I watercolored this picture of our Great-GrandCat from a photo. He doesn't stay still long enough to do it "live." Hector belongs to one of our Grand- daughters who teaches Latin in Ann Arbor...and He is the most loving type of Kitty! He always wants to be where "someone" is :-) (He's not a loner)

Here are more Spring (dried) flowers that I watercolored from the Coldwater Creek Catalog :-) My Daffodils are really coming up bigtime out in back....So we will finally be getting some "live" stuff to watercolor.

Contrasting Walkways/Seasons

I was going through some pictures of ours (that we have saved in Picasa) and came across these two contrasting ones. Our "Flowered Walkway" was taken last Fall (October, 2010) and the "Snowy" one was taken this winter (February 2011). A lot of this snow has melted now, and we are so much looking forward to Spring. What a contrast!!! In Michigan it changes every day!!! I think we may take a few weeks in April down in the Smokie Mountains (while we are having our main bathroom retiled etc.) We can enjoy the wildflower season down there...lots of things, places to journal/watercolor. :-)

THINKING SPRING

I purchased a Shamrock (Oxalis) for my Kitchen Table, and decided to "paint" it. (This would be a good study in "Greens" in case you see this Catherine :-) I always have a hard time shading, etc. with greens. Well, I gave it a try!!!
I'm so sick of the Snow, Snain, Sleet, Rain, etc. that I thought if I could find a picture of flowers in a magazine, I would draw and paint them. The Coldwater Creek Catalog arrived and there was the picture of flowers I loved--so I gave it a try. It's not an exact copy, but it gave me a "guide" for some color, etc. It was challenging to draw it too.

Basketball Season is almost over (for our girls)

Our Granddaughter (age 14) plays basketball for her school team. Her Dad is the Coach (our son-in-law). Both do a great job! We were at their (away) game last Friday evening...In our estimation, they played well and won! Rachel made 4 baskets! Trying to keep up my watercolor journaling.
Wow! We were given 10" of snow Starting Sunday afternoon into evening. (S.E. Michigan) I think we got more than they did up North in Michigan. Just lucky, I guess :-]

Grandma's Darning Basket

I've had this "darning basket" for a long time. My Old Russian Grandma (who died when I was sixteen) used to darn all the socks by putting this wooden "egg" inside the toe of the sock and darning back and forth until the 'hole' was covered. My Mother kept the basket for years and when my Mother passed, I kept this wonderful basket. It seems like it is made of Raffia wound around and around--and now there are little pieces sticking out of it. But I couldn't do justice to painting all the little strings sticking out of it. Also, tried to capture the doily that was my Mom's. We used to have a doily on the back of upholstered chairs, and on the arm rests for protection.
Doilies were very "in" among the Europeans in those days.

That BLOOMING Amaryllis

We finally got 3 full blooms on the Amaryllis. Woo-H00!!! It took about 2 and a half months :-) I thought it was only going to be a beanstalk without a bloom--but stuck with it and here we go. You can see on earlier posts I took some photos to show how tall it was--it actually grew the flowers up in between the hanging lights over our Kitchen Table. This is my last mention of these, I promise :-)
This is the first page in my new (second, hand-bound) sketchbook journal.
I used some kosher salt when the paint was wet to give it some interest (?)