1) get the sensitivity level decreases so it doesn’t think bugs flying are intruders; and (2) figure out how we can get the pictures to show up on his computer, rather than on a screen down in the basement.
• Our brains for our irrigation system suddenly died.  We’ve been really busy, plus we’ve been getting rain, so we didn’t notice it until we had lost a couple of plants. We ordered another one. My husband programmed it, but neglected to specify what day it was today, and had a.m. instead of p.m., so it took a couple of days to be sure it was turning on when it was supposed to and was watering for the correct amount of time, plus that the second side started up when the first side finished. SECOND PROJECT FINISHED.
• We’re spraying KILLSALL on our weed trees and other overgrown areas to try to get things under control. We can actually SEE that the weeds are wilting, so our efforts are not a waste of time. My husband said last night that if I would mix up a batch, he would lug the 2 gallon sprayer around, since my back has been giving me fits lately.
• We’re trying to cut the cord and get rid of DISH TV.  To this end we bought some stuff, researched a lot, and things are finally starting to come together. We have managed to get most of the channels we want now. Our viewing habits will need to change, since most of the stuff is now streaming, rather than taped. We had bought a TiVO, thinking we could get a bunch of networks over the air. It turned out that the reception isn’t great, even though we have a good antenna. We found a combination of ROKU plus paying for CBS All Access, plus paying for HBO will get us almost all of the channels we’re used to getting. Instead of paying $92/month for DISH, we’ll be paying $25/month.  We can also sell the TiVo, since we don’t need it, and go to either streaming only or cancel our subscription to NetFlix.
• We have other projects – like training the new puppy – but these are the main ones right now. Since we’re working on everything simultaneously, we’re as crazy as bedbugs around here!

I hope YOUR life is full and fun – but not as crazy as ours.

New Definitions – Take 1

Shelley Hallmark.me

You may need to read these slowly – some aloud – and then the lightbulb comes on. I think they’re clever. Thanks to my friend Marsha Koenig for her email.

_____________________

 

1. ARBITRATOR: A cook that leaves Arby’s to work at McDonalds

2. AVOIDABLE: What a bullfighter tried to do.

3. BERNADETTE: The act of torching a mortgage.

4. BURGLARIZE: What a crook sees with.

5. CONTROL: A short, ugly inmate.

 

6. COUNTERFEITERS: Workers who put together kitchen cabinets.

7. ECLIPSE: What an English barber does for a living.

8. EYEDROPPER: A clumsy ophthalmologist.

9.HEROES: What a guy in a boat does.

10. LEFTBANK: What the robber did when his bag was full of money.

Cute Animal Pics – Take 1

 

 

Thanks to Marsha Koenig for her email.

MyFitnessPal.com

I use MyFitnessPal.com to help me stay on task in my efforts to stay under 1200 calories and 40 grams of carbohydrates each day.

I’ve been annoyed for the past three weeks or so because the “My Home Page” isn’t working properly. No one seems to be trying to fit it, so the annoyance grows.

I tried two other online free food and exercise websites. I used them for several days each, because there is a learning curve, and ‘different’ seems harder at first. I finally gave up and went back to MyFitnessPal because of their food search feature. This is by FAR the best food search I’ve found. I can look to see if a food or recipe is already in the data bank. If it isn’t, I have the option to add it, and another option if I want to share it with others. I can add foods quickly once they are a part of my personal eating history.

One of the programs I tried required that I add EACH INGREDIENT of a recipe separately, then add them up and name them. They had no record of what I had eaten before, so I had to look each thing up for every meal. Bah – Humbug!

One of the programs didn’t list carbs. I had to list the foods I was planning to eat, then show ‘reports’ to figure out if I was staying under my limit for carbs for the day. Bah – again!

One of the programs insists that you look for things in a certain manner – example: first ‘egg,’ then ‘hard-boiled’ wasn’t listed, so I had to change to ‘custom’ to get another list! (Each time I ate one! Bah-for the last time.

