Home Decor Update

Recently I moved the sofa away from the front window in the living room, as I do every year when it starts getting colder -- condensation builds up and it gets damp there, thanks to Truman and his blankets.  So I move the sofa against an inside wall and replace it with an armchair, from which Truman can still see outside without fogging things up.  

Here he is on the armchair, annoyed at the furniture rearrangement.

As a result, I had a new view from the sofa of the front wall, and kept noticing the blank spaces here and there.  By Wednesday, I had stared at those spaces a little too long -- and I got out the acrylic paints I bought for my birthday and started slapping random leaf silhouette patterns up there.

I had to take down two pictures to do this -- two original watercolor landscapes of Newfoundland by wonderful "expedition artist" Maria Coryell-Martin.  I had nowhere else to hang them, so I just put them back up over the leaves.

I think it looks fine, just as the silhouette tree on the next wall over looks fine with the pictures hanging up over it.

I'm thinking of painting a silhouette bird perched atop the door frame.  Or maybe two birds.  Or three!

Back to the Birds

I was able to go outside yesterday without getting rained on!  Whee!!

I hadn't been to the Montlake Fill in ages, either because of rainy weather or because the trail was closed for construction equipment (the creation of a new wetlands area continues apace).  So I decided to see if I could visit it -- and the answer was YES.  Hoorah!

The Osprey family, of course, is long gone, spending the colder months in Central America.  The Bald Eagle family has reclaimed the lake.   The Wintering-Over Waterfowl from up north have not yet arrived in any great numbers -- I heard a few wigeons calling, and spotted a couple of Northern Shovelers and a lone Green-winged Teal, but that was it.

I didn't see a lot of songbirds around, possibly because I did see a Red-tailed Hawk, a Cooper's Hawk, and a Merlin hunting the fields.

As usual, though, I did see a Great Blue Heron.  Here is Truman guarding the bird he located for me:

We had a lovely mix of stormy gray clouds with fluffier, lighter clouds and sunshine struggling to break through.

The Double-crested Cormorants have returned to their favorite perching spot, the baseball field lights.

Truman actually walked most of the way around the 1-mile loop trail.

While the Cooper's Hawk and the Merlin zipped through too quickly for photos, the Red-tailed Hawk did pose nicely.

Over at the main wetlands construction site, the pond has been dug and the recent rains have filled it in.

It was lovely to walk around the Fill again, and I do hope the trail stays open from now on.

Another slow week ahead

I predict there won't be much to post about this week, as there is rain in the forecast pretty much every day.  Stuck at home, I've been cleaning and organizing, reading, watching the baseball playoffs, and working on a needlepoint project -- none of which is likely to produce interesting posts.

So here are two small sketches I did yesterday at Tina's house, where Nicole and I went to do a little still-life drawing.  I'm not that fond of drawing stuff around the home, so this may be it for a while.

In case you are missing Truman, here is a bonus pic of how he handles rainy weather:

Stay dry!

Sunny Days Wrap-Up

Fierce windstorms are being predicted for our area over the next two days -- so far all we've had is a whole lot of rain, though I can see the trees starting to move in the breeze now.  Truman and I are planning to stay put, cozy in our little home, with kibbles and cookies and candles in case the power goes out.

We did have two beautiful sunny days earlier in the week and I thoroughly enjoyed them.  It was even warm enough in the afternoons to do a little sketching.

TUESDAY was my birthday, so I made Truman go shopping with me.  We went to Dick Blick art supply on Capitol Hill, where he helped me pick up some acrylic paints so I can paint more stuff on the walls at home.

The sales clerk offered him a dog treat, which he promptly turned down, as he always does.  He is very picky about what he eats and about who gives it to him.

Next we went across the street to the Elliot Bay Book Company so I could buy a  Seattle map to replace the one in Winnie the Wienermobile which had gotten too crumpled and torn from having been tossed in the back rather than neatly folded and put away in the glove compartment like you're supposed to do.  We'll see how long the new one lasts.

We took a short break at Cal Anderson Park nearby before returning home.

After lunch at home, we headed out again to Magnuson Park, where I have been having a good time drawing little vignettes of the P-Patch community garden there.

When we got back home, my neighbor Charlsia came over to give me a birthday card and a gift:  a 4" x 6" sketchbook!  Yay!

