Winter Morning Walk

Woke up this morning to some snowy dusting around the airpark. I went for a morning walk with Miki, our German Shepherd, and took these photos during our walk. The top photo is of a friend's horses and barn at the end of our little airpark. I just loved the snow on the fence, and the moody feel of the image.

The second image is of an house that we originally looked at to buy. I certainly love our house, and wouldn't trade it for this one, but the snow does look nice on top of the adobe fence and archway into the front yard of this house.

The third image is one that I took as Miki and I walked along side the runway looking north. It, too, is just such a moody image I just loved it on this winter morning. It's kind of rare to see this sort of moody weather here. We mainly have sunshine and blue skies, so an occasional overcast day is a nice change-up.

Hope you all enjoy your day, whatever the weather is in your neck of the woods !

Beautiful Sunrise!

Isn't this a beautiful sunrise? We went camping at City of Rocks State Park in southwestern New Mexico (near Deming) and this was what we woke up to Saturday morning. Jeff let Miki out and then poked his head back in the rig to tell me to raise the shade and check out the sunrise. I did, and then quickly threw on some clothes, grabbed my camera and what a beautiful sunrise we shared! I don't know what the plant in the foreground is, but it's really not that tall - I just knelt down on the ground to get it in the sky.

What a great weekend we had, too! City of Rocks is a natural formation of some pretty large monoliths that just rose up out of the ground in the middle of no where! It's rather amazing - apparently, there are only 5 or so similar formations throughout the world. It was cool, in that the state park campground has the camping sites set in and among the formations, so you've got some really private sites that are somewhat surrounded by some of the formations. Our site also had a couple of trees growing there, so we sort of had the best of both worlds. And, you could climb and hike up into the rock formations up on a rise. It wasn't so huge that you were afraid of getting lost among the rocks, but it certainly was cool!

Ah, tomorrow's back to work for me! This week, I'm working 4 days (instead of the usual 3) due to some meetings that I sort of need to attend. Next week, tho, I'll only be working 2 days, so that will even things out!

Enjoy your week!

Happy Fall!

Isn't fall great? We went camping last weekend, and the trees were starting to turn the beautiful fall colors. Some folks from back in the Midwest were thinking that I wouldn't get to see any fall colors when we moved to New Mexico. Ah, but this is the beauty of living in the high desert - we actually get all 4 seasons. The seasons just aren't as extreme as they might be in the Midwest (harsh winters) or southern New Mexico and Arizona (blistering hot summers).

Fall is one of my favorite times of the year. It sort of reminds me of beginnings - sounds odd, doesn't it? Still, I think of going back to school when I was a kid, and how excited I was about that. I used to love having new kids in my class, new teachers, even new books! I wasn't a particularly nerdy kid (at least I wasn't in my memory!), but I did enjoy school. That's why fall means beginnings of a sort to me.

Fall also gets me feeling energized. That's quite an accomplishment today, since I'm suffering from a slight cold, but I am energized about getting out into my studio and doing some work on some collage items. I've been working on getting a photo book put together from our vacation in September, but today, I think I'll focus on collage. I finished the vacation photo book yesterday, and altho I have another one waiting (based on our recent trips to the VLA and the Albuquerque Hot Air Balloon Fiesta), I think I'll take a break from photo work today.

Enjoy your day - go out and enjoy the fall, whatever it's like in your neck of the woods! Nadine

I'm back!

Finally!! I'm settled in enough to begin to get back into my blog. It's been quite an eventful few months - we are now moved and settled in our new home in New Mexico. it was quite an adventure, but well worth it. I'm now sitting in my wonderful studio/office, looking out at South Mountain in the San Pedro Mountains - the smaller, narrow photo is what it looked like this morning as the sun came up and the clouds were still hanging around from a rainstorm we had last night. The top photo was of the sky this morning just as the sun was rising - at about 6am or so! Isn't it fabulous? I feel so grateful and happy to be here! Life is truly good!

This past weekend, we went exploring in the Jemez Mountains just to the northwest of us, and on Saturday, we took in the New Mexico Indian Art Market. The artwork was just beautiful, and it was very interesting to see the differences between the art created by the various Native American tribes. I found I repeatedly was drawn to the art created by the Navajo artists. Perhaps I'll find a piece in the future to have a place in our home!

More later! Enjoy the day! Nadine

Mountains of Boxes !

The move date is drawing closer and closer! A week from yesterday we will be heading out in our little caravan to our new home in New Mexico! And, when I look around almost anywhere in the house and garage right now, all I see are mountains of boxes and other things we've got loaded with our stuff! So, what could be a better photo to reflect our mini mountains than a picture of one of my favorite mountain areas, Mount St Helens in Washington state! This image was taken on a backroad sort of behind the mountain. We were attempting to find a back way to get to the crater, and sort of stumbled acrosss this wonderfully beautiful lovely scene! The backroad we were on quickly turned into a very rough dirt road and we weren't able to continue on it in our little RV, but it was worth the detour just to see this area and capture this image.

In terms of our moving, I think we're doing really well. I can hardly believe it, but we really seem to be under control, so that we're not having to make ourselves crazy with last minute packing! We were even able to stop and see a movie yesterday - Angels & Demons with Tom Hanks. Good movie - however, I'm glad I hadn't read the book first. I think it might have ruined the movie for me, knowing the ending!

Enjoy your day!

Sunflower

I'm having a tough time getting to sleep tonight, so I thought I'd play around with filters in PhotoShop. Here's a sunflower image that I took in the Southwest a couple of years ago. I applied a colored pencil filter. I think it looks rather abstract, but still like the sunflower that it is. I guess it sort of fits my mood at the moment. I think the reality of how quickly our move is coming up is sticking with me tonight. I'm excited and looking forward to it, but the "it" is rather abstract. I know what the basics of our life will be, but there's so much that's unknown, and abstract when I try to imagine some details. I know, I know, I get to make those up and create a future, but, right now, my imagination about it isn't clicking and I'm feeling a bit anxious about all the unknowns and uncertainties. This will pass, I know, and I'll embrace all the unknowns and just let the creativity flow. I just need to keep the faith, and embrace whatever is next! Enjoy!

Zelda

Good morning! I just visited my friend and fellow artist's blog - penandpaints.blogspot.com - and was inspired by her background for her Alphabetica piece to use the photo I took of my finished Alphabetica piece & use that for today's entry! Our group actually first did the Alphabetica theme a year or so ago, which is why my piece is already done while she was still working on hers.

Given that my last name begins with a Z, it was seredipity when I blindly chose the letter Z from among several for my inspiration letter. It took me a while to land on the theme of the piece. I remembered the old sort of song that we used to sing when I was a kid that involved our ABC's - A, my name is Alice, and I come from Alabama with a basket full of Apples, etc.. I decided to do a variation of that for Zelda. My little Zelda (and old photo that I came across some time ago, and scanned so I could use her over and over - I love her spitir!)came from Zuni (a pueblo in New Mexico) and is depicted in the piece by a torn piece of map with Zuni circled on it. She has a suitcase instead of a basket and it has zucchini in it (the transparency of the photo allows the definition of the word zucchini to show thru right under her suitcase!), along with some zinnias ( a fabulous flower beginning with a Z). She also has brought a zebra with her!

The background of the piece was various torn pages of an old dictionary at the Z page, a telephone book (also a Z page) and some zip codes! I did a wash of a sort of sienna color over the background, and then added the fun items. I also included some fun tags, crests and even a stylized postage stamp all with the Z theme! I did end up using a handmade paper strip, so that Zelda's transparency would show her off in a good fashion.

Thanks to Marge for reminding me of this fun piece! Enjoy!