SO – MyFitnessPal isn’t perfect, but for my needs, it’s wonderful, non-working home page and all.

 

Watercolors and Poetry

Seiden_”Rare Birds” -Becuo.com

 

“On a gentle summer day,
a tiny bird takes its first flight,
Doing cartwheels in the wind,
it sails above day turns to night.
He rests on a branch for an hour,
Then reaches for the sky with power.
He knows not what he’ looking for,
He just opens his wings and soars!
But soon enthusiasm turns to doubt,
As it seems forever he’s been flying about.
His eagerness just stoops and stoops,
And he wonders, “I was right to have flown the coop?”
But strength soon overcomes him once more,
For look what lies ahead, behold and before!
A place so lush and green and nice,
His brand-new home his paradise.”

Copyright – Kate

Good Book?

Paul Sweeney – The Writers Circle via Cathy Ruggiero

It Ain’t

Mark Twain via Lisa Bearnes Richey

“Bella – Blue Critical Eye”

“Bella – Blue Critical Eye” – Paul Militaru Photography

EEEEEEEK!

Amber at 5-1/2 months

 

Amber is over 52 pounds now, almost 6 months old, but she is not showing any signs of being a brave dog yet.

Yesterday was particularly traumatic.

 

First she met this –

Paperblog

 

Picture – if you are able – a large dog almost putting her nose on the baby frog my husband was showing her – and then large dog leaping backwards. She sneaked up on the frog again, almost putting her nose on it, then leaped up and backwards again, with a bark. Then came dancing around, whining. My husband started to show it to her again, and she was leaping backwards again. Mean, scary frog!

 

Then she met this on one of our walks –

Texas Parks and Wildlife

A turtle similar to this one was on the sidewalk in the yard in the front of the house. Amber went right over to it, but leaped back in fear when the turtle had the audacity to move. Amber leaped backward, coming over to me. “Save me, Mom!”  She wouldn’t go near it again.

 

To cap off her day, she faced this –

credit unknown

 

Amber wanted to be with my husband, but he was going up and down the stairs to our basement. We tried to entice her to come down the stairs, offering a treat, but she would barely stick her head around the corner, much less even CONSIDER coming down to us.

She finished off her day with a small bite of the burgers we were grilling, some ice cubes from my husband’s drink, a ‘mad dog’ run in the yard, and then bed.

Whew! Such a challenging day for our ‘baby’ dog!

 

 

 

Glorious Weather

en.paperblog.com

I’m feeling especially bad about Hurricane Harvey for a couple of reasons –

• My husband’s name is Harvey, so it seems a more personal responsibility, somehow
• Our weather is ideal for this time of the year. The sun is shining, but a cold front came through, brought us rain, and now it’s dry and NOT HUMID like it’s been for so long.  I feel guilty that we’re enjoying such beautiful weather when others are in for a really scary, awful time with the hurricane plus SO MUCH RAIN over the next 5 days or so. :0(

We’ve been trying to get outside each day to do all we can to get caught up on our outside list. Yesterday we mowed and weed whacked a bit. I worked in the flower planters, but mostly spent time with the two planters we’ve converted to square foot gardening and are raising tomatoes in.

I harvested the tomatoes above. As you can see, they aren’t as pretty as the ones we were getting earlier. I spent about an hour on the 8 foot tomato planter, pulling off dead stuff, cutting off some limbs, etc.  We found some Early Girl tomato plants at Yeagers yesterday. We bought two and I planted them in that planter. They’re supposed to produce within 50 days, which would put us into October. We’ll keep our fingers crossed and hope.

I tried to clean up the plants in the nook planter, but they were just too far gone. I finally ended up pulling the plants out.

The suckers I tried to grow in water on my window sill didn’t make it. I’ll try again if I can find some more good suckers.

