Smoothies all week!

Friday we went berry picking at Kruger's Farm on Sauvie Island. At first we were a bit hesitant to pick a lot because we're not really jam makers and I'm not sure how many blueberry pancakes and boysenberry crisps I can eat. I can drink a smoothie however. In fact, I can drink one every day. So, we picked with the goal of having smoothies every day for a week. I may need to work on my food photography. I don't think the yellow table helps... but this morning's boysenberry, raspberry yogurt smoothie is delicious!

Tuesday!

Yep it's Tuesday. Now that I work 4 days in a row per week, Monday is the hump day. After that it's a breeze.

Here's a new encaustic painting. This one was done a little differently. I painted some of the flowers with oil paint directly on the wood, and then fused a layer of clear encaustic wax down. Then I painted a few more flowers in oil paint on the wax layer, and fused another layer of wax, etc etc. I like the way the oil paint goes on the wax, and then certain colors sort of break apart when you fuse wax on top of them. There are some cool effects to be had and I may try it with portraits.
24 x 11" encaustic & oil on braced birch wood panel. SOLD

Fuegos Artificiales

Lastnight was obviously the 4th of July, but also the one time of the year that I was able to play with the 'fireworks' setting on my new camera! I love the blurred effect and soon realized I was watching everything through the camera instead of in real life. We took a lot of pictures, but will only display 5 here, lest you all already have digital cameras and tired of the fireworks setting back in 2000. Likely, since I tend to run 8 years behind technology.

After a good bbq and some street corner fireworks (pictured above) in SE, we stopped on the Morrison bridge to check out the city display. I usually avoid downtown during the 4th, but it was pretty cool to see hoards of people stopped on the bridge looking up at the sky and oohing and ahhing. If we do it again, biking is the way to go.

Moonflowers

12 x 12" Original Encaustic painting on birch plywood.

I've had 2 encaustic paintings in the works for some time that I wanted to finish up today. This is the first one. I'm really happy with the darker background with the light yellow oil paint rub over the top. These particular flowers look lunar to me, thus the name. The 2nd is drying before I can add more wax, but nearly there. Both will be in my shop soon.

In other (totally unrelated) news, I've decided to stop using shampoo again. Thick, curly hair reportedly does better without it. I went without before for a time, and noticed good results, but then started shampooing again for some reason that I can't recall. The only problem is you have to go through a grease ball phase first while your hair adjusts. Time to break out the headbands..