". Arranged Words: woods
Showing posts with label woods. Show all posts
Showing posts with label woods. Show all posts

19 Jan 2021

An Array of Colours


Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a lovely holiday.  
I always enjoy getting things ready, but I am never that eager to take the decorations down. I have  friends with a big house and they, at this point, keep the Christmas tree up year around to please their little granddaughter. Not a route I would like to take, but sometimes I am tempted to leave the tree up a little longer--say March. 
In other news, the daylight hours have increased by approximately 35 minutes, so what's not to love about that.
And the sunrise and sunset have been spectacular. The photo above: a sunset. Love the cool yellows, and the purple near the top.


Gorgeous dreamy blues with a hint of purple.




A Common Redpoll ~ Handsome to the core.
And not all that common; I haven't encountered one for a long time.

Of course I was out to feed the birds. When I arrived I found the feeders well stocked. There are a lot of people out and about this year. We are under lockdown, but with the mild temperatures the woods and parks are busy spots. Not so other years; we may only have seen one to three people, or none at all.  But it's nice to see families out enjoying the great outdoor, and they are phone free too.

* * * 

My son bought me a lovely pastel set for Christmas. I've been experimenting with some of the colours.


Pastel

I always forget to take pictures of the different stages of a pastel painting. They go through a ragged stage, but I love how they come together as if by magic.


The light is garish today, but the top photo captures the colours well. (Notice that I didn't blame it on my photography skills.)




 Thank you for reading along.

                                                                    Until Next Time...

                                                              Cultivate Your Dreams

           Linking to Link Parties via my link party page. Thank you, ladies, for hosting.

28 Jan 2020

A Trek

Jan 28/20


Because of  freezing rain, I haven't been out to the woods for about a month. And I‘ve been wondering about the birds.
At the entrance to the marsh, I called out and the chickadees and nuthatches quickly flew to the feeding area. They remembered me, and, my, they were very hungry. 



A beautiful, moody afternoon sky.

Recently, I was looking through my photos of the Yukon Territory. For a few years, we lived in the Yukon in a house nestled down near a lake, where I could hear, as I lay in my bed, the plaintive call of the loons. We drove there from Calgary, Alberta along the, then, unpaved Alaska Highway.  Later we motored up the Dempster highway that begins south of Dawson City, Yk. to Inuvik, NWT. 
 Not a garage, at that time, for miles on that unpaved, potential tire-shredding shale road, so we carried full cans of gas and extra tires on the roof. With only the vast remote wilderness for company, and the trepidation welling up within because the road sometimes does double duty as a landing strip,  we slowly motored on, in intermittent fog, for hours, with thunderheads of dust rolling up behind us, without passing a car or seeing a single living thing.  (From Dawson City to Inuvik it’s a two day journey: 478.5 miles/ 742km.)  Eventually, dust bitten and weary we stopped at the halfway point in an oasis named Eagle Plains / Rat Pass. Given its remoteness, we had reservations about the place, but it turned out to be a clean and hospitable place to spend the night.
While driving the Dempster Highway you see the rugged Ogilvie and Richardson mountain ranges and, of course, the tundra where ghostly cloud shadows, driven by the wind, mysteriously track over the land. Gorgeous at any time of year, but in the fall it is absolutely breath taking. 
The pastel painting below was inspired by those photos. 


A few years later, still eager for adventure, we drove from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk along the ice road on Mackenzie River and the Arctic Ocean.  (That may be a story for another day.) I do, however, feel fortunate to have made that trip, because the ice road has recently been replace by a highway.

Happy trails. 'Til next time...

Cultivate Your Dreams 


I am linking to: 
World Tuesday
Friday Bliss


1 Jan 2019

A New Day




Hi there,

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year!
We had a wonderful time.

Below are two projects from last year that I wanted to finish before the clock struck 12:00. And I also wanted to ring in the New Year with a blog post, so I am nearly there.

There were a few personal milestones that I had planned to complete in 2018. Check. I never was much of a list maker, though I find lists really do help keep me on track.

I'll spare you the personal milestones, however I did finish a small knitting project, and I did have bird cards printed. I didn't paint and draw as much as I would have liked to last year, but it's a new day.


Long ago (say September- you may remember) I started knitting a hat named  Bough. I used Brooklyn Tweed's yarn named Shelter. I contemplated using a bold, zingy colourway. Somehow that thought vanished. So I chose: Pumpernickel.

Anyway the finish line finally arrived, so yesterday we went off to the woods to take a few pictures.

Just look at that! Canada in January ~ sans snow. One gets the feeling it might be early spring. A florid illusion, I reckon.


A pompom too. How daring! But, then, one should live a little.


 Cables add texture and beauty, and they are easy to make. Wishing my hands liked all that yarn twisting. However, knitting slow, like a tortoise might if he could, does eventually get you there.


While I was in the woods, these tenacious leaves and the pine needles below caught my eye.


 The "Fashionista" bird cards are printed and will be listed in my Etsy shop by 4 p.m. tomorrow.


For those of you who are not on Instagram, there's a program called "The Best of Nine." You enter your user name and voila the program calculates your most liked photos for 2018.
Call me fastidious, but I do want to straighten out that blue painting.
 

(Signo white gel pen on Strathmore Artagain 400 series.)

Wishing all of you a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year filled with love, and good cheer!

