Friday, May 31st, 2013
Hi all! During my busy spring, I managed to complete a watercoloring class. I’ve been wanting to use a sketchbook more, and love coloring with watercolors. When it came time to do a postcard swap earlier this year with a map theme, I had this crazy idea to map a Quilter’s Paradise. Fitting it all into a 4×6 would be insane, so I decided to make a large painting (12 1/2 by 18 inches) which would scale down into 4×6 for the postcard swap and notecards, an 8 1/2 by 11 inch giclee print ($28 plus $5 priority mail in the US, shipping higher abroad), and a special order 11 x 14 inch print ($45 plus actual shipping costs which depend on whether you want it flat or rolled). [See last paragraph about ordering inf0.] So here is The Land of Quilty Delights:
Here is The Land of Quilty Delights, with my apologies for the watermark. This watercolor is available as an archival quality giclee print from me at SarahAnnSmith.com/store . Right click to see larger. If you begin at Home Sweet Home (under the bluebird of happiness) and travel clockwise, you’ll follow a quilter’s journey, ending at The Last Stitch Ice Cream stand and/or the Cotton Boll Retail Therapy Spa–your choice! Mine is ice cream with hot fudge, please!
I had SO MUCH FUN doing this! The bluebird of happiness is flying over Home Sweet Home on Paradise Island (which the legend tells you is self cleaning and equipped with a chef). The happy quilter then climbs Mount Joyous Inspiration, passes through Indecision Jungle, enters the valley of Creative Delight, and can visit the Life-Giving Forest (tree of life block with a cardinal in the tree). Shining down from the upper right corner is our Compass rose: N = North/New Ideas, E = East/Exciting Choices, S = South/Sweet Friendships, W = Warmth and Love. After all, isn’t that what it’s all about?
Our quilter sets sail from Port Anticipation and sails through the Rainbow Islands (which include Batting Island, complete with bat, Inspiration Island with drink service complete with little paper umbrella, and Full Bobbin Island). The traveler then passes the Rocky Shoals of Too Much To Do (Chores, meals, work). So why the alligator? Well, in my first job in the Foreign Service my boss had a saying I love dearly: When you are up to your a** (posterior) in alligators, it’s hard to remember the original goal was to drain the swamp.” Sometimes you have years like that!
You sail past the colorful Patchwork Fields of Plenty, with some of my favorite quilt blocks, through the Storm at Sea only to encounter The Ripping Tides (seam ripper) before approaching The Isle of Applique with Satin Stitch Beach, Blanket Stitch Bay and Needleturn Cove. Can you tell I had FUN? In the upper left corner instead of Zephyrus, the god of the Gentle West Wind, we have instead Zephyra, the goddess of the Gentle West Wind and patroness of quilters, who wafts us with gentle feathery plumes.
Alas, before reaching the Bay of Completion, you must make it through the Dead Zone (a.k.a. the Basting Zone), an area where ships stagnate in becalmed waters. But finally, you reach the Bay of Completion, and our happy quilter is celebrating at The Last Stitch Ice Cream and Spirit Restoration. We could go straight home, but instead I’ll choose to enjoy the view of the Patchwork Fields of Plenty on the way to the Cotton Boll Retail Therapy Spa, complete with Grandmother’s Flower Garden.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Quilters journey and the Land of Quilty Delights as much as I enjoyed making it!
Notecards are also available, 6 for $12 plus shipping. All prints are sized to fit standard frames and mats (http://www.dickblick.com/ has a wide selection) and are shipped in a clear sleeve with acid-free foamcore plus an extra piece of cardboard to protect the print in transit.
This week my webhost is upgrading their server, so I can’t get these on to my Store page yet. If you would like a print or notecards, please email me (here) and I’ll send you a PayPal invoice. You don’t need a paypal account; you may safely use your major credit card. For international orders, I can figure out exact postage (I will see if straight first class is less expensive than flat rate shipping which runs about $20 to anywhere in the world, but seems rather expensive to me). If you have several friends who would like a print, contact me directly and if one of you pays for all of the items, I can ship them grouped to reduce cost for you.
Posted in Art, Fun stuff, Paint | 1 Comment »
Sunday, February 10th, 2013
Last night we heard a sound in the driveway that wasn’t wind. Alex! We wondered how he would manage with his plow. Well, he didn’t. He called in his big guns:
Alex to the rescue—with the frontloader. So nice to have a neighbor-plow guy-town road commissioner with BIG stuff in addition to the big plow on his big pickup truck! Love this photo because it shows how hard the wind is still blowing, lifting snow out of the bucket. And notice that vast mound between the edge of the porch and the driveway….
