Inspired by...

Jeff Fontaine

 I have been loving the work by Jeff Fontaine! He is a mixed media artist that works with rusted steel panels. He was one of the artists featured in the Affordable Art Show. I am so inspired by his used of color and texture and his perfectly balanced gridded compositions. And the colors...did I mention that I love the colors he uses? He has lots and lots of work posted on his website so you should definitely check it out.

Jeff Fontaine

Jeff Fontaine

Jeff Fontaine

I'd also like to thank all my blogger friends from all over the world who leave their wonderful comments for me! I really do draw inspiration from you and I love that I can connect with people both near and far who share their art, their thoughts and their own inspirations with me. Without this blog I never would have met Bridgette and found my new love for encaustics. Or have shared so many thoughts using so many exclamation points with Kerri all the way from New Zealand. Not to mention my constant amazement at the amount of artistic talent I keep finding just north of the border in Canada. Thank you all for inspiring me!

♥

And speaking of inspiration here's a quote for all you creative types. (Thanks for introducing me to this quote Kerri!)
"Blocked creative expression is as detrimental to your health and well being as a drug addiction. A raging internal conflict between acting on creative impulses or settling for the status quo can eventually promote physical illness. The size of your gift is not the issue; the act of creation is. You need to manifest your ideas and to make a difference in your world, whether your influence is enormous or small. Ideas are free. You can live in the world of thought all the days of your life and never go broke. You will also die unfulfilled because an idea that never incarnates, that never becomes physical and grounded in this world, will eventually feel like the most painful burden you ever had to carry - one that you can never put down. Don't let the creative opportunities the universe provides fall by the wayside because your fears carried more authority than your faith. Trust in the life support system that is inherent in your creative spirit. You will draw to yourself all that you need as you need it, but you must first be willing to risk it all."
                                                                   - Caroline Myss

Nesting #2

Well she's not very happy with me but I was able to get close enough for some decent photos. I never knew birds could glare! She is pretty good at giving the old hairy eyeball though.

Nesting

 A neighbor of mine gets robins nesting on the rack by her front door almost every spring. This year she discovered that the eggs had been destroyed by something. The next thing I know I discover a nest on my rack by my front door! I walked out one morning to see this muddy mess ( I didn't know robins used mud to build their nests!) The nest was empty for awhile and I really thought it had been abandoned until one day this week I discovered eggs!

 Unfortunately being by our front door means there's a lot of traffic and the mama robin gets scared away easily. So the eggs are left unattended for long periods of time. I don't know if they'll survive with the mama scurrying away so often. I would love to move the rack to a more secluded corner of our porch, not right by the front door, but I'm afraid if I move it she'll never come back.

 Does anyone know how long it takes for robin's eggs to hatch? If I can keep track of the days then I can figure out if they will survive. I'd hate for the robin to be sitting on a nest that will never hatch!

I will also try to get some pictures of her sitting on the nest too if I can get close enough.



Here it is!



HMD 11



So here is the finished encaustic I gave my mom for mother's day. After doing the "kitchen test" I used my own tried and true method as well. I held it up to a mirror. I feel that just looking at it flipped helps me to see it as though it's the first time I'm looking at it. It really helps with composition and balance. Well it does for me anyways!

 So the only thing I added was the addition of some carved lacing over one of the vertical lines. One of the things I really liked about this one was the texture of the screen mesh I found. I adore the little diamond pattern so you might be seeing it often! I've got lots of new ideas and things I want to try out so I hope to have some more studio time really soon.

 And I also just wanted to show you the tulips that have finally opened! They are so pretty streaked with pink, multi stemmed, double tulips.

 Forget me nots, of course!

My red bud tree looks amazing this year as well. This has been a sick tree for many years but I think I finally got it!

White crowned sparrows

 I finally got some good photos of the cute birds I was talking about previously! They are white crowned sparrows and I love their stripey black and white capped heads. I have never seen these types of sparrows before. Normally I only get the hoards of house sparrows so it was cool to see a new type. My husband and kids think I'm a lunatic though. When I saw the bright flashes of black and white stripes I started squealing "what is that!?" But I don't care. I can't believe the variety of birds I have seen at my simple feeder this spring.

And Barbara I've been thinking of you ever since I saw these little birds!

Sneak peek

It might be a Mother's Day gift so I don't want to give away too much. Mother's Day is tomorrow and my mom is on the road traveling back home from her winter stay in Arizona. ~lucky~ So she'll be getting it a little late. If I decide it's finished that is. Right now I'm using Bridgette's Kitchen Test to see if it's gift worthy yet.

Just a tease

 So we actually had a couple of nice days this past week. I've had many visitors to my bird feeder which I can never get any good pictures of because they always fly away when they see me. The only brave ones are the red winged black birds who always scare away all the other birds.

 I am very pleased to see that the service berries survived the snow storm! This is the side of the house that had that gigantic snow drift. I don't think all my russian sage made it though.

 I received this pretty blue creeping phlox as a transplant from my sister in laws garden last year. Blue flowers are my favorite and these are doing so well!

 It seems to be taking forever for these double tulips to open! I cannot wait to see what they will look like. 

And this cute little chipmunk wasn't afraid of me either. Unfortunately the nice weather was fleeting and today is cold and rainy. I saw thunderstorms in the forecast for everyday next week too. Ugh! I really cannot wait for summer to kick into full gear!

The good news is that the gray weather has made me stay inside and I was very productive with my encaustics today. So look for another post very soon.