Cover up

 

 

I saw this on the BBC web site yesterday, and I wondered about it, but didn't read the news story.  It just caught my eye because I (vaguely) wondered why a farmer somewhere would be talking to a famous young pop star about a government conspiracy to hide the facts.  I figured she must be in Africa or someplace (the picture looked like that, to me) on some humanitarian outing.

 

Then I saw this again today and realized, rightly, that some guy was just telling her to wear more clothing.

 

I can't name any Rihanna songs, by the way, and I'm not entirely sure I'm pronouncing her name right.

Five Churchill Downs wedding photos

My youngest brother married his wonderful bride this past Saturday at Churchill Downs. Right now, all I have are some low-res photos from my phone camera; these five are the best, I think. We have more photos on our regular camera, and look forward to seeing every else's photos, too.

My favorite of these is of the five standing as a group at the open gate.

Plein air painting

 

Here are some work-in-progress shots from last Friday, when I painted out in Middletown.  There's a pretty park out there.  I think I'm off to a good start with this, and I'll be able to finish it at home.

I walked around the park a little before I left.  In one spot, where they are doing construction, I had fun looking around the unearthed chunks of broken limestone for fossils. There were lots of them.  I brought some home to show the girls.

It a little thrilling to think that these ancient signs of life--from when, 300 million years ago?—remained completely hidden and preserved in remarkable detail, and then accidentally unearthed, and I was the first person ever to lay eyes on them.

I think I also located one or two former house sites that I could metal detect.

The Mantis

 Surely this is one of the tiny babies that hatched in our living room earlier in the summer.

 

I noticed this mantis while I was cutting the basil.  I was reaching around the wooden stake to cut back some stems, and had been working there for several minutes, when I suddenly realized there was a huge mantis right next to me.

 

Plein Air Painting, Early September

 

Here's my plein air painting site from a couple of weeks ago.  It was a pretty, peaceful spot, but I'm not happy with the painting itself.  I probably won't finish it.  It turns out that having a misshapen jumble of rocks in the center of a painting might not be wise, at least if I'm the one doing the painting.  Trying to resolve it so that it reads right is a heap of trouble that may or may not pay off, so I'll probably cut my losses and stop while keeping open the option of returning to it if I get a mixed spark of inspiration and insight.

On the right is an old stone bridge. I don't know if the main flow of the creek used to pass beneath that. Now most of the creek flows to the left, and whatever continued from the bridge is now gone.

There were plenty of fish, and some blue herons.

Temporary Architecture

All the cards they could find...

 

Big beet, reclining

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Kentucky's biggest pumpkin for 2011

This is from the state fair last month.
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KFC Yum! Center drawing prints for sale

 I have had prints run of my drawing of the KFC Yum! Center--they are now for sale!  I think that the next thing I have printed will be my Big Rock - Beargrass Creek drawing, since it have received such an enthusiastic response.

 

spreading thin

I have a lot of my artwork hanging in my cubicle at work; where else am I going to keep it?  Some things are hanging in front of other things to save space.  For much of the past year, I've had two old drawings hanging in front of the two reduction cut linoleum block prints I did last year (the Masai giraffe and the garlic bulbs).

 

I just switched them out. I took down the drawings so that the two lino block prints are visible.  Seeing them has re-whetted my appetite for more block prints.  However, I don't even have enough time to work on my pen-and-ink drawings or to get some painting time in. Uh-oh, what do I do?

lawn and garden

 

Our weed-whacker had a heart attack and died a couple of months ago; my attempts to resuscitate it were futile.  I think it's little motor burnt out, but my technical knowledge of what's beneath the hood of a weed-whacker if pretty limited.  I should take it apart and look at it and see what I can learn, but my track record for fixing motorized contraptions is practically non-existent.  Therefore, I'm sure I'll be searching for a new (or used) trimmer to purchase sometime soon.

This one that broke arrived to us second hand; Chris and Helga gave it to us when we got our house.  It worked quite well for me for seven years, and I don't know how old it was when we got it.

I've tried to keep the worst of the yard-edge in check with little hand clippers, but that's a lot of work for one wrist.

There are at least two pumpkins growing on the vines in my garden.  There might be more that I haven't spotted yet.  I don't know what the odds are of them maturing before Halloween, but they are growing quickly, so I have hope.

The fennel has all gone to seed.  I harvested some to use in baking (I've discovered that the immature seeds are a great addition to bread), and I'll keep some to give away, and I'll try to get the rest out of the garden because the self-seeding is excessive and tough to manage.

Over the past couple of years, when the chrysanthemums that we've had in front have died back, I've transplanted them to a back yard sunny spot.  They've flourished there, and are about to bloom again.  I'm always much more excited about my own flowers than about other peoples'.

Current art projects

 

Last weekend I went out for my first attempt at plein air painting in a few years, despite the forecast high of 100 degrees.  I got an early start and painted alongside Harrod's Creek.  There were some things that worked out, but overall I'm not sure the painting can be completed; I believe I erred in my selection of composition.  If it's going to turn out, I'll probably have to do a major revision of the center third of the painting.

 

I am also working on another pen and ink house portrait.