Cows and Cups

Wow! Did April go by fast or what?  Tonight is my last night at ceramics.  Actually, next week is the last class, but we will not be able to do anything other than pick up our stuff.  I'm thinking about signing up for the class during the summer, although I don't think Toby likes the idea.  He is all about saving money these days, since Halliburton is laying him off in December.  I'm of the mind that  I should go ahead and spend a bit of money while I have it :) It's just that during the summer, the barn is too hot to work in unless you get up at the crack of dawn or stay up until the sun sets to go throw pots in the barn.  We have a plan to build a room in the barn so that we can have a nice place to work - no matter the weather.  But until that room is built, I'd kind of like to have a nice place to work - like a real studio with all the clay stuff you could want or need. I've enjoyed my days in WF at the ceramic studio and spending the night with Jesse. We will see how it all works out.

When Jesse went to the big ceramic convention a few weeks back, she bought me some watercolor glazes. That's right! I can combine my watercolor with my ceramics!  Here is how the first few pieces of pottery with watercolor glaze turned out.

I have done a few more, but they have not been fired. At some point, I will take a snapshot of all my pots from the ceramic class, although they are not that impressive.

Although I am loving the mud, I seem to have this deep need to do pastels.  I've been working on finding a place to set up my pastels - rather than having to constantly get them out and put them up again.  I sort of have them out, but it is not to my liking.  I need to have them at the ready so that I can keep the creative juices flowing. Ha! I've been taking some "homestead" type photos to paint. And I have started one painting. In the meantime I did some cow paintings.  Here is a pastel of some Brahma cows.

Here are the same cows done in acrylic. Both cow paintings need some touch-up. I'll get to that someday. 

We had a breakfast here at the house for the seniors at our church, or what we call the empty-nesters.  About 20 people showed up Saturday morning for breakfast. It was a perfect day with sun and no wind. We were able to sit outside. For a bit of entertainment, Frank did a demo and talk, throwing a pot on the wheel. It went well. After cleaning on my house for days before the breakfast, then preparing the food and stuff, I was a tired puppy when it was over. We still went to WF to see Toby's mom. She is doing pretty darn good for an 88 year old who has had lots of falls and illness. We took her outside to enjoy the warm spring day.

Sunday was spent resting and catching up on laundry. Who'd a thought I would enjoy laundry, but after deep cleaning house all week, laundry was welcome.