Tag: video

Butterfly in Waiting

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle is one of my all time favorites. Story is good, but for me, the illustrations make it!

We have a wild and wonderful gardener in our family, Am, who got several of us started on milkweed plants. As a kid, we had them in the midwest, but they were very different than the ones which are the dietary staple of the monarch butterfly. She hands out plants to whoever wants them!

This seems to be my butterfly nursery. This is only one of many fat caterpillars – hopefully they are forming cocoons and not getting snatched up by the local wildlife. Sad if they are, but hopefully not, but such is the cycle of life.

Olde Berlin

I look at YouTube in the morning after reading the news. The problem is that it is an addicting site. I look at it for art techniques, sewing information, photography, and when it pops up, history. I do enjoy history, modern history probably more than ancient.

When you come across films from different time eras and different places, there is a sense of reality that photos and stories cannot elicit. Here we have one from Berlin, Germany, during what is obviously the 1920s, probably before the depression set in. People are well-dressed (everyone looks well-dressed compared to today’s sloppy standards) – and, it seems, comfortably well off.

Wealthy, middle class.  Life in the better parts of the city.

And then . . . enter the world of Christopher Isherwood may have frequented.

Vacation Videos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium

Some thoughts on videos and blogging . . . 

Technology has caught up with me!  I decided to try some videos at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, just because I could.  I used my phone and digital camera.  In some ways I really appreciate the video as a format, but it also takes up a lot of space.  Videos are like the home movies of old – rather tedious if seen too often.  Still, it is the ability to really show people what something looks like is the beauty of a video – but it is really never the same as being there.  The sounds and smells and other environmental elements are missing (even though there are sounds, they aren’t the ones you might like to hear!).  I am not so sure I like the usage of videos, but what the hey – give it a try!

A short trip . . . 

Last Sunday we headed up the coast to Monterey, California.  Because of a slab leak, our funds for travel were rather depleted by that adventure.  Nonetheless, it is so important to get away from everything familiar, to see new worlds or revisit old ones.  We chose Monterey – it’s close, we like it, and there are many things to see and do.  We stayed at a B&B in an area that allowed us to walk nearly everywhere.  One is the Monterey Bay Aquarium,  It sits right out on the Monterey Bay, with a wonderful viewing deck.  Sunday night we walked down to Cannery Row, to look around, to shake out our legs, and get a lay of the land after being in a car for several hours.

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The Aquarium houses fish, birds, and otters!  Many of the birds and animals have been rescued after being injured.  These otters are just too cute for words – and you could easily watch their antics for hours.

The Aquarium is not only a living museum, but a resource for biologists and other professionals in the area of science.  Animals and birds are rescued and rehabilitated.  Research is conducted in many areas.  Fish are not just in big tanks, but also experienced first hand.  Here is a “petting tank” where you can touch the silky skin of a manta ray.  (Sorry if this video makes you motion sick!)

There are similar displays throughout the Aquarium.  Tanks contain sea urchins, anemones, kelp, fish and other things.  Docents know their subject and can answer a number of questions.  To me, this is one of the best ways to experience the Aquarium – contact, doing, playing.

There are individual displays of different sea life.  One room is dedicated to jelly fish.  I am sure that what they have on display is a tiny bit of all the jellies that live throughout the world, but being able to see them, large and small, swimming and moving, is entirely different in experience than seeing a still photo.

Smaller jellyfish, too.

Besides jellyfish, the kelp beds are well-represented.  There is an enormous aquarium in the center of the building, about 3 stories high.  Kelp is rooted at the bottom, and within the kelp forest swim fish, from bottom feeders to those who use the kelp as a means of hiding from predators.  Here, some rock fish (I think) are hanging out.

So many things to see and do at the Monterey Bay Aquarium!  More to come!

 

A Dutch Landscape – After Edo Hannema

Today was a day of “firsts.”  I decided to paint a big painting for me – 16×20 inches.  I also chose to use a more professional paper than I have been; here, 140# cold press Arches.

I wanted to test out how Arches handles water – lots of water.  Hannema is the master of the wash and wet paper approach.  His current paper is Saunders Waterford, which is different, of course, from Arches.  I think the Arches handled the water really well.  I, on the other hand, still need to master my washes.  Blooms are visible here and there, and I need to learn how to control those or eliminate them if I find them later on.

The palette of colors I used was initially what Hannema used:  ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson, burnt sienna, and raw sienna.  Because I did not like greens I was getting, I threw in some sap green.  If I had used yellow ochre, perhaps my greens would have been more satisfactory – something to make a mental note of to try next time around.

I always learn from a video.  As I have mentioned, water is one thing I am working on, along with buildings.  Today, I wanted to just work with a new paper and a lot of water.  The study was successful altogether methinks.

Below is Edo Hannema’s painting tutorial:

The Studio

I’ve had a room I call “The Studio” for years now – but somehow it has never felt especially complete until yesterday.  Why?  I bought a sewing table.  For the last 30 years I have had to clear off the drafting table or take over the dining table to sew.  It’s a nuisance for someone who really enjoys sewing but hates clutter.  Take things out.  Put things away.  Hate the mess of clutter.  Hate the urgency to put things away.  Thus, on a whim, when I saw this table, I bought it.  Because it was a floor model, it was marked down, but even better, it was already assembled!  At last, my sewing urges can be allowed to stay out in the open, at my whim and will.

Sewing has its corner.

Painting has its own corner.

Computer has its own corner.

Cameras and supplies are on the shelves, as are books and paper and paint and thread.

All is right with the world.