One Photo, Many Kaleidoscopes

I had one photo of red rocks, grasses, blue sky and cloud formations from which I made many kaleidoscopes this week. I can reproduce any of my kaleidoscopes in an 8" x 8" format and provide a simple frame for $50 plus shipping.

Happy Holidays and Peace to All. Consider visiting someone who is alone as your holiday gift to humanity this year.  So many people end up being very isolated as they get older because of vision, hearing, and mobility issues, as well as the deaths of those dear to them.

balanced dark and light

rattler

rockscape layers

shine

turtle

Fog and Rain in Arizona and Time Passing Fall into Winter

Just had 3 days of weather reminiscent of the East Coast.  We are finally back to sunny weather!  Most of the Fall leaves have fallen, but some still remain on our mulberry trees.  It is time for my now monthly blog post.  At one time, I was trying for weekly, but the weeks are coming more quickly now as the aging process continues.  I feel like garbage day comes almost every other day, not just on Mondays!  It is astounding how fast time is passing, but I am not stressing out about it anymore.  I used to think it was terrible if I didn't have something concrete to point to as an accomplishment daily, but now I am happier with less in general.

Right now I am fascinated with the wonderful foliage along Oak Creek where it is still Fall.  In this climate Fall lasts nearly to Christmas which is wonderful.

If you are in the Northern or Central Arizona area, make an appointment to see our studio gallery: Pumphouse Studio Gallery.  We would be happy to show you around with a personal tour.

Waterflows and Lacy Trees

Fall is here in North Central Arizona.  Furnaces are on and wood stoves are wafting wood smoke in the morning hours and the leaves are changing color.  We are fortunate to see leaf change from mid-September to late November due to our travels from Canada to Arizona.  It's a wonderful time of year here.  Come and take a 4 day Paint Sedona Plein Air Painting Workshop with Michael Chesley Johnson.  We are also offering a Paint Sedona Intensive for those who want a one on one experience.  Lodging can be with us or at the Sedona studio that Michael uses at 220 Goodrow Lane, Sedona, AZ 86336.

I have done a series of kaleidoscopes based on Fall colors and waterflows over rocks.

Anyone who doesn't believe that Arizona has brilliant red maples in October and November needs to take a hike!

A Perfect Autumn: Yellow Ferns, Red Oaks and Maples, and Many Boats in Maine

This September was a perfect month in Maine and the ferns turned yellow and the oaks turned yellow and red instead of the normal brown and the maples are iridescent this year.  I am fortunate enough to have spent 6 days near and in Acadia National Park while Michael Chesley Johnson was teaching plein air painting for the 8th time for Acadia Workshop Center.  He had a great group of 7 hard working students while I entertained myself taking photos!

Red, red maples!

Red Oaks and Gray Rock

Yellow Ferns

Celtic Cross of Red Maple Leaves on Gravel

Wooden Boat Skeleton on Land

Lobster Traps and Lobster Boats

Now I am in a studio apartment in a converted barn overlooking Mount Monadnock, a mountain with a lot of history, including a plein air painter...  Lucky me!  Michael is teaching for:  Monadnock Area Artists Association.http://www.monadnockareaartists.org/

Next stop is Strasburg, VA on our way to Sedona, AZ...where Michael will participate in the 10th Sedona Plein Air Festival...(It is his 7th or 8th time to participate....we lost track!) 

End of Summer, Red Sunflowers and Endless Landscaping Chores

The sunflower seeds I planted in late May have finally yielded flowers.  First the little seed shot up to 7 feet tall and then for the past few weeks they have been forming flower heads.  It is amazing that in less than 4 months a seed can grow to 7 feet tall and have a huge flower head!

Time to begin thinking about our annual migration south and west just like the birds and other migratory creatures.

Quoddy Artists Studio Tour August 23, 2014 Lubec, Campobello Island, Whiting, Eastport Quoddy Loop Area

Join us tomorrow, Saturday August 23, for our one day "near the end of the season" studio tour between 9AM and 4PM local time.  I will be at the artistsretreatmaine.com  location at 45 Washington Street in Lubec, Maine demonstrating some fabric "painting" and embellishment techniques.   A great time to begin thinking about holiday gifts since summer is nearly over.

I had an opportunity to travel by ferry to St Andrews this week and took 319 photos.  My excuse was that I had to deliver a painting to Michael's St. Andrews Gallery and go to the bank. If fact, it is true, that St Andrews at 6 nautical miles from Campobello Island has the closest Canadian bank.  Since we had not been to the bank since last year, it was time!  Of course, many of the over 300 pictures were taken at the Kingsbrae Garden or on the boat ride to and from St Andrews. It was a great vacation day and many kaleidoscopes will be produced from the wonderful photographs I took.  Expect lots of boat, water, cloud, and flower kaleidoscopes over the next few months of Fab Fabrications blogging.  Here are two to get the theme started!

A Perfect Afternoon on the Water

Echinacea and Russian Sage at Kingsbrae Garden, St Andrews, NB

Midsummer fireweed, monkshood, daylillies abound, and poppies fringed and otherwise

The flowers have recovered from hurricane arthur and the trees have also except the maples which are having a premature leaf drop if they were exposed to the salt spray.  Michael is in Castine, Maine at a plein air festival: so I have elected to run the Friar's Bay Studio Gallery which means I can stay home!  It also means I can do some therapeutic weeding and take some new photographs...

Enjoy the images!  They can be yours on a card, on a metal print, or any other way you desire.  Email me for information on how to get them!  Please remember all images are copyrighted by me.

Oh what a Difference a Day Makes!

Have you ever had the experience where things were humming along and all of the sudden a decision made by someone else rearranges your life and you have no control over it?  Well that is where we are at, so we will push forward, redo my plans, and move on.  In the meantime, creating kaleidoscopes has a calming effect.  At least we were lucky, relatively speaking, with the hurricane damage we suffered.  It has not been a good week so I am looking forward to next week being better...it generally is.

Summer Commences in My Garden

This summer's extravaganza continues.  At their peak right now I have peonies, yellow yarrow, yellow hawkweed, heritage roses, iris, daisy, delphinimum, bridal wreath spirea, clematis, cosmos, dianthus, chives, ferns, Miss Kim late blooming lilacs, and lupine( although they are beginning to go to seed as they do from the bottom up!). I am sure I missed a few and the ferns are still spring green so we still have much more spectacular blooming to go until things begin to die back in September or so.  The first frost here is late, usually not until some time in October, as the water begins to moderate the fall temperatures as compared to areas farther inland. The seeds I planted a week or so ago are up 2-3 inches!  We have had 5 inches or more of rain in the past few weeks so everything is blooming now that we have an seemingly unending sunny period ahead of us.  The comfrey was flattened by the rain, but everything else seems to be relishing the weather.

I am going to do a lot of kaleidoscopes of these flowers as they have inspired me! Friar's Bay Studio Gallery and Artists Retreat Studios & Gallery open on Tuesday so I will have enforced indoor time beginning on July 1st to plan some new projects...

I did not caption the kaleidoscopes so you have to actually look at them to see what flower is "kaleidoscoped".  Some are very obvious and others are a little more subtle.