WEDNESDAY morning I took Truman for a stroll around our neighborhood, and paused at two homes to do pen and colored pencil drawings in the new sketchbook (the paper is too thin for watercolor).

One home has a lot of bird houses for sale in the front yard:

Another home has a mosaic studio, with this decor out front:

On Wednesday afternoon, Nicole and I went out sketching -- we stopped first briefly at Matthews Beach park:

Then we headed down the road to Magnuson Park for more garden drawing.

I don't think I'll get out at all this weekend, if the forecast is accurate.  I hope there isn't a power outage so at least I can work on indoor projects.  Stay warm and dry!

The Calm Before the Storm

It's raining today, with storms in the forecast for the next 3-4 days at least.  I may wind up painting more of the walls in my home, though I also have a needlepoint project to work on.

But before the rain hit, we had a few days of lovely sunny weather.  Truman and I got out and about as much as we possibly could.  Here we are at Juanita Bay Park in Kirkland:

I don't drive over there very often though it's a very nice spot for birding.

It is always reliable for seeing Wood Ducks.

Truman and I were looking for a Sora that had been seen there many days in a row -- this is an elusive bird in the Rail family, the same family as coots and Virginia Rails.  While coots like to hang out in large flocks on open water, rails and soras prefer to hide in cattails and are hard to see.

And we didn't see one -- a bit disappointing, though still a beautiful spot to visit.  I've seen plenty of Virginia Rails, but I've seen only one Sora in all my birding years.  Oh well.  Maybe next time!

Truman did find something interesting crawling across the path:

A "woolly bear" caterpillar!

After our trip to Juanita Bay, we headed to the  University Bookstore so I could pick up a new sketching pen.  While there, Truman was menaced by a squirrel hand puppet.

He was not pleased.

Stay tuned for another "last of the warm sunny days" post tomorrow!

Pumpkin Time!

It's pumpkin harvest season, and last Saturday Truman and I headed over to the Shoreline Farmer's Market to check out the giant pumpkin contest.

Pumpkins were being weighed while we watched.

We didn't stay to see which pumpkin won, but later learned that the winning pumpkin weighed 1,750 pounds!

This was the last farmer's market for the season.  We stopped by this dog treat table, where Truman turned his snout up at the Dog Blobs.  He is a very fussy eater.

In keeping with the pumpkin theme, later that day I decided to see what he looked like in Georgie's old pumpkin Halloween costume.

He was not happy about it.

On Sunday Truman and I headed over to Tina's house, where Nicole joined us for some indoor sketching.  Tina had bought a pumpkin and some cool gourds for us to draw.

They were challenging -- lots of ridges and knobby bits.

I got tired of drawing gourds, so when I noticed Tina's dog Duke sleeping at my feet, I tried drawing him.

Her dog Ginger was also napping nearby.

I wasn't terribly happy with any of my sketches, and didn't want to try the gourds again, so I looked at Tina's kitchen and saw the tables she had set art supplies on, and decided that would make a good subject.

I enjoyed that drawing very much.  And now I think I'm done with pumpkins for this year!

This Is What Happens When I Can't Get Outside

The colder, wetter weather is upon us, which means I can't do my favorite thing -- go sketching outdoors.  And this means I start looking around my home for something to paint.  It just so happens that what I like to paint most at home are the walls.

I've already painted murals on a living room wall and two bedroom walls, as well as the bathroom door, and I've done smaller decorative bits here and there around doorways.  I'm running out of good wall space because I made the tactical error when I bought the house of covering up some ratty old wallpaper with anaglypta wallpaper.  This is an embossed paper with a complex design that I can't paint a mural on top of.  Dang -- what was I thinking?!

So on Saturday when it was cold and rainy, I sat on my soft, staring at the narrow strip of available living room wall space between the doorway to the kitchen and the curio cabinet.  Surely I could fit in something decorative there?

Turns out I could!

I started off with a branch alongside the doorway, to which I added some twisting leafy vines.

Those twisting vines suggested Morning Glory, so I added a handful of random Morning Glory flowers.

Close-up:

That looked quite nice and I stopped there.  On Sunday when I looked at it again, I decided it needed something else.  Squirrels were on my mind, as Truman had been having frequent run-ins with those pesky critters, so I added one on the very top.

This is what my view from the sofa looks like now:

That was very satisfying.  As there will be lots more cold and rainy weather ahead, I just might find other bits and pieces of wall space to decorate in the future.