Just flowers

Sometimes you just need to color, and flowers to me are the most fun to draw and color. These fill up a folded panoramic journal and are flowers I intend on growing this season. After winter, I'm pretty flower crazy, it's all I think about. Until they sprout life in my garden, I will just have to draw them instead.

Lake Gii-was (Crater Lake) in watercolor

In 2014, my husband and I were in Southern Oregon for a half-marathon and spent a couple of days roaming the area. One excursion we made was to Crater Lake-about an hour northeast of Medford. The scenery near Crater Lake is volcanic and amazing to me. Thousands of years ago, Mt Mazama exploded and created what Americans call Crater Lake. We've made it a National Park and touristy souveniers and T-shirts are sold at the shop. You can spend the night in the lovely lodge too if you can get a reservation. 

Native Americans, who have been in this region far longer than Americans, see this place very different. It IS a sacred place, I have felt something while on my visit there. To witness this beauty for yourself is a privilege, visit with gratitude, respect and honor for the Klamath tribe. 

Crater Lake and the Klamath

History of Crater Lake

Painted with love, admiration and watercolor on 100% cotton paper.

Palermo in gouache

If I were to ever put one of my pieces on public display, this would be the one. Well, actually that's exactly what I did when my college (SOU, go raiders!) had a call for student artists. Even though I attend virtually, they did accept my piece for display somewhere in the university. It will hang for a year there with my name on a little plaque, and I am quite tickled! 

I own an old Vespa currently, although it doesn't run. It doesn't go faster than 25 miles per hour, and it's loud. In Sicily, these mopeds are everywhere, and I tried capturing that nostalgia in this painting. Sicily is known for it's oranges (I think it is, right?), so how fun would it be to buy a bushel of oranges on your old moped in the old streets of Palermo?

Painted with gouache on canvas, this will eventually be displayed in my own with love and pride.

Earth and Sky shawl

This shawl sets the record for being the longest knitted project I have ever done. That's mostly because I became bored with it and let it sit in a box for a couple of years. One of my resolutions this year was to finish it, and that finally happened. My intent was to make this very large, but I ended up making it the medium size. The pattern was a freebie by Stephen West, and I used plain old sock yarn by Brown Sheep. This goes really well with my favorite Patagonia denim shirt, I almost feel like a cowgirl when I wear them together, but I'm definitely not one!

Burrowing Owl in watercolor

When I think of owls, I imagine the Burrowing Owl. With it's intense yellow eyes and glare, you can just feel it's power. One of my favorite bird paintings, watercolor on paper.

Wool Satchel

After knitting so many Icelandic sweaters, I had a lot of scrap Icelandic yarn to use up. I love making my own purses and bags, as I find manufactured bags a little dull. This is a pretty good size satchel crocheted with colors that remind me of the Northwest. The patch is a design by Cada Johnson, a designer living here in Oregon. Her artwork has always fascinated me, I love her captures of nature and this patch is one of my favorites. I made the bag large so that once I washed and dried it, it would become 'felted'. While it did shrink some, I still feel it's a bit large. That's okay though, better to be slightly large than too small! I even sewed a small pocket inside. This satchel is crocheted entirely with Alafoss yarn, a company in Iceland that has a very cool store outside of Reykjavik. The yarn is sturdy and water resistant (those sheep endure some serious wet weather!). I really love how the colors come together in this one.

Multnomah Falls Oregon

Entry number three of the landscape sketchbook is of Multnomah Falls. I was very pleased with the initial outline sketch, but disappointed in my choice of greens for the foliage. Green is one of the hardest colors for me to capture, yet ironically I have a green aura.

Still learning...