Garden Update
Somehow it’s already nearly the last week of May, and I can’t believe I haven’t updated this blog once since April. There’s no doubt it’s late May, though. The weather is starting to feel more like a South Alabama summer. That means it’s getting a little steamy and sticky. We’re still not at full summer humidity and heat levels, but it’s heading in that direction.
The garden has suffered some since last time. Some of our tomatoes have succumbed (or are in the process of succumbing) to something, and bugs are eating up the beautiful leaves of the eggplants—but they’re hanging in there, and the squash and okra were good the last I checked… I think I’m happiest with the plants we put in pots—cherry tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants.
Here’s a photo of the eggplants that I took a couple of weeks ago, before something started nibbling them. (Probably ought to look into that, but I’ve checked them quickly and not seen any caterpillars, so I’m not sure what’s to blame.)
We have a few new types of peppers to plant this weekend, as well as some tomato suckers that we’ve rooted in water and need to get potted up.
A Few Random Photos
Earlier this month, I let Marshall, Teddy, and Barney out for midday breaks while Mom and Dad were on a short vacation and Kimberly was at work. (They’re all Shelties. There have been quite a few Shelties among my family’s pets, as well as Eskies, American Cocker Spaniels, and other breeds.)
Broken Dishes String Quilt Progress
I finally got around to joining the broken dishes string blocks into strips…
…and then into a finished quilt top. Now it waits to be quilted.
I’m in the middle of loading something else onto the frame for quilting, but I’m dragging my feet, because I’m worried it won’t go well and don’t know exactly how to quilt it… Maybe this holiday weekend I’ll get started “for real”.
Meanwhile, I pulled out the blue crumb bag and started some crumb piecing as a stop-gap project. Off-cuts from the broken dishes string blocks are finding their way into this, as you can see:
I’m turning the crumbs (along with a few strings to round things out) into squares, which will probably eventually turn into star blocks of some type. You may remember that I used similar crumb squares in green to make sawtooth stars for a quilt a year or two back.
Not sure yet if these will also be sawtooth stars or something else. I don’t want to overcomplicate it, and I do like the sawtooth star block…
More Chickens in Party Hats
I tried another version of the chickens in party hats from my last blog entry. (See that one for the link to the free tutorial by Ellen Crimi-Trent.)
This time I added a simplified cupcake and some butterflies instead of the 60s-style daisies.
Sweet Cold Treats (Sugar-Free, Zero Calorie)
I saw someone on YouTube had filled a whole page with different colors of popsicles. It was cute, but I wanted something a little different, so I filled my page with all sorts of frozen treats—popsicles, ice pops, single-, double-, and triple-scoop cones, shakes/floats, ice cream in cut glass dishes, and even a soft serve ice cream.
I painted them first, then let it dry…
And then I added in the details with ink. (This is “Smoky Mauve” Forever Ink by Diamine, one of my favorites, lately.)
That was fun, so I decided to do another page, but with a more limited and subdued palette.
I left out the ice pops, but added in banana splits.
Time for a "Big Shop"?
I found this prompt on an old list on my desk and thought it might be fun to try. The idea was just to draw mostly groceries in bags, baskets, carts, etc. I made some transparent and others not. In the end, I didn’t really do a grocery cart (except a small one on a bag), but if I do this again, I might try.
My doodled page got very busy and detail-heavy—just the way I like them, really. I drew using Noodler’s Lexington Gray ink, though it looks more like black in the picture above, because of the way I edited the photo.
After it was dry, I colored it in with watercolor.
The result is pure chaos, but I enjoyed it so much and will probably do it again, sometime.
Not Sure What to Doodle? PLANTS.
I ended up doing another page of potted plants one day when I wasn’t sure what to draw. It’s a trusted topic to fall back on.
Not much to say about it, though. It’s the “Smoky Mauve” ink and watercolor. I started with the watercolor, then added the ink.
Shoe-La-La ;o)
Another topic on my prompt brainstorm lists was “shoes”. I painted loosely shoe-like shapes… Apparently my idea of a shoe is either a chunky boot like Frosty the Snowman might wear, a Victorian lady’s boot, sneakers (tennis shoes, as we used to call them when I was a kid), or flip flops. I had a hard time painting anything that wasn’t chunky and “basic”. (It is also surprisingly difficult to make the two shoes the same size/shape. This is why I prefer drawing things that don’t come in pairs!)
When it was dry, I doodled over the top with a black ink pen. I do like the way they turned out, all things considered, but if I try this topic again, I think I’ll start with doodles first to see how much difference that makes.
Bzz
The idea for this one came from another of Ellen Crimi-Trent’s tutorials (“Ink and Wash Watercolor Bees“), though my version doesn’t follow hers very closely. I watched, then later on in the day or the next day tried my hand at it. I should’ve looked back again, probably, but it’s okay. I realized a little too late that my flowers look tiny compared to the bee. The whole thing isn’t as loose, either, which isn’t really a bad or a good thing—it’s just different.
I painted first, then added the ink later, and I decided to include all six of the bee’s legs. That’s probably not a good idea. It’s hard to do that in this illustration style without it looking odd, I’m afraid.
Anyway, it was fun to try, and I’ll probably give bees another shot, sooner or later, even if this one didn’t turn out quite as I’d pictured it. I think I mainly just need to practice more often…
Townscaper
I’ve been playing a different game lately—Townscaper. It’s an older sandbox game with very simple play and no real goals except to just build the town piece by piece… and see where it takes you.
It’s not on the same level as Tiny Glade, because there’s not nearly as much control, but it can still be fun to play around with for a while every so often. It’s limited, but fine if you like a very relaxed, meditative kind of “game”.
