Bradley the not-so-brave

Our buddy Bradley, who is actually afraid of the swimming pool, saw leaves in the bottom of the pool . . . and was sure his favorite frog had returned to play. Son-in-law Michael got to drive home a very soggy dog! Bradley is part Great Pyrenees, part golden retriever, and 100% goof-ball.

a simple kit

Because of my love of Pocket Palettes, I have quite a few plastic pans of paint stored away that never get to come out to play. Recently I saw an Instagram post from “sketchbyfay” of her travel palette, with everything but the water container fitting in a simple metal pencil box.

* Fay’s blog can be found here!

I made a quick sketch of Fay’s kit to remind me to try putting together something similar. I just happened to have a similar pencil box and all those forsaken half pans of watercolor . . .

Now if I could just find where I packed that glossy white contact paper — it makes a simple adhesive mixing surface for inside the lid.

bread & butter

Neither Bill or I eat much bread anymore so when we find a really special one, we treat it as more of a dessert. One weekend our daughter and her family brought some amazing Italian soup to share, and a rosemary bread she toasted under the broiler with garlic butter.

We found this rosemary sourdough bread at H.E.B. recently and we think it’s the same kind as what Kristen had brought. Anyway, it makes the very best toasted cheese sandwiches with a really good aged extra-sharp cheddar!

sunrise this morning . . .

. . . or my poor attempt to capture it.

The rose and purple bits were there when I painted the background wet-in-wet, right between the blues and pale gold, but disappeared after the paper dried.

Sunrise and sunset are beautiful here at the farm, but can only be seen through the dense trees.

preparing for an adventure . . .

. . . a very small adventure. I had written a letter and walked out to the mailbox for it to be picked up. But mail delivery comes very early here at the farm — often before 10:00 am! I missed her, though she did leave a box of loose leaf tea I had ordered.

So Bill and I headed out to find the actual town of Hockley to mail my letter — there really isn’t much more to the town than a post office. The real adventure came as Bill was trying to drive from Hockley to Waller, a few miles to the west and a bit north. He sometimes gets turned around in his mind here in Texas, being used to the square grid that Kansas roads are designed on — Texas roads can be any direction, not just east-west and north-south, and they often change direction while going by the same name.

Anyway, Bill didn’t realize he was facing mostly south and he turned left instead of right. Try convincing a man who actually does do everything right that he’s going the wrong way!

This antique metal high chair once belonged to Bill’s mother. His grandparents would sit her in it, tie a dishcloth around her and the chair to keep her from climbing down, and pull it up to the dining table. We didn’t want to disturb the crackly original paint so Bill sprayed a protective clear finish over it. There used to be a decal on the back but it has long since worn off.

my pool companion

When I am in the swimming pool at our “farm”, I often watch the birds nesting in a small birdhouse attach to a nearby pasture’s fence. There are several of these wooden houses throughout the property, as well as on a neighboring fence — all attached at roughly 3’ high.

I have finally identified the birds — they are black-capped vireos, an endangered species that likes to build nests in bushes about 3’ above the ground. One reason they are endangered is that cowbirds lay eggs in vireo’s nests. Their young hatches first and the young vireos cannot compete for food and soon die. So these wooden houses were apparently placed around to protect them.

My source also said the wee birds hang upside down from twigs for a moment before hopping to the next branch. Now that I’d like to see!

This is my oldest, original Pocket Palette, filled with muted autumn colors. Its metal is magnetic, allowing me to use a bit of a business card magnet to hold an additional mixing pan to the side. The pan and magnet easily fit into the same cloth bag that holds the palette. 

barrettes

I am not participating in Inktober this year. Really I’m not.

But yesterday was so busy running errands and taking care of business, I was too tired to bother putting a lot of thought into sketching. So I grabbed a fountain pen and the barrettes I had just brought back from the cabin and began to draw.

I planned on leaving this in ink only, but the turquoise beads began to cry out for color.

Sketch With Me - seasons

 This month’s virtual sketch crawl, aka the Sketch With Me group on Facebook, had the theme “seasons” — and my favorite thing to draw in autumn are colorful fallen leaves. Here in central Texas we don’t have the gorgeous reds, oranges, and golds of the maple trees that I loved in Kansas but I found a bit of color from the tall old oaks here in Waller county. In fact there are lots of leaves falling — though more due to heat stress than seasonal change. It’s still in the 90’s here.

Just for fun, I used three tiny brushes that a friend gave me years ago. They are simple sticks with some type of animal hair bound to the ends. Not much control, but they hold a lot of water and the brush tips seem to “dance” along the paper!

updated iPhone case

With the changing seasons, I usually switch from bright colors of watercolor to more muted ones.

This year that means either granulating pigments or this Demi Palette limited palette. My phone had a bright palette card over the summer; I have a granulated color card but it was either packed away or left at the cabin (we’re in the process of moving and trying to sell our log cabin), so I thought I’d make a card of this limited palette for my phone case.

But with only 7 colors, why not make it more useful and paint a wee color mixing chart? What makes this so easy is that my iPhone case is a rubbery clear one, easy to slip in anything I wish.

lamp on a cedar post

There is a small shed on “the farm” with a large porch. The roof over this porch is held up by gorgeous rough cedar posts — very rough! There are even cut off branches on them, one of which holds this red oil lantern. The door of the shed is outlined by more rough cedar.

The previous owners used this as a shop to mend tack and other small jobs; we plan to insulate it and set it up as a pantry for both families. Our property has never flooded but there are 2 creeks in the area that do flood during the rainy season, sometimes blocking access roads in and out of the area. With a large freezer, extra refrigerator, and cupboards (the former owners left a couple of them in the barn), we can stock up “just in case”.

I did this sketch to try out a new travel brush from Rosemary & Co., a #8 pointed round. Years ago I bought a travel dagger brush from the company and love the quality. So I ordered this pointed round and a squirrel mop and both are wonderful!

There was a bit of drama in getting them mailed to me though. Sunday morning I received notification that my order had just been delivered to the North Houston Mail Distribution Center — the very same distribution center that was closed last Thursday when heavy rainfall caused the roof to collapse! But apparently the info was wrong and the brushes arrived yesterday.

This USPO site is the largest in the country and will be out of commission for quite some time. Some area zip codes have had their mail temporarily suspended as they scramble for a temporary fix. I did have another order that was in the building at the time; it was crushed and I received a refund.