A Week Ago

A week ago tonight I was hiding out in the downstairs closet of my house after getting a text message from my daughter telling me to "Get in the closet, NOW!" Whew! So, the power company has been here to lift the line so hopefully I can get the second floor gutter (which is hanging half way off) fixed soon. A break in this heat would be nice as well. It's supposed to be around 105 tomorrow with a heat index of 110. Oh, c'mon. What's a few more degrees at this point?! I had been working on transfers before the storm. I made several initial attempts. I started out with my own laser copied prints. Made quite a mess and mess of the paper. I like to make messes, remember? Everyone always swears by Golden products but I am not always able to find them when I want them so in this case I used another matte gel medium. Ok. So, I have gleaned about 3 different ways of doing this transfer and I tried two out of the three. It takes patience and work and the willingness to mess up what you think was ok to begin with and end up with a piece of torn, abused paper, but you really want to see if you can do this so you forge ahead. Actually, I did this backwards. The above photos were the second attempt. The first attempt were these which came out ok. It was the next ones that weren't that ok. And then a couple of days later I tried again. Again, I used a strip of my own work that had been laser printed and transferred it onto an index card that I had been "playing on" with sprayed inks. The result on the left side of the paper is the transferred image, or what I was left with after much gentle rubbing and spraying with water. Today's ICAD starts out like this: And ends up like this: Here's a close up. I would like to be brave and try a a transfer on canvas. Maybe it will hold up better, although I was amazed at how the larger index cards held up. Maybe I will try this weekend. I will keep you posted. I hope you are well. Thanks for stopping by.

Heat. Heat. Go Away!

I came home today to see that one of the lines has been lifted. I do not know how long the power was out but my house tells me a pretty long time. It did reach 105 again today so I am not going to sit here for very long. And what's up with the lone jogger on a day like today? I mean I'm all for exercise and I'm not afraid to sweat but, really! Glutton for punishment? Heat stroke? He makes me hotter just seeing him run in this swelter. Here is today's ICAD which looks like the sibling of the one(I think) the day before yesterday. I seriously cannot remember what day it was because my brain is fried. I cannot wait for this heat to go somewhere else. Anyway, here it is.

If You're Waiting.........

I want to say thank you to all for your concern, kindness and comments when the big storm came through. That's one of the really neat things about being part of a blogging community. You make friends and lend an ear or support and that means a good deal. Here is today's ICAD. Wishing everyone a safe Fourth. Thanks for visiting.

A Big Wind Event

This might explain what happened late in the evening of my last post. I forgot to mention the winds were said to have been 117mph. I am amazed at how many birds I am seeing lately. Maybe they've always been there but I seem to be more aware of them. Maybe that's what prompted me to put them here. The storm was fast and furious. I found myself in the downstairs closet with my old dog Buddy. Thank goodness for old dogs and old dogs named Buddy. WE were a comfort for each other in the darkness of the closet, him drooling and panting, me hugging and petting him, me hoping he would not pee with fear on my foot. I fared better than many. Even though I had some neighbors trees and lines come down in my back yard and a second floor gutter left hanging halfway off, I woke to power the next morning. Storms were predicted the following night as well, but they turned out to be "uneventful." I expect some time this week the power company will be around to lift trees and lines up from the back yard. While scary and a nuisance and inconvenient, it always could be worse. I haven't lost my home to a fire and I am not homeless. I am blessed and I am grateful. Thanks for popping in. I hope you are well.

10:15pm

I got in the van to come home from work today and 107 appeared on the thermostat. After a few minutes 109 appeared. I felt very grateful I was not one of the cars pulled off on the side of the road. I felt very grateful to come home to coolness. Today's ICAD makes me feel cool. Thanks for stopping in. I hope you are staying cool.

A Wind Event

On Monday we had here what the meteorologist called a "wind event." Ha ha ha ha. I thought that was pretty funny actually to hear that after the fact. It caused hundreds of thousands of people to be without power for several days. Hence, my absence here. It's not really what I wanted to do at the time, but I could rationalize it as to no better time than having a "wind event." I bought a generator. You need gas to power a generator. You need to find a gas station that has power to sell you gas for your generator so you have power and you have to do all this by 10pm at night because you are hungry and very tired and cranky by that hour. You need to go to the studio and create but you can't do that for several days. I suppose I will thank my self later if, in the midst of a winter wind event, I might sit by a lamp with a hot cup of tea, and some index cards, and feel grateful. I played catch up with the ICAD challenge. Here they are for the last four days. I managed to do these IN THE VAN before work. I still showed up in the midst of a wind event. ha ha ha ha. And my mail box has been very happy lately as I've gotten some mail art and postcard from Kate in Russia. Thank you, Kate. Love the card and not just because you liked the card. And thank you to Dori in California and Debbie in the United Kingdom. Your work is awesome! How sweet is that! Thanks for stopping by.