Saturday Snow - After The Storm

What a beautiful winter day! Blue sky and white snow. I'll just let the photos do the talking.

A Snowy View From the Kitchen Window

While snow is routine for much of our great country, it rarely comes to us in the deep south.


Snow started falling here about noon today. I was hoping for enough to look pretty for a while. Looks like we have it.


This is the view from my kitchen window this afternoon, looking out into the woods behind the house.




And this is how it looked a few hours later.



And this is the view from the front porch, looking toward the street.




I'm glad I don't really have any need to leave the house!

A Walk in the Winter Garden

Today was the first time we'd seen blue sky in days!




Just when we think it's the 'dead' of winter, Mother Nature shows us she's still busy behind the scenes.

It was a delight to find these tiny yellow crocus in bloom.



Molly Kitty will be happy to know that her catnip is coming back to life!




I expect these blue asters to freeze long before they have a chance to bloom.




Nice to see the yarrow coming back to life.




This time of year, you have to look pretty hard to find something the wildlife has not consumed. But, they seem to have missed these nandina berries, hidden deep in the foliage.





One of my favorites! The native azalea has one small pink bud. These will be gorgeous in a couple months.

There are many fat yellow daffodil buds. These fat pointy buds are the double flowering variety.

These are some very strange daffs. The center will be green. A very old variety, dug up from an estate just before it was bulldozed.

The Encore azaleas now have buds! These did not do well for several years after they were planted. After 4 years, they're starting to perform.

I was afraid our extended cold spell had killed the large rosemary bush. But, a close look shows live stems and some surviving needles. I think it will need a pretty good pruning later in the spring. But, I'll leave it alone for now and let it recover in peace.

Transforming the Bedroom - Part 8 - Mission Accomplished

I'm finally getting the bedroom put back together.
This is my favorite cozy corner.

Transforming the Bedroom - Part 7 - The Finale!

I don't believe it! Two and a half weeks after I started the bedroom transformation, the painting is finally complete!

Stems and tendrils have been added, using Plaid FolkArt Thicket #924 and a script liner brush.

Now, to move the furniture back in!

Transforming the Bedroom - Part 6 - Dragonflies

I love dragonflies and wanted to add some to the frieze. We have many varieties of dragonflies here, but I think the most beautiful are the widow skimmers.

If I had wanted generic decorative dragonflies, I could have used a stamp or stencil. But, I wanted widow skimmers!

These are the tools I took up the ladder with me.

The paints are:

Plaid FolkArt Light Blue #402

Plaid FolkArt Artists Pigment Burnt Umber #462

Plaid FolkArt Metallic Silver Sterlling #662

Plaid FolkArt Metallic Pearl White # 659

I have 4 brushes:

#6 Filbert

#3 Sable

1/4 Royal Aqualon Whisp

5/0 Sable

First I transfer the dragonfly outline to the wall. I have a photograph of the dragonfly printed out on plain printer paper. I taped the photograph to the wall. I slipped a plain piece of paper under the photo, and a piece of graphite paper under the plain paper. This give me a 'sandwich' of photo/plain paper/graphite paper/wall. The slip of plain paper keeps my impression from being quite so dark and difficult to cover. Using a fine tip pen or pencil, trace over the main lines of the dragonfly.

Next, paint the wing tips and slight colorless bands between the blue and brown sections. I used silver paint and the filbert brush.

Here I have painted the head with burnt umber (a dark, reddish brown). The tail has been painted light blue. I used the #3 brush here. Both the silver and light blue have now been over-painted with the metallic pearl white, using the filbert brush.

The light blue and burnt umber have been added to the wings, using the filbert brush. Immediately after applying paint to each section, I blended it with the Wisp brush.

A fine umber line has been added to the tail, and the blue spots added to the head. Both were done using the #3 sable brush.

This is the finished dragonfly. I cleaned up the wing edges by trimming around them with the 5/0 brush loaded with wall paint. I applied a tiny bit of the umber to the wing tips with the Wisp brush, but it does not show in this photo. It does show up in the photo at the top of the page.

This is how the dragonfly looks among the roses.

The dragonfly is life sized!

Next...adding stems and tendrils to the flowers.

Transforming the Bedroom - Part 5 - Fairies

I have added 5 fairies to my walls.


I started with a stencil by Dressler Stencils, but decided against using it. I just sketched the fairy on paper, then transferred it to the wall with graphite paper and painted it.


I used two sable brushes, #3 and #5/0.


For the fairy body, I used FolkArt Acrylic Skintone #949, FolkArt Buckskin Brown #418, Apple Barrel Burnt Sienna and FolkArt Metallic Peach Pearl #674.


The wings are Folk Art Metallic Plum #668 and FolkArt Metallic Rose Pearl # 673.


Her hair is the Apple Barrel Burnt Sienna. Her little bottom has a blush of the FolkArt Metallic Rose Pearl.






Next, I think I'll be adding a few widow skimmer dragonflies.