A Beautiful Way to Spend a Sunday

Yesterday I went to a wonderful art gallery to watch artist Tom Nachreiner demonstrate his plein air oil painting techniques. If you look closely, the canvas he is painting on is

upside down.

Above is the photograph he is painting from. Tom says that starting the background of his paintings upside down allows him to not get bogged down with the details of the photograph and concentrate only on the basic shapes.

Here is his painting (still a work in progress) shown right side up.

Part of the art gallery is located in the woods, which creates a beautiful natural backdrop for some of the sculptures.

White Wednesday

Decided to join in on Faded Charm's White Wednesday fun today. You can see all the other White Wednesday participants by clicking here.

Today on Crescendoh.com, Becky Shander has her sweet Art Saves story up and she featured my Paper Roses Tutorial from Joli Paquet. Thanks Becky!!!

Flowers, Flowers, Everywhere!

We've received such beautiful flowers at the house since my DH came home from the hospital. The arrangement shown above is one example - a huge basket filled with exotic flowers in a gorgeous rich color palette. It's so wonderful to be surrounded by all the beauty of nature when you are recuperating. Thanks to all for your wonderful gifts of love and caring.

Garden Arbor

This collage shows some of the beautiful varieties of Clematis growing up and over the arbor constructed just for them.

At the other end of the arbor was this serene sitting area lined with mosaic benches created by different artists.

She Shoots...She Scores!

I can't believe I was able to get these pics!  So excited to actually see the tiny blue robin eggs in mama's nest!  We've never had a bird nest located in a place low enough to actually get a photo of the inside of it. This one is still situated just out of eye-view (even if you stand on tippy-toes) but not out of the eye of the camera held at arms length above my head. I took a chance that I was aiming in the right direction and after a few failed attempts, I finally got it right!
I always wait until mama leaves the nest to take a break (or look for food) before I take any pictures because I hate to disturb her motherly duties of egg hatching. 

Here Today - Gone Tomorrow

My three sweet baby birds have flown the coop and left the nest. Early last evening I snapped this photo of them all squeezed together in their nest. Mama was still watching from a safe distance away. And this morning none of them were to be found. They are too big now scrunch down inside the nest, so there was no chance that they were sleeping. And Mama was no longer standing watch over them either. It was time for them to go - to fly - out on their own to make a life for themselves. I will miss checking in on them, but I'm so pleased that they survived their fragile time in the nest.

The photo below (courtesy of Wikipedia) shows what these little chicks looked like outside of the nest. I was not fortunate enough to get a shot like this one.

You can learn more about the American Robin by clicking here.