This morning, while I was out with Amber, I found a BIG spaghetti squash HANGING down outside one of my raised bed square foot garden boxes in the garden!  I got one of the plastic bowl thingies with the pointed thing in the middle that allows you to set growing melons on them, raising them up out of the soil and giving them support – and used it for the spaghetti squash. This will be squash # 4 grown from two seeds in a squash bought at the store.

Today I plant to

• clean out the hummingbird bird bath we built,
• work in garden on my veggies
• work in the flower planters some more.

Tonight we plan to grill burgers on the deck. Such glorious weather! I wish everyone could enjoy it with us!

 

 

Hugs

YouAreMyO2 – facebook.com/YouAreMyOxygen

I’m a very lucky woman. There probably isn’t an official contest going on hugs, but if there were, my son would win, hands down.

 

This is an old pic, but it shows you just one of his hug styles.  His hugs are so good, they make me cry.

I hope you are lucky enough to have a good hugger in your family. It’s such a joy.

Desperate to Chew!

One of the many things we’re dealing with in training our labrador retriever puppy, Amber, is that labs love to chew on everything. We have tackled this problem in several ways –

• spraying “Bitter Apple” on things we don’t want her to chew – with very mixed results
• catching her in the act and either swatting her with the flyswatter or spraying her with the water bottle – with very mixed results
• yelling ‘no,’ with mixed results
• getting lots and lots of chew toys
• providing chewy treats, such as Bully sticks, rawhide, something that looks like bacon, and more.

 

She’s teething now which exacerbates the problem. Today I’ve disciplined her for chewing on the back pull-on-thingies on the backs of my shoes (while my feet are in them – either walking in front of her or sitting in my chair), chewing on the basket in the office, chewing on the bottom corners of my desk shelves and a roll-around table, trying to get into my trash can, and more.

 

You can see her here chewing on a bully stick. She really loves these, but they’re expensive – particularly since it takes her about half an hour or less to ‘eat’ the whole thing.

I’ve also tried to distract her, taking her on three walks so far this morning (it’s 10:15). That has helped some.

There is never a dull moment with a lab puppy. The fact that she’s well over 52 pounds now and is quite headstrong adds to the flavor of our days. We’re really learning to plan ahead on more and more things, trying to make her as happy as possible while not risking life and limb.

She just looked at me – having finished the bully stick – whining a bit. She looks so innocent with her pretty face and big, brown eyes….

“Summer Ornaments”

“Summer Ornaments” – Paul Militaru Photography

Reading

Sun-Gazing.com via Cathy Ruggiero

Results Vary

Amber is one sweet, affectionate doggie. Some days we have wonderful companionship, eager interest, and even acceptance by our animal family members. Other days, not so much.

Today is a “not so much” day.

We’re trying to let Amber stay in the house with us as much as possible, since she’s a people dog and seems very happy to be where we are. Today she would NOT settle down. It’s like a baby with colic. You do everything you know, stretch to try desperate things, trying to get the ‘baby’ to calm down and be happy.  I remember one day when my son was a baby, my ‘everything’ just wasn’t enough. I finally ended up sitting on the living room floor with him – both of us crying.

Amber is again out on the back porch, now barking and whining from time to time. We’re waiting until she stops that to try her in with us again. And so it goes…

One new good thing is that with careful monitoring when she’s hungry, we can take her out without the leash. I don’t trust her enough yet to simply “let her out” as my husband thinks we should do, but in certain circumstances, I have seen that she happily walks with us to the shop without restraint. Also before breakfast she doesn’t stray. It’s also a good time for us to practice, “COME!” And, as long as she trusts us to have treats, she complies quite readily.

I’m trying to practice this at least once per day, gritting my teeth. I’m worried that she’ll see and chase one of the cats, see another dog (we’ve had two come up the driveway lately) or NOT respond to our command. I know it’s something we need to do, and I’m happy that we’re starting to see results now.

Ahhh. The barking and whining has stopped. I’ll go let her in again.