Mereta, Texas and a Cardboard Box

It appears that I have abandoned this blog in favor of Path to Writing, but alas, that is not the case. Seems that  now I am spending more time for my class with writer Sandra Dorr.  And it also occurs to me that I have not shared a picture that my talented brother and commercial artist Charles H. McCarroll put together some years ago of the farm house where we spent our formative childhood years in Mereta, Texas, dry farm land in Central Texas.

Here is his rendition of our farm in mixed media:

... this is my rendition of the farm house in watercolor (yes, it was a pink house)

I wrote about a corrugated refrigerator box where I made-believe when I was five years old.  It can be read here if you are interested, which is a stretch of the imagination, even for me.

Brush & Palette Club

Yesterday was the second demonstration of the year for the Brush & Palette Club in our town. Dani Tupper showed her techniques of applying watercolor paints diluted with water, using spray jars filled with the watered paints. She introduced, new to me, the idea of using spray webbing over her paper.  She said one could also use the Halloween type webbing available in bags at hobby stores around that season, and that it would give the same effect.  She would pull apart that type webbing and cover the paper with the wispy material prior to applying the paints. 

Tupper applied spray webbing (available online) to the 140 lb. Arches watercolor paper, securing it onto her paper with tacks.  Then over the webbing she sprayed on her colors, allowing them to dry. The webbing was then pulled off the paper, and various pools of color emerged with textures giving differing effects.  

You can access Dani here at her home website and see some of her beautiful works.

Below is one of her paintings in process.

Linking with Fiber Arts Friday and Freshly Finished Fridays, I have made several crochet book covers for writing journals.  The inside of this one uses Mardi Gras material in like colors of purples and greens and blues. The flap is convenient for holding my mechanical pencil.

The journal cover is an idea with some directions given on Elizabeth's blog, and she even has one featured on Google images.  I tried to channel her crochet talent, but did not end up with one nearly as pretty as hers using granny squares shown here.

I leave you with lemon yellows and pictures of a pie and lemon water from organic lemons shipped from a Florida backyard directly to friend Norma, who shared some with me.  When one is given lemons, after all, one MUST make a pie.  This one I made just before Brush & Palette Club, and it haunted me throughout the demonstration.  It had to be tasted (after dinner of pot stickers, I must say it was pretty palatable).

Ending the Day in Arizona

This evening I am writing from Tempe, in a rather chilly hotel room.  I can't seem to get the temperature just right, as it seems either too hot or too cold.   The regulator is set to 74 degrees but it seems confused.  So the fan is blowing away.  It will make a nice white noise for sleeping.

The Scrabble tournament is finished and sweet friend Linda came in first place in our division.  I fared rather poorly while having a strenuous time of it.  I'll show you a picture of one of my games after its completion.  The fun part of it was my opponent, Erik, made a most excellent find when he put down the word " birdcage" and then my next move after that was "bird" because it looked symbiotic.  Not many points, however. 

Erik won the game.

After the tourney ended this afternoon, Linda and I took a metro bus northwards and saw the Phoenix Botanical Gardens.  It was beautiful weather for viewing cactus.

Chihuly glass purchased for their gardens on permanent display.

We had a nice lunch at Gertrude's.  Home tomorrow.