Finished!

Even though I only had a few more hours of work on the Hatchling since the last time I posted before I could call him finished, it still took me nearly an entire month to put in those few hours. (It is the end of our fiscal year at my day job and coping with the year-end details sucked up a lot of my energy.) BUT, here he is at last.


And from the other side.


I finished him off with lots of layers of different colors of acrylic paint. What really made his color come to life was the final glazes of Luminarte's pure pigment powders. You have to be careful with those as a little goes a long way, but I think I got it right this time. You can see the faint wash of Sun Gold on his face in this close up. It's a cool effect.


I owe a huge thank you to Sprite for teaching me her technique for creating skin textures. These show up best in this photo on his hips, thighs, and tail. I need a little more practice with this method, as I tend to squish one side while working on the other, but I'll get it eventually. (If you like baby dragons, or fantasy sculpts in general, you have to check out her blog!)


Sprite also gave me the idea to line the inside of his shell with the illusion of crystals. I don't know how she did hers, but I created mine out of several sizes and colors of shard glass glitter, micromarbles, fine glitter, and thin washes of the luminarte glazes again. I love the way the silver shards catch and reflect the light.


I have always loved dragons - I definitely see more of them in my future!

Photo of the Week - Fresh Fruit

I love Farmer's Markets!

Success at last!

My faithful Google has done it again. After several false starts, missteps, and the complete loss of all my gadgets, I finally found the customizable 3-column template of my dreams to play with! I case anybody else wants to play, there are an assortment of Blogger-Beta-compatible templates here. Mine is the "minima white".

As you can see I still have some tweaking to do, but from now on it will be fun rather than frustrating. Thanks for all the good luck wishes - you have no idea how much I appreciate your company here online.

Updating

I hope you will excuse the random changes in the appearance of my blog. I am attempting to coach myself through some HTML exercises and make this blog a little more personalized. It isn't hard, but the learning is taking place in the midst of other "real life" tasks, and it may be a while before I am satisfied with what I am able to accomplish.

My main goal at the moment is to change this "Minima Stretch" template into a 3-column layout. I *thought* I had found the solution, but I haven't been able to make it work yet. ...grumblegrumble...

Anybody care to wish me luck, LOL?!

Photo of the Week: TWINS!

While twin calves are not common, they are not particularly rare either. However, twin heifers only come along once in a blue moon. These two little darlings were born early early Sunday morning, and Jake is accepting them as a Father's Day gift from the universe, LOL.


As you can see, getting born and having your first meal is exhausting, so they were not in the mood for a portrait shoot.

On the way back to the house, I stopped to pull a weed from my tomato beds and lo! and behold, we have tiny green tomatoes on the vines already. I always plant too many tomatoes, but I can't seem to help myself. They are SO good!


And oh, the promise of good things to come!


Sunday was also Alice's 18th birthday, and she requested a cheesecake for dessert. I tried out a new recipe for a Raspberry White Chocolate Truffle version, which turned out very well, but it is very rich. Trust me, a little goes a very long way!

The photo didn't turn out as well as I'd hoped, so I guess food photography has its tricks like any other subject. Time to do some googling.

A Dairy Tale

I am busy gardening this week. My art time has been taken up with finishing projects and beginning work on a challenge piece that I can't share until it's over, so let me tell you a little story instead. It's a sad story, a true tale of woe.

I took my camera out one lovely evening to snap some photos of my roses. (I found this blackberry vine growing up through the canes of my old rambler rose. It has to go, but in the meantime, don't the 2 look pretty blooming together?)


As I wandered around the yard, I gradually came to notice a calf in the weaned field making an awful lot of noise. She was actually following me up and down the fenceline, mooing her little head off. This little calf has just been moved out of the calf barn and taken off milk, and she is NOT happy about it. Not happy at all. She wants some milk, and she wants it NOW darn it!

I wasn't paying much attention to her, but she continued to moo. I think a flock of birds caught her attention here...


Please believe me, she is not starving! There is plenty of food available in her new part of the barn, and she has free access to pasture. And yet she is suffering badly. Just ask her, LOL.

She has been mooing nonstop now for 4 days, and as of this morning, though she has lost her voice. she keeps trying to convince somebody to bring her some milk. It is the tiniest bit pitiful to hear them try to moo when they have no voice left, and yet I can't help but laugh and be grateful that the racket has finally quieted down.

Don't you feel sorry for her?

Photo of the Week - Payback Time

I take a lot of teasing from my family for living in a place where it rains so much and so often, and yes, I have done my share of complaining about the rain too, BUT... this is the time of year when we are reminded why we love it here so much. Trust me, Oregon in June is about as beautiful as it gets. Everywhere I look, something is blooming, or ripening, or being harvested in abundance.



These Royal Anne cherries are about as colorful as they are going to get, but they are a little firm yet. By next week I will be hustling to pick as many as I can before the birds get them all.


If you have ever had a real Oregon strawberry, you would turn up your nose at the giant rocks disguised as berries being sold in the supermarket. These beauties will soon become berries worth holding out for! They only last for a few weeks, so we indulge while they are here. Yumm!