Beloved Duluth

My home away from home has long been Duluth, Minnesota, where the huge ships come and go, where the atmosphere is always so happy.  It’s a beautiful place, and the closest I have been to seeing an ocean in my life.  Seeing the ocean is on my to-do list.

Last week when we went to Duluth, it was so cold and windy.  You’d think this would be a bad thing, but it was great news!  I got to see some amazing and breathtaking waves.  Usually when I’ve gone to see any of the Great Lakes, it is calm.  I always wanted to see it wild with wind.  And so I had this chance last week.  I hope you enjoy the photos, though unfortunately, they really can’t capture the depth and scale of the water.

Here is a short video of the waves.  Don’t mind the chit-chat in the background.  My dad and I were talking as I filmed this.

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Isn’t it something?

This ship was anchored offshore.  In the current, it slowly seemed to spin in circles out there.

And boy, was it windy!  Here you can see me…kind of…

And we were fortunate to see a ship pull out.  This one was a thousand feet long and took longer than two minutes to pass us by as it headed out.  The captain blew the horn for my nephews and niece as they passed by.

It was so long!

The following pair of photos were taken within a few seconds of each other.

If you click the photo below, you’ll see how many seagulls trailed this ship as it left.  There were literally hundreds of them.  I’m not sure if they were sending it off, or going with it.

There it goes.  These giant ships will forever take my breath away!

Thanks for looking.

 

Iron River

Hello there,

After somewhat of a break from this blog, I am back and bring with me some photos from a vacation I was on with my family last week.  We visited a place near Iron River, Wisconsin.  It was a nice vacation and a pretty lake and surrounding area.  We also spent a bit of time in Duluth.  That is such a beautiful area.  I’ll post photos from there next.   For today, Iron Lake and some of the scenery of the area.

Some fishing was done, but we did not catch much.

The lakeshore had a lot of these spiral shells, both empty and occupied by snails of some sort.

Of course, as usual, I enjoyed taking pictures of trails; though there weren’t many trails this time, I did find one.

There were Wild Columbine flowers scattered everywhere.  At least I think that’s what these are.  I always used to call them Japanese Lanterns until I googled them and found out I was wrong.  I love how delicate these flowers are.

Other plants and flowers were in the area as well.

This bench was a lovely place to sit and do some sketching.  I’ll upload the sketches I did on vacation later.

And the s’mores and toasted marshmallows sure hit the spot!

I hope you enjoyed the photos.  Thank you for looking.

 

Simon and the Slim Jim

Here is a video I made some time ago of Simon the Beagle.  Simon’s rather picky about his food, and he seems to do a lot of scrounging, because he doesn’t eat a lot of dog food, yet he stays pretty portly.  He does, however, love two things: pepperoni and Slim Jims.  This is a video showing how he loves his Slim Jims.  In the video, I ask him to speak, lay down, roll over, dance, and finally, catch.  His dance (basically standing up on his hind legs) is not as impressive in this video as sometimes.  And unfortunately, he doesn’t catch the treat this time, but he comes close.  I just love the way he moves and the enthusiasm in his eyes.  I hope you enjoy this video.  Oliver makes an appearance, too.

Simon the Beagle Beggar

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Thanks for watching.

 

Bowler Hat in Oils

You may remember an acrylic painting I did early this year of my book character Russ, who is wearing a bowler hat in his portrait.  This character has become near and dear to my heart as I’ve written his story, and while browsing at a large antique gallery shortly after finishing Russ’ portrait, I found an antique bowler hat that looks so much like his hat that I could not leave it in the store.  So I ended up buying it.  It’s a beautiful old beater of a hat and has a lot of character.

Isn’t it charming?

For the classes I’ve been taking in oil painting, the next step was to set up our own still life with any items we wanted.  As you can see by the dates of the previous class assignments, it’s been a while since I’ve been able to paint.  Feeling somewhat out of my comfort zone, I went with a single item for the still life, and what better than my character-inspired bowler hat?  After toying with different angles and backdrops and lighting, this is what I settled on.

And finally, here is the painting I did.  It was difficult and I am not thrilled with it.  The hat brim gave me a lot of trouble and is still not right.  Oh well, that’s why it’s a practice piece.  The colors were also a tricky thing, but all in all, it isn’t too far off of what this composition looked like in real life.  This took about four hours.

Bowler Hat

-8×10 inches on stretched canvas

-Painted in Oils using only the following colors, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson, Indian Yellow and White.  My teacher encourages us to stick with these colors to get a feel for how helpful some knowledge on color mixing can be.  For this assignment, he did say we could add another color if we wanted to, though I didn’t feel ready for that.  Yeah, I’m still a chicken when it comes to painting.

Thank you for looking.

 

Cool Cat

For Mother’s Day, I made my mom a sculpture of a cat, because she loves cats just like I do.  Since I had a lot of fun and a good reaction from the wire horse, I made this cat from wire, as well.  It’s not quite as big as the horse however.  I can’t say how much wire I used this time, because I bought a half mile spool of fencing wire to save money.  All I can say is that it took a decent chunk, but there’s plenty of wire left for more sculptures.

