A Fishy Day

After enjoying the views from the Great Wheel, Tina and I decided to eat lunch at the fish restaurant at the end of the Fisherman's Wharf gift shop building, which serves a decent cod fish'n'chips.  I snapped a few pics of the gift shop hallway decor:

And decor-in-process:

Then we went next door to the Seattle Aquarium, where I got in FREE with my Seattle Healthy Aging Gold Card.  Sweet.  Tina was fascinated by the coral reef display, where we spent most of our time, but I managed to get a few pictures of things that weren't coral reefs.

Here is the Tide Pool, where you can touch stuff:

And here are the wonderful jellyfishes:

Winner of the Seattle Aquarium Creepiest Looking Fish Award:

And of course, there were more fabulous fish:

We also admired the seals, seal lions, sea otters, and shorebirds.  But mostly, the coral reef, which is a large display full of amazing shapes and patterns and a giant clam or two.  I think Tina took about 500 photos there.  I took a few myself:

Here's a close-up of the Bubble Coral:

Not only did we have a great time on the Wheel, at the restaurant (dining al fresco), and at the Aquarium, we also had hot (but not too hot) sunny weather, good parking at Pike Place Market, and light traffic on I-5 both ways (which Seattleites know never happens).  A very fine Saturday outing indeed!

Up Up and Away

This past Saturday, Tina and I ventured down to the waterfront to take a ride on this:

The Great Wheel is a 175-foot ferris wheel, one of three large wheels in North America and the only one to extend partly over water.  The gondolas are very comfy, the ride goes around 3-4 times and lasts about 15 minutes (and you get to stop several times as they let people in and out for the next ride).  The ride was so smooth that the first time we got to the top, I didn't even notice that we were at the top.

The views were fabulous:

In the photo above, you can see a Norwegian Cruise Lines ship in the distance...I so wanted to hop on board and go back to Alaska.

Above:  Qwest Field, Safeco Field, ferry...and Mt. Rainier.
Below:  Tina snaps pics of the same view.

We had our gondola all to ourselves, having hit the ride early enough to avoid a big crowd.  Great fun.  And afterwards, we visited the Seattle Aquarium right next door -- pictures from that will be posted here tomorrow.  Here's a teaser for you:

In Which I Wield My Artistic License

I had a full and formative weekend -- art, birds, baseball, the aquarium, the Great Wheel -- quite a flurry of activity all round.  I'm going to start with Art today, mainly because I've got those photos ready to go.  The art project involved painting an owl.

Here's the original photo I shot last winter of a Short-eared Owl:

I wanted to try something different from my usual "draw the bird, paint the bird exactly as it is" approach.  For one thing, the background is boring.  I wanted to make the bird pop out against the background.  But how?

Well, first things first -- I had to draw the bird, and I opted to put it inside a circle:

The blueish/light gray lines are masking fluid -- a terrific invention for protecting areas of the paper you want to keep white while applying watercolor right over them.

To make things interesting, I decided to try painting a rather dramatic background sky -- this owl is diurnal, so I wanted to keep bits of daylight sky color, but also wanted to depict general "owlness" with some alternating bits of dark, stormy-looking night colors as well.  I mixed up several dark blues, purples, and blue-grays along with a light blue sky color and used them in a wet-on-wet technique:

The paper is not greenish-gray.  That's just the best photo I could get under bad lighting conditions.  Anyway, I liked this -- a friend came over later and said it looked to her as if the bird were posed against a fantasy-world moon.  Well, okay, I can see that.

Due to the complexities of the feathers and the subtleties of their various colors and shadings, I opted to do the owl in colored pencil.

At one point I considered adding flecks of gold leaf to the picture in some fashion, but was talked out of it by that same friend, and I think she's right.  I will save that idea for later -- I have an idea now to do an owl in a medieval illumination initial letter style piece, and gold leaf would fit very well with that.  In the meantime, I simply finished up the colored pencil work.

Here is the final version, where I managed to take the photo under more natural light for more accurate colors:

Artistic license rules!  

UPDATE:  Reader Molly suggested adding another branch -- I popped it into Photoshop to try adding one to see what that might look like, and I do think it would look good -- here is what I was thinking of doing, fairly simple change with a new branch off to the left.  Better?  I think it does add some balance.

Not exactly art, birds, nature, or dachshunds....