I just stood in the kitchen looking out the window and laughed! The “plow” pile grew so huge the big bucket on the frontloader (or is that a backhoe? or two-in-one?) couldn’t reach over the top!
He’s actually driving UP the plow pile to try to dump over to the back side.
And bless that man. Remember that DEEP drift (about 3 1/2 feet deep) between the front door and the driveway in the first photo?): Lookit what that nice man did….
Alex came in with the wide bucket empty, set it down gently about 4 feet from the edge of the deck, and then dragged all that snow back out to the center, then scooped it up to dump on the ginormous pile. That meant LOTS less shoveling for us! When the snow melts its gonna be a serious mudfest getting over to the garage!
Made us a wide clearing so we wouldn’t have to shovel as much. DEFINITELY buying a snow blower before next winter!
This was the view out our bathroom window this morning. Notice how high the drift is by the entry windows on the left.
And looking back at the house. The photo above was taken from the window on the far left. I was standing just uphill of the ginormous snow pile for this photo.
It was a glorious crisp morning! I love the strong shadows and the blueness of the snow and the wind-carved ridges in the snow.
Love those wind carvings so much I kept taking pictures. As I tell my students, there is quilt inspiration everywhere!
Eli spotted this cool overhang: yes, that is a “corner” of snow hanging on the uphill side from the wind!
Eli scraped the snow away under his feet to stand on the ground next to the drift from what blew over the roof. He’s almost 5’10” tall. Love how the wind whips a channel next to the house. We saw little tiny critter tracks in the snow near there.
Eli, Me with Widgeon, and Paul. We got the gas grill back up on the porch, then set the camera on timer. For once I was going to get into the picture, too, as we aren’t likely to see anything like this again for eons. I mean…snow as tall as the eaves? It may be routine in the mid-west, but not in Maine!
Eli hoists the King of the Mountain, as said king’s leggies are too short to get him up to the top of the hill! Eli also needs to go back up there and retrieve the shovel he left up top!
And the storm clouds have cleared and we have that GLORIOUS view back. Yes, the towns of Freedom and Liberty are off in the distance as we stand in Hope! I LOVE MAINE!
And yes, I really DO have art and quilting to share…stay tuned! First post is tomorrow.
And a PS: our neighbor is wonderful, but plowing is part of his business! He gets paid for plowing, but he does it well and responsibly and promptly every snowfall. It can snow overnight, and when we get up at 6 am the driveway is already plowed most often! Lots of folks here in Maine have 2 and 3 jobs, including seasonal ones. The landscaping folks work the earth when it is visible, and plow in winter, for example. And MANY people buy a plow for their truck and then earn extra money plowing in their neighborhood. It’s the way life is here in Maine, and I expect in most of the northern tier of the US where snow is prevalent.
Posted in Family, Fun stuff, Home, Hope, Maine | 8 Comments »
Sunday, December 9th, 2012
Sheesh…. crazy busy here! I had surgery on my left foot on Friday, the same as what I had in August on my right foot, for arthritis removal. Things are going quite well and pain-free, but I have been insanely busy getting stuff done in anticipation of bobbing around on one foot for a week! Last Saturday was the start of Eli’s high school wrestling career, with a pre-season meet that included Class A, B and C schools (Camden Hills is Class B). Eli had three matches: his first was against a senior and the defending Class C State Champion (!!!!). Astonishingly, Eli managed to get a couple of escape points and NOT get pinned, which under the circumstances was amazing (since boys’ strength increases exponentially each year…kinda like dog years!). Then he won his next two matches convincingly.
Illuminated script lettering from Val Webb’s Watercolor Lettering class.
I’ve also been taking the most WONDERFUL online “Watercolor Lettering” class with Val Webb. The class is hosted privately, not via an online store or school. She creates a private group on Facebook where we can share, you download instructions from a password-protected blog (that is open for about 4 months which you have to work on the 10-week class), and there are video tutorials (some 30 minutes long!) there. I have learned SO MUCH! The example above is one I completed today, and it is probably the best thing I’ve ever done in watercolors. Val’s critiques are offered privately or, if you ask, on the group. Since I learn so much from reading the critiques, I have gladly offered mine up for sharing on the group, as have others. Val is generous yet points out in the nicest way what you can work on…helping you see where there are inconsistencies that might be done differently the next time. Just wonderful!
