Not a lot to show as far as art.... although I have been busy with the paint brushes. Doing a lot of experiments and practicing with technique and color mixing in watercolor.
In the meantime, we're still in the grip of the awful heat/humidity wave (it's 97 degrees now and expected to hit 99 or 100) so I'm out in the garden almost every morning watering. Since we live out in the country we're fortunate to have a deep well so I don't have to worry about a large water bill. Plus, the water goes back into the ground .... where, after it filters down through a couple of hundred feet of soil, sand and rock that purifies it, it will eventually get pumped out again for re-use. Recycling at its best!
I'm posting a few pics from my garden. Everything is growing nicely. After I finish watering, I collect the day's harvest... which you see pictured in the basket. For dinner tonight we're having a fresh Green Leaf lettuce salad with grilled chicken breast, pecans, mandarin oranges.. and the following veggies:(which I grew myself! I sound like a proud Mom, don't I? ;-) cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and sugar snap peas. Yummy! Blackberries and ice cream for dessert.
When I get around to it I'll be posting most of these pics in the RIL (Reference Image Library) on WetCanvas as resource material for other artists. If you see anything you'd like to use in a painting, email me and I'll send you the high res image for clarity.
P.S. The last four pics (for city slickers and non-Southerners who are wondering what that strange plant is) are of a field of tobacco across from our house. Years ago you saw tobacco fields everywhere in the South. Nowadays, with the health risks associated with tobacco use and the influx of cheaper foreign tobacco, it's almost a novelty to see a field of tobacco. I wanted to record this while I had the chance, before fields of tobacco were, well, gone with the wind ;-). The first two pics are the blossoms on the top of the tobacco stalk (ironic that the blooms are so pretty) and the last two pics show the plants in the field. A whole culture used to revolve around tobacco - working in tobacco during the summer paid for many kid's school clothes in the Fall; and bought me my first car - but that's a story for another day.
