Mountain Weekend and More Journal Pages

Things were looking up on Thursday.  Many phone calls to insurance companies, appraisers, body shops, and finally a rental car company.  Here is my temporary new ride, a Dodge Caliper.  The insurance company for the driver that struck me is paying for it.

Since we had planned to take the Subaru to our mountain place this weekend, we took the rental instead.  Charlie was getting ready to load up the phlox I purchased at Lowe's, even though the frost-free date up there is not for a few more weeks.

We had such gorgeous, sunny weather and enjoyed being outdoors.  The seasons are a couple weeks behind us up there in the mountains, so I got to enjoy all the early spring flowers all over again.  This shot is not from a botanical garden...it is the entrance to McDonald's!

When we drove up our driveway, I was delighted to see the hillside of blooming daffodils!  I planted these last fall after Ricky and Gary cleared the scraggly trees  and blackberry brambles off our hill above the pond.

I loved seeing all the trees in bloom.  This was a nice display of redbud trees, nicely popping against the dark green pines.

I did a little bit of "homework" for my Artistic Journaling class while I sat outside enjoying the warm weather.   The second lesson involved painting backgrounds with watercolors or acrylics, then adding words or images.  This one is painted with watercolors in the fresh spring greens I saw all around me.

The next one is also watercolor.  While I was outside painting, our neighbors drove up with a cute little three-year old boy named Joey who was visiting.  He wanted to paint, too, so I set him up with his own  paper and a brush.  All of a sudden he added some of his rust-colored paint to my blue and green background.  It made a wonderful rose!

The previous pages are in my watercolor field book.  The next two are in my Moleskine sketchbook, and I painted the backgrounds at home with acrylic paints.  Then I used felt-tip pens to add the artwork.  I thought it was significant that I had my little traffic accident on the way home from my shopping trip to buy the journal!

For the next one, I looked at the blobs of color and was inspired to make this big-lipped fish!

And finally, this page is not based on a lesson from the Jodi Ohl workshop.  I just wanted to remember the visit from at least twenty goldfinches, who all descended on the feeder at once.  They were so pretty, shining like golden coins in the bright sun.

I did hang my hummingbird feeders at home and at the cabin and was rewarded with sightings at both locations.  I love it when they return after their winter in Mexico or wherever they migrate to stay warm.