Me at home last night, showing a friend what the knee scooter looks like.
On Friday, after slamming all week to get stuff done in my studio, mow about 8 acres (literally) of meadow before winter and get the riding mower tucked away for winter, and do chores more easily done from two feet, I had my second surgery. Basically, the doc puts you under with something similar to the anasthesia they use for a colonoscopy (you have blissful amnesia after the fact), then takes a drill to remove the arthritic growth from one’s big toe. The only hard part for me, last time, was that I had to use a walker (crutches would ahve been as bad); because of the arthritis in my thumbs, putting weight on my hands to get to places (like the bathroom) was SO painful–far worse than the foot! So the ER recovery nurse suggested we rent a “knee scooter.” A what? She pulled it up on a laptop, showed me, we called the Medical supply place in Portland (on our way home) to reserve one, and I am SO HAPPY! I can get around the house easily!
Eli’s first match yesterday, in the official season-opener meet, was against the MDI (Mount Desert Island) kid who placed third in Eastern Regionals last year. As you can see, the boy (in green) is seriously ripped–that’s Eli in red grabbing his leg.
So easily, in fact, that since this surgery is on my left foot, I was told I could drive whenever I felt up to it. Well, yesterday was Eli’s first “official” high school wrestling meet and I had been SO bummed I wouldn’t be able to go due to the walker. Not any more! I felt up to it, and I MADE IT to the meet! It helps that the meet was in a town only 30 minutes drive, too. So I got myself and scooter into my car and went! And Eli had a fabulous start (of course he did, he rocks!). As a matter of fact, the team had a fabulous start. They lost 7 out of 13 Varsity team members to graduation last year, including 3 state champions. Yet, the team WON the 6-team Class B meet! Ellsworth obliterated four of the other teams, and Camden Hills obliterated Ellsworth. Can we all say “WAY COOL!”
Well…here’s just before the end of the third period, where Eli is getting the MDI boy on his back, again. Eli won, 10-3! That’s against the boy who was 3rd at Eastern Regionals last year. Papa Smith was VERY pleased!
And another move, where Eli is cranking on the boy in green, trying to get his shoulders to the mat and pin him, thereby ending the match immediately. He almost managed a couple of times, but this was definitely his toughest match of the day. The boy in green, by the way, is swiveling his hips to face down to prevent Eli from getting the pin, and the referee is down on the mat so he can peer underneath when it is close to see if it is a pin or not-quite.
Eli’s second match was against another seriously-strong young man from Ellsworth, here. Although this photo is blurry, I love how it shows the motion and intensity of the matches. That’s Eli on the left driving in to his opponent.
Honestly, I’m not sure why the wrestlers (boys and girls) love this so much. Personally, I would not love having someone’s knee in my back and my face held into the mat! Eli is (duh) in good control position here.
And a win “by fall” (which means Eli pinned his opponent, the kind of win that gets the team the most points). Eli also won his third match, which was against the JV member of the Belfast team. The varsity 152-pounder wasn’t there, but is apparently exceedingly good, was 3rd at States last year.
So, Eli’s official start to his high school wrestling (supplemented by two win-by-forfeits, where the opposing team didn’t have a kid to compete in his weight class) is a 5-0 record. WELL DONE! The rest of the team did extremely well… so proud of all of them including the coaches, kids, JV, and manager. This year the coaches are: PK, the high school science teacher, former coach and former Camden Hills wrestler and State Champion is coach, True Bragg is Asst Coach (had been Middle School coach, and he too went to Camden and was State Champion), Coach Goodspeed (been around since 1982 as head coach, part of the room and asst coach) and Paul as Asst Coach also. Thanks to the men, ranging in age from mid 20s to 70 ish, for helping. WOOT!
So that’s what I’ve been doing. Since I am allowed to put NO WEIGHT on my left foot all week, I hope to get caught up on some computer work: accounting for my teaching trips this year, learning InDesign (or at least starting), learning my new iPhone (I LOVE IT!), caught up on watercolor lessons, make some small Christmas gifties, write the Christmas newsletter, order the Christmas cards, do some fun reading, watch a couple DVDs I ordered like a year ago… hmmm…sounds like I need several weeks! I promise to try to be better about blogging! Meanwhile, enjoy the holiday season. Happy Hannukah to those who celebrate–personally, I believe in joining in all celebrations of light and goodness and joy!
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