Autumn has come, finally.

On Monica's street

On Monica's street

Sweater and scarf weather finally arrived. It happens so quickly here. It seems that it's summer, oh so hot, then the next day, swoosh, leaves are falling and the scarves come out. It feels great.

Mail Art, of course, and more

 I discovered this photo that I'd taken with my cell phone, forgot I'd taken it. A tee shirt at a shop in Duck. We do heart Duck. It's basically a dot on the map of the Outer Banks, but has nice places to stroll & look in little shops & now a really nice board walk along the Sound.

#117

#118

I'm playing with bits of old colored paper again. It's difficult to work with them because any adhesive that spreads onto them doesn't clean up well. Ugh! I dislike messy glue-ing. 







I'm finding good quotes about color to write on the backs and post to Facebook with these. Today is day 120. Have no idea what I'll do today. Maybe I'll keep going with color bits through the weekend and start a new series on Monday. 245 days to go!

I drove through the park on my way home from Spanish class on Wednesday and had to stop and get out of my car to appreciate this tall tree. It was still full of wonderfully yellow leaves. They looked so bright against the blue sky.

Mail Art update, autumn colors

#101

#102

#103

 I began to post these to Facebook with quotes on different themes. I 'm not sure if the "likes" are for the image or the quote. I'm thinking - quote. This one had a quote from Dr. Seuss. I discovered that he has lots of good quotes available.

#104

#105

With this card,  I decided to return to altering cards from the box of them related to water. A box of 50 cards, with duplicates. Lucky me.  Large people walking in water is a fun theme for me.









I didn't particularly like the image on this card. It was two people with the same face lounging on the beach. A painting. I decided, after trying to find other faces, to just obscure the figures. I like the way this turned out. A floating rose and a seemingly transparent circle.







So here are two identical postcards. A painting by Milton Avery. I made #104, then turned it over - and oh no, I'd used the card upside down! But it works. It's fun.








Then today, I decided to use the card right side up and see what I could do with it. I used more of the images from the Victorian  illustration book, for the figures and animals.  They really do look like 2 different types of landscapes, right?

 It's autumn! Here's the little Japanese maple in from of our house.

Here's a view looking south-east on our street. I love the colors!

Mail Art & more

#75

#76

 I'm having a really fun time tearing up old postcards and figuring out what to do with them. This one is a good one for remembering Silent Spring, the book by Rachel Carson. It was published 50 years ago, and warns about the over use of pesticides.






For this card I used the front of a card from Florida, and parts of the back side of 2 other cards, from different places and times. This is about time, travel, memories.  I couldn't let those back sides go to waste.

 This is a view looking up the hill from the area by one of the stages at the Richmond Folk Festival last weekend. I like the juxtaposition of the "mansion" on the hill and the lit up booths below.

 I forgot to show you the cake that we ate at the dinner with friends. Cyn made this - one of those flour-less or egg-less or something-less cakes that are so dense and deliciously chocolate. Yum!

 This afternoon I sat in my garden/yard and read. It's autumn, the air cool-ish, and the colors orange-y.  I had apples cooking on the stove; the cooking had been going on for hours! But in the end, it turned out good. I sterilized some jars and ended up with 4 jars of apple butter. I'm freezing 3 to use at Thanksgiving time. This is the first time I made this. Yay for me.

Look who came to visit me - Groucho. She is such a loving little cat, who lives across the alley from our house. She comes in when she knows I'm out here and meows really loudly for my attention. The birds scatter from the feeders and chatter away in the trees until she leaves and they can go back to cleaning out the feeders. What a pleasant afternoon. What am I reading? Agent 6 by Tom Rob Smith. I read the first two books with this same character and have been waiting for this new one to arrive at the library. Good reading!

Mail Art and so much more

#71

#71a

 Friday, I worked on some watercolors again. I'm feeling a bit less wimpy about them, but still, so pastel-y.  I like this one a lot more because I was able to get that purple ridge line, and then get that sort of reflection thing on water.

#72

#73

#74

This one is a big bolder, color wise, but still not quite there. I did a bit of pencil work and added dots. When I feel like the results aren't strong enough, I add dots. In this case, the dots are all the same color but change based on the background. Oh my, an Albers experience!





Saturday, I decided to tear up some postcards before we went off to the big Folk Festival. I found a good quote about landscape painting and put that up with the image on my Facebook page.









Then in Sunday, I decided to do the same - tear of old postcards. This one dealt with water, and I found a nice water quote to go with it. Oh there are those ubiquitous dots! In this case, I used them as connectors.








Today, more torn vintage postcards. In this one, the cards are like paintings and I wanted to make some visual connection between the lake and the road. I'm not sure how successful that was, but I like the way this looks.

 On Saturday and Sunday it was so hot at the Folk Festival. HOT! We couldn't stand being in the sun for long. Only listened to Roseanne Cash for 15 or 20 minutes before heading for shade. That hot! But Monday morning, while walking over to the dentist's office, I saw that over night, the leaves where turning autumn colors and falling to the ground! Wow! Overnight!

 I spotted this gorgeous tree a couple streets over this afternoon. Gorgeous, right? Autumn is arriving!

 And of course, autumn means apples in abundance. I got a half of a bushel and started to make apple sauce. I think apple butter is next.

Here's last weeks abundance from the farmers' market. It was the last week of my CSA, but this week I got some beautiful string beans and some beets there.

Beautiful Autumn

Our street

 What a day yesterday! Crisp air, a bit of a chilly, blue sky, leaves changing color, combined to make us feel so appreciative of the changing seasons.

Grove Ave.

In front of Fox Elementary school

Monument Ave @ Robinson

I took photos while Chuck was driving. Not bad for shooting through the windows, right?

The Richmond Marathon happened the same day, many streets were still closed when we finally got out, but only a few runners were left to complete the race. I think the weather was good for runners. I remember some years when they had to deal with rain and other years when it was so hot out.

We had friends who lived on the route and would have a party during the race, and we'd all stand by the street and clap and cheer for the runners. They all looked so dazed.

I'm assuming that afterwards there is some sort of high. The reward for completing something so grueling. Me, I'm happy I can walk these days, as I have tendonitis in one knee. Hopefully, that'll be cleared up soon as we have some trips planned that will include much walking. More on this in the future.

Meanwhile, I hope the weather is lovely wherever you live. If not today, then another day!