Art in motion...

Michaels had these cute little chipboard booklets with craft paper pages, bound with ribbon. I bought a few and was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with them. Along comes the Three Muses "Birds of a Feather" Challenge...  So, I deconstructed the book and dry brushed avocado and Cayman blue onto the outside covers. The inside covers I wiped with walnut ink, they look like leather... really cool, but I didn't take photos of that, yet. When the paint was dry, I stamped chocolate pigment ink onto the outside covers with a foam stamp. That's it... so far...  Stay tuned...

Tag Tuesday

Here's my first Tag Tuesday tag...
The theme is "A Touch of Red"

Resource for Online Workshops

Checkout my fave links list.  I have added several links for online workshop sites.  I know I plan on taking several, as time permits.  Happy workshopping!

A welcome home for me...

So, with traveling all week and being sick Friday and Saturday I haven't been very productive in my art. Today, I did get some calligraphy practice strokes in. I got a nice surprise on my back patio when I got home from being out of town though. A couple of years ago, my brother put a bromeliad on my mom's grave. After it finished flowering I rescued it to my patio. It had not bloomed since. But, as you can see in the photo below... it has sent out a deep red violet set of bracts, from which the flowers will emerge. When it actually blooms, I'll post a photo of the flowers. These are epiphytes, air plants, that grow on the trunks of trees and need no soil. I have bromeliads, tilandsias and orchids, all of which are epiphytes.

I can post again!!!

Thanks so much to Blog*Star DarkUFO for your help in getting Pieces of D back up and running!  I'm sending you the only flowers in my neighborhood that survived our last cold blast... The kalanchoes in front of my house...

CANNOT TYPE IN POST BOX! HAVE ASKED BLOGGER. CAN ANYONE HELP? PLEASE COMMENT!

Can't type in the post box! HELP!!!!!

Foggy Day on Lemon Bay...

You know those days when you go outside and things are just the way you like them?  The colors, the sounds... smells... even the feel of the air on your skin?  That's what today at Lemon Bay was like.  The sea fog muted the colors of the mangroves and coastal strand.  You could here the Yellow-rumped warblers "chipping" quietly in the trees and the water softly lapping at the shore.  The smell of the salt air and the mist swirling ethereally around me.  I love foggy days on the coast.

Mangroves along the shore

A view of the Bay

A view from the boardwalk

Fog enshrouded pines

A lone fisherman walks to his favorite spot

Work? Play? Passion...

Well, tomorrow I will be leaving the office in Brooksville and heading down to Venice.  I have a meeting Friday morning in Englewood.  The meeting is one of the 3 per year meetings of the Myakka River Management Coordinating Council.  This Council is a statutorially required body to aid in the management of the Myakka Wild and Scenic River.  I've served on this Council for almost 12 years as the primary voting member for 2 different government agencies.  The Myakka River is beautiful... It's watershed has vast palmetto prairies and pine flatwoods.  It's estuary has extensive salt marshes, dotted with Sabal palm hammocks, and mangrove swamps where wading birds roost and raise their young.  The biggest gators I've ever seen were in the Myakka... one was over 12 feet and had a missing front leg, probably from a fight with another big gator.  The meeting won't be held anywhere on the Myakka, but instead will be held at Lemon Bay Park.  Lemon Bay is a gorgeous lagoon that spans a distance crossing from Sarasota County into Charlotte Coutny, just north of Charlotte Harbor.  After the meeting, I'll be wandering the trails of Lemon Bay Park.  I'll be taking my camera, no doubt.  So, until I can post some pictures from Lemon Bay... I'll leave you with some wildlfie on the Myakka River...

Roseate Spoonbills

Photo by: Jason Utley

Mixed Media Monday Challenge - Wings

This is my (very) quick and easy collage for the Mixed Media Monday Challenge... I only found the site last night and had a big day planned already, so I really didn't have much time to work.  Therefore, the collage is very simple. The subject is Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings and she lived a simple life at her home Cross Creek here in Florida.  So, I think she would have appreciated the piece.