Cultivate your dreams!

28 Aug 2018

Icelandic Lace

With the summer winding down, I finally got around to blocking the lava lace scarf designed by Evelyn Clark. The colours remind me of fall, and I think it will look nice with a sweater or a light fleece jacket. The yarn: Handmaiden's Mini Maiden 50% wool, 50% silk. A wonder to knit with. 
Because of the busy colours involved, I ended up ripping out several other patterns that I tried. I do think this pattern, which I have made before, accentuates the lively colours. The beauty of the free pattern, besides being easy to remember, different yarn creates a different look. So versatile.

Two scarfs draped over the form. One for me and one for my sister. 


I am not sure about the blunt edging, but perhaps the weight it creates keeps the scarf from moving around.

In my critically low stash, I found several yards of left over lace weight yarn. I think I have enough to fashion a stripped scarf; one with a definite point. It will be nice to have something new on the needles.



This month I also celebrated a milestone birthday. Where does the time go? Amazing how fast a year flies by, especially, it seems, as you grow older. I did have a wonderful day, and I am pleased that I've made so many trips around the sun. (Talk about travel :) Part of the day included a walk in the woods. Can't imagine life without the woods.

           
            Although the days are still very hot and humid,  the nights are cooler, so there are a few noticeable changes.


Speaking of the woods, tragically, over 500 wildfires are raging in British Columbia. They are in a state of emergency. I can't imagine how many hectares have burned.  Heavy smoke has reached Calgary and beyond. (more than 500 miles) Praying for rain ... a lot of rain.
We have about 60 wildfires in Ontario.  I hope and pray the brave firefighters are all okay, and that they make more gains, everywhere, very soon.

            
                              What's left of my birthday bouquet; the lilies are hanging in there                                                              nicely with more blooms to come.

Thank you for your lovely comments on my last post. I have responded to each of you there.

'Til next time...Have a lovely week, and

Cultivate your dreams.


4 Dec 2016

Wandering Camera for December

"These boots are made for walking."
A new post this time for Soma's Wandering Camera link party. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

As you can see the land has faded to monochrome, but it's still pretty out there.  About 20cm of  feather snow fell in November, but to everyone's amazement it has disappeared. You can find the pics on Instagram.
Tops of the rushes faded to beige.

These birches remind me of a giraffe.
Texture and sky striations.
Refuge for a Marsh Wren.




The chickadees love my son, Jesse.

                      
A Nuthatch checks the ground for seeds.

                                                               Dusk creeps about the woods.
Darkness arrives so fast now...almost dark at 4:19 p.m.

Off the drawing board:
 My Christmas Card. The prints haven't arrived yet, so perhaps they will be for next year.
 Arrived on the wing: Resplendent Quetzal Glicee prints.
Nonsensical doodles. My sister, Lorraine, runs from snakes. Maybe I should warn her, ;) but this wee guy looks friendly.

'Til next time...Enjoy...

24 May 2016

Drawing From Nature

May 24, 2016

A new to me wildflower. I think it's Bellwort.

What a wonderful weekend. Needless to say I was out and about admiring all the new growth.  Just  look at those greens! I recently read that nature walks are one of the best things to do for your health.  Apparently being out in nature decreases stress and is instrumental for sound mental health and overall well-being. I wanted to say: really? I mean really! To me that is self evident. (Although I have met people who absolutely detest leaving the sanctity of their homes and gardens and they are well and happy souls.) Speaking of gardens, they are another refuge...a sanctuary in the midst of it all.  It must boil down to what ever makes your heart sing. For me, that can be nurturing a house plant too, but I do love to take a walk in the woods. It renews and invigorates and, for me, is absolutely essential.

* * *
Last year on a walk through the marsh I met a grandfather (?) with a teenage girl who was boo hooing profusely about the bugs, (where where they?) the heat ( it was hot) and on and on it went. Secretly, I send her a message of good will, hoping that if she calmed down enough she might notice something to appreciate...something to pique her sense of curiosity and wonder.  Of course, I also wanted to say crease and desist, but I thought, as the fussing increased long after I should have been out of ear shot, that just might take a village.  ;)

Wild geranium
Violets
 A fungus surrounded by Solomon's Seal

Sketches...

Now and then I randomly decorate a few of my shoppe order envelopes.
Walking Fern. Difficult to tell which end is which. They creep along the ground.
I hope to paint these two soon.

Lately my ipad often refuses to let me leave a message on your blogs, and sometimes it's difficult to tell, especially if you have comment moderation on.  So if you haven't heard from me in awhile it's not because I haven't been trying. (I've used my other computer recently.)  What's surprising is that it doesn't seem have much of a problem if I try and post a comment on WordPress...what's up with that?  

 Enjoy the week...










12 May 2015

What a Difference...

                      What a difference a very hot week makes. (Above 30C or 86F.) Look at those trees!
When I took this picture, it was blowing a whole-sail breeze as my Mother would say (we are Maritime folks),  so the pic looks a little fuzzy because I forgot to tun up the shutter speed.


In the woods, a trillium carpet.

I am working on two courses, plus a seascape painting for someone and two of birds, so it's mostly a picture post day.

But before I go I'd like to shout out a hearty welcome to my new followers. A big thank you for following along via Google friend connect and email, etc.

Do have a lovely week!