Back into the routine

Home again, back from a wonderful week at the beach with multiple members of the Kleeman family. We spent the week catching up, eating, sunning on the beach, swimming, eating, and just hanging around. The Outer Banks were in the throes of the East Coast heat wave, with heat indexes of 110 degrees. Not usually a problem with an ocean right there, except the water temperatures were in the mid 50s. It was numbingly cold and only the bravest (or most foolhardy) of our group spent any time in the water. But the houses come with swimming pools, where the water was just the right temperature. When it got too hot on the beach, we would run up, jump into the pool, then return to the beach. The most difficult decision we would have to make was what to cook for dinner.

This is my family - husband, son, daughter, significant others, and grandchildren. I hope you can see the t-shirts - click on the picture to get an enlargement. Each one is painted slightly differently and they were a big hit.

We returned home on Saturday to 100+ degrees only to find that our air conditioning wasn't working. A call to the service got us in the queue for repair and the man showed up yesterday afternoon. The compressor is under a 10 year warranty, but of course the problem was the capacitor, not under warranty. The compressor will wait until next summer, when it is out of warranty, and then go up. We are cool again, and happy. And ready to think about Quilt National. Time to get stitching!

Artful Home Studio Sale

The Artful Home Studio Sale has started and will continue through July 29th. This is an opportunity to purchase artwork at a discount anywhere from 20% to 50%. I have a lot of work up there, some fairly recent but some really pretty old. The prices on the older work are not anywhere near where I'm currently pricing my work, and then they are further discounted. I would love to move these pieces out of my house and into someone else's!

OH NO 50!

©2010

This is a piece I did when I turned 50, so you know it's pretty old. Or maybe you don't, so take my word for it. This and other work is available here.

Next week is my family's triennial reunion, held for a week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Actually, it's my husband's family. He's the oldest of nine children and nearly all of them are married and have their own children. Some aren't coming this time, so there are only 30 of us. We rent two houses right on the oceanfront and have a wonderful time. We always do a t-shirt to commemorate the event and this year I commissioned one of my granddaughters to draw the logo. I modified it into a line drawing, had t-shirts printed up, and then we hand painted each one individually.

Here is the drawing; I think it's pretty clever. And the painted ones are fabulous. When we do our group photo I will post it and you will get the full effect. Our houses are supposed to have wi-fi and I hope it works so I can post stuff.

The Sketchbook Project

I joined the Sketchbook Project and received my book last week. The way it works is that each artist gets a Moleskin sketchbook and has to fill it with something. The dimensions have to remain the same and the books will become part of a touring exhibit and will be cataloged into the Brooklyn Art Library System. Each artist must select a theme. I chose "Inside/Outside". So far I have no entries into my sketchbook and as usual, when called upon to make something that fits a theme, my mind goes totally blank. Looking at some of the samples of previous entries, it seems that many people only loosely follow their theme. So I probably will just go ahead and do something and let the viewers figure out how it relates.

We are in the midst of a horrible heat wave. We had a 10 day stretch at the end of June where the temperature was in the 90s everyday, and hit 100 at least once. A few days of some cool weather that was wonderful, but now we are back into the 90s and above. Yesterday the official high was 105 degrees. It hasn't rained since June 16 and the grass is brown and crunchy. I've been hauling water and using the soaker hoses in a desperate attempt to keep plants and shrubs alive. And now even the trees are showing stress. No significant rain is in the forecast. We could use about 3 days of gentle rain but what will probably happen is a thunderstorm with a downpour. The ground is so hard that any deluge like that will just run off and not soak in. Wonder which will be more outrageous - our electric bill or our water bill.