A Blustery Hello to Ya ! I say that because here, it is an extremely blustery day.
Two weeks ago we had a sleet storm. It put down several inches of ice. Because it was extremely cold at the time, there was no freezing rain included, so it didn't coat and pull down all the tree limbs, which was a good thing. Not too much damage to trees or other property. We somehow dodged the worst possibilities.
Please note: I am NOT complaining about that! 😂
(view from my front porch)
Thing was, because of days of extreme cold (for our area) even though the sun came out during the next few days, if anything melted at all (and believe me, not much did) then that night it would refreeze harder and more solid than before.
Then last week we got 5 or 6 inches of dry, powdery light snow on top of it. It was beautiful.... as we like to say, but that meant now the ice had a nice cover so it still stayed around. The sun came out a few days this past week and got rid of a lot of the snow, but not all of it and not the ice that still lurked beneath it.
(view while it was snowing from my kitchen window into my back yard)
The snow part did make some things look pretty fun.
(the sunny morning after, flower pots on my back porch)
The best and most important thing about both storms was, we did not lose power in my area. I knew if we kept power, everything else, no matter what it was, would work out just fine.
A few days before the first ice storm, our city had contractors going all around making sure tree limbs were cut back from the power lines. They did a fantastic job. This photo is out my back window where I think my nearly 90 year old Uncle kidnapped one of their crews around lunch time. I haven't asked him, but I just feel certain he and my Aunt must have talked them into cutting a few little limbs here or there that were hanging over their circle drive. LOL.... that is my guess as behind my house was not part of the public way. I'd really like to hear that story. Maybe one day I will.
I'm sure you realized I could not post without sharing a little more of my wonky art. I made this piece and like always, I had no idea what I was going to do when I started. Believe me when I tell you that stopping when it got to this point was not my intent as I thought I would put much more it, but somehow, it got here and my eyes said STOP! .... and I did. Of course photos never really present them like they look to my real eyes, but here I am again, showing this and saying that. I somehow liked how it seemed a piece of art or of just some random pieces were floating around in the blue.
Yes... this is the same piece, only photographed on a white background instead of black. I wasn't sure which one displayed it the best. What do you think? Even if you don't care for the art itself, which background is best?
I usually like the black background, but on these darker edged pieces (one more piece as an example at the bottom) I wasn't sure if they did better on white.
Changing up, another little collage in my tiny collage book I've been sharing.
In keeping with the situation, this features a snowman as you can see. I actually made most of this piece one night and the center had another piece of the painted papers I make, only it had accidentally been torn into a piece that looked somewhat like a flying bird. I had that in the center, but the next day I knew it simply wasn't sufficient, so that night I went through some of the bits I had cut out of some of those books I've told you I've been thrifting, not quite knowing what I was looking for. When I came across this fun guy though, I knew he belonged here and Vwa-LA... it was finished!
After that worked out so well, I shuffled back a few pages in my tablet to a piece I had started one night some time before where the pieces I started with had some interesting patterns on them, but where they didn't want to come together after I glued part of them in. It was late the night I started it and since it didn't inspire me further, I left it thinking one day something would make me come back to it and figure it out.
So after the snowman had worked out to my liking, I went back to shuffling through bits of books I had cut out, having no idea what I was looking for. After a while, this lightbulb with a moth already on it popped out and I thought.... hmmmm that might be a go! The bottom of it was flat as that was where the image ended in the book, but that green strip was already there from my previous attempt and they seemed to be a perfect match in shape and location, so ON went the light bulb. Then I cut out another moth from some other book and glued it at the top left. Yes... yes... now it was done.
It's wonky and I now liked it in a weird type of way.
This crazy thing is one I made as I decided to pick a piece from the "unfinished" pile where I have vowed (but not with a timeline) to make something out of them, no matter how they started. I was in a mindset that I should do some dark moody pieces and that these "unfinished" miscreants could be the base for them. As you have seen, I'm all about happy, happy and dark doesn't really have much of a place in my creations, but I needed to start testing it out and playing with it as a challenge to see what I could come up with.
For some reason this kind of makes me laugh. What a mess!.. .but still there is a little something I enjoy looking at with all the colors and pieces in the background, behind the hideous black stuff.
Maybe I should stick a valentine heart on it somewhere just for irony.
It's also the second example of photographing on a white or black background to see which one displays it best. I think you get a much better idea of these art pieces as a whole when you click on them once and make them pop forward.