Cool Cat

-Made entirely with 17 gauge electric fencing wire and also some finer craft wire for the whiskers, ears, nose, and feet

-7 & 1/2 inches tall x 7 inches long x 2 inches wide

I have been playing with PhotoShop lately and liked the drama of this so I wanted to share.

Here is what this cat actually looks like.

For reference, you can see this sculpture, while somewhat taller, is basically kitten sized.

Thanks for looking.

 

Happy Mother’s Day

To all the moms out there, especially my own, I hope you have a most wonderful Mother’s Day.  Love you very much, Mom.

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Look Who’s Looking at You

These kittens are opening their eyes bit by bit.  Those near-sighted-looking, soft blue eyes are so gentle and adorable.  These little ones are doing great and I’m sure they are enjoying seeing the world for the first time.

All three photos above, by the way, are of the same kitten.  Aren’t his markings amazing?  He looks sort of like an ocelot or a leopard.

Of course, not everyone develops at the same rate, and the most of these little ones are still working at getting those eyes open.  This little guy below has such a sweet crooning cry.  He always sounds like he’s lost his voice, and his meows are soft and kind of hoarse.

Funny how the kitten above and this orange one below have almost the exact same pose.

Every litter, it seems, has it’s endearing little ugly duckling.  I believe this is the one.  Trust me, he’s much cuter these past two days as his eyes are now fully open.  He’s a charming little guy with the softest little voice.

Those tiny feet, a total size of about a pea, are so delicate and pink.  Can you tell I’m crazy about these little ones?

And just in case you want to see more of these little ones, here’s a more recent video I took.  Notice how very small and weak they still are…this poor orange tabby has quite a time, as you’ll see.  The moms always guide the little ones back to safety though.  Yes, the moms are sharing their little cozy box and their little cozy family very well.  It’s amazing.  Don’t worry, the all gray one (twitching throughout the video) is just fine.  Dreaming, probably.   Enjoy.

Roly-Poly Kittens

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Cat Scratches…Done, I Think

I went over this a little more last night, and now it feels pretty much done.  I signed it, and that’s usually my artist’s brain’s way of saying “stop, that’s enough, now”.  You’ll see I’ve added a hint of color to Oliver.  I debated whether or not to add color, but I was in a gutsy sort of mood last night, and I just went for it.  I used Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens (the color set, with a brush tip) for the color of the eyes and the nose.

What a scare I had!  I added the colors, feeling carefree and impulsive, and just like that, I had this wild, crazy moment of panic.  I surely had wrecked this piece!  When I added the green for the eyes, suddenly, they were very, very dark, and this portrait, as a whole, seemed to fall flat just like that.  I’ve heard a great artist friend of mine say many times that a portrait, essentially, is all about the eyes.  If the eyes aren’t right, nothing can really save the portrait.  …So you can imagine the wild scramble of my thoughts when I thought I had ruined Oliver’s clear, stark eyes.  I took a deep breath, picked up my X-Acto knife again, and started to pluck away at the eyes again.  Little by little, they lightened, gentled, and became better.  I kept working at this until I felt happy with it again.  Whew, what a relief!

So here is what I believe to be the finished portrait of my Oliver.  It was a lot of fun.  I learned a lot, and it made for a nice change of scenery in my art world.  Up next, I think I’ll be drawing a dachshund in ink.

Oliver

-8×10 inches in size

-Ampersand Scratchboard

-X-Acto Knife and Scratch-Art Knife, with the addition of Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pens (brush size) in the colors of May Green and Crome Green Opaque for the eyes, and the colors of Terracotta and Indian Red for the nose.

Thank you for looking, for the comments, and for following along on this art journey.  I hope you’ll join me for the next one.

 

Say Aww

Being a cat-lover, I can’t resist sharing an update on these new little kittens.  There are seven of them, two from one cat, and five from the other.  If you can believe it, the moms are sharing the same small box, and sharing their kittens, and being a perfect team for raising their babies.  It’s really special, this bond between these cats and their families.  I wanted to share this video of the little ones.  If you turn your volume up, you’ll hear both moms purring.  I just love how cats purr.  Aren’t these little ones precious?

Kittens

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Thanks for looking.

 

More Spring

This post will be a bit of an update from the post I made some time ago about spring.  The crab apple tree has been blossoming beautifully as always.  I’ve been struggling to get good photos though, as it’s been a windy spring and everything looks blurred in photos.  I have a few decent shots to share though.  Aren’t those pinks stunning?

And more good news…my round-bellied mom-to-be cats are becoming moms.  Yesterday and today we’ve gotten kittens.  They are so precious.

I know I shouldn’t be handling them so soon, but these were born under the gas grill on the deck (it’s the mom’s first time…she must not have planned ahead ).  I had to move them to a safe place.  They are little darlings.  There are at least six of them so far.

Thanks for looking.