I couldn't figure out how to make this fit into any of my blog's subjects, but hey, it's home improvement and I want to post about it, so I'm tossing in a photo of one of the new roses to make it mildly fit the theme:

Okay, now that's out of the way, what I really wanted to post about is the floor.  When I bought Dog End 18 years ago, it had avocado and brown vinyl in the kitchen and hallway, circa 1970.  UGLY.  I had no money, because I had just bought a house -- and its 23-year-old water heater died on day 3.  But there was no way I was going to live with that floor, so I bought some cheap press-on tiles in a nice LIGHT color and stuck 'em down.

They worked fine for many years, but over time cracks appeared between the tiles, and they were very hard to keep looking clean due to the amount of dirt the dogs tracked in.  Light colors show the dirt too easily!  I also never bothered to do the bathroom, which came with that dark green and white diamond pattern.  The transition strips between rooms were metal and UGLY, and the baseboard moldings were in horrid condition.

So I finally caved to the need for new flooring.  Sadly, there were three layers -- my press-on tiles, the avocado-brown horror, and a third layer of unknown stuff probably put down in 1949 when the house was built.  Three layers is all you are allowed -- after that, you have to tear everything up (and the bottom layer had asbestos) and start over.  $$$$.

Luckily, I had recently become the beneficiary of a small bequest ($$$$) that precisely covered the cost.  Thank you, Mr. T., for my new floor!  It is a vast improvement, and I cleverly chose a color that will hide the dirt better.  At least, that's the theory.

I had new transition strips and all new baseboard moldings put in as well.  The only real problem is that before, everything in my kitchen had a similar level of shabbiness but with the floor looking so good, the cabinets now look even shabbier in contrast.  Sigh.  I knew that would happen.

I wonder how much cabinet refacing will cost?

Weekend Bird Roundup

Over the past weekend Truman and I visited Meadowbrook Pond Park, the Montlake Fill, Magnuson Park, Marymoor Park, and the beach at Golden Gardens Park.  And guess what?  We saw a few birds here and there.  Yesterday you got to see the lovely White-crowned Sparrow at Magnuson.  Today you get to see the rest of the birds (except for Golden Gardens, where the herons wading in the surf were too far off).

Meadowbrook Pond:  an unusual trio of Mallards, since the males do not normally stick around after mating.

Montlake Fill:  a Pied-billed Grebe with its tasty fish breakfast.

And a Killdeer looking concerned, as they do.

The Barn Swallows were very active, gathering mud and grass for nests.

Over at Marymoor Park, there were Purple Martins hanging out at the Purple Martin gourds:

And a raucous collection of herons at the Great Blue Heron nesting colony:

A fine weekend for looking at our feathered friends.

Travels with Truman, Part 2

On Sunday Truman and I went to the Fill again, where we admired Mallard ducklings:

As well as this male Cinnamon Teal:

Then we dashed home, packed a picnic lunch, and headed off to Golden Gardens Park to hang out on the beach.

I had Truman's stroller because I knew he would refuse to go for more than one walk in a day, and also it is very handy for toting art supplies around.  We found a perfectly situated bench right near the end of the path leading to the beach:

I had lunch, sketching supplies, a dog, a view of Puget Sound from a sandy beach, and plenty of sunshine.  It doesn't get much better.  Plus boats!  One in particular had fabulous sails:

Truman kept trying to climb onto my lap as I sketched, but I managed to do a quick pen and watercolor of our view despite his best efforts.

Notice how I somehow neglected to include the people who were walking up and down the shore.  It's just easier that way.  And there weren't that many of them anyway.

I think Truman approved of the outing, all in all.

Travels with Truman: Part 1

We had high 70s, sunny weather this weekend, which means:  Get outside as much as possible!  I always prefer places I can take Truman, so we started out at the Fill of course.  The Ospreys are still hanging out and another birder reported they are bringing sticks to the lights.  It's not really a good choice of nesting platform, so plans are afoot to work with the university on alternatives.  Meanwhile, Truman and I had a pleasant stroll around the loop trail.

Next we visited Magnuson Park -- not for a walk or for birding, but to sketch.  There is a large community garden there which has a pergola I wanted to draw.  I found a good viewpoint and sketched away, all the while serenaded by a White-crowned Sparrow not ten feet away.

Truman waited in his stroller as I drew the pergola in ink.

And then it was off to Marymoor Park's off-leash dog area with Tina and Ocean.  Tru loves to go wading and there were plenty of opportunities, as the dog area borders a small, well-mannered river.

He apparently didn't get quite enough wading in, though, for when we returned home, the first thing he did was hop into his wading pool.

We saw other birds this weekend -- I'm saving those photos for later posts.  We also went to Golden Gardens Park -- stayed tuned Tuesday for Travels with Truman, Part 2.