Farewell to Summer

A fun last day of summer sketching at a local hang out in Minocqua.  I almost didn't go as it was 48 degrees when I woke up!  You have to be HARDY here in the north woods!  

But by 10 am it was close to 60 degrees and I layered up with a nice wool sweater on the top layer and off I went.  We got sun on and off and a bit of a cool breeze off Minocqua Lake.  I sat on the pier facing the restaurant.  (I am tired of painting water.) And the restaurant had not opened yet so all the umbrellas are still down.  

Enjoyed the darkish scudding clouds and started off with a string of festive lights strung across the deck...worked from there.  

The little map shows that the Boathouse is close to a bridge that actually makes Minocqua an "island city" technically.  The bridge signals you are leaving town heading south and heading back to central or southern WI or wherever you go when you are not in the Northwoods.  

On Monday of Labor Day weekend some locals gather at a private home just south of the bridge to have an annual end of summer party and wave to the people heading south.  It's cute.  It's become an annual event.  A wave-party.  

Expecting my daughters later today for a "Girl's Weekend" celebration of our own.  Lots of wine and chatting. Weather not looking too good unfortunately.  Rain most of the weekend.  But a bit warmer at least.  We might see sunshine on Sunday.  

My Outdoor Painters are officially done now for the summer but sometimes we try to meet one more Thursday if enough people are around.  Actually September can be a nice month with color beginning to creep in around the maples already!  

Most of Alphabet book is finished!

Just a few more pages to go and then the cover and the little alphabet book for my great granddaughter will be finished. 

A great way to ignore the rain up here in the Northwoods!  

This is actually my new knee.  

My granddaughter, Maddy

Play "find the nose". Violet's nose is one of them and her mimi,  my daughter, Beth.  

Couldn't resist since Maddy is big into yoga.  

Got a little drippy here.  

In honor of Great Grandpa Greg's love of trains.  Learning position words.
This one is done colored pencil and used a stamp for the train.  

learning about containers

This photo says it all.  

Hand printed papers teach about shape. 

Hey...we get our own page!  And G for Greg and G for Ginny too.  

Proud dad.  

Quilt is made of bit of my hand painted Washi tape.  

Outdoor Sketching by a river...

Looking Out at the Scene by the river...

Final Sketch including a little sketch of the outside the deck and a map of where it is.  
Note the interesting metal fish Welcome Sign.  

In another journal...I did a quick 15 minute sketch of the interesting restaurant architecture.
I was taken with all the dormers.

This past Thursday, the Outdoor Painters met at a restaurant in Boulder Junction,WI called Headwaters, about 40 minutes north east of our cabin in Lac du Flambeau. Somehow we got a lovely sunny morning and about half dozen of us spread out over the hillside leading down to the river just beside the restaurant.  It was quiet (except for now and then a car passing over the bridge).  

The moments were magical there. There were no mosquitoes and just a slight breeze.  We were all in shirt sleeves....and later at lunch time, 4 of us were able to stay and enjoy a quiet visit together talking about art and food and life.  Perfect morning.

The summer season is drawing to a close...we only have one more scheduled outdoor art gathering next Thursday in Minocqua, WI at the Boat House restaurant near Lake Minocqua.  We don't try scheduling for September.  Although I have found September can be a lovely time to sketch.  And I try to find sometime around my area to do that before the temperatures begin to plummet.  

Fall comes quickly here.  We are already contracting for someone to come and pull in our pier and boats about a week after Labor Day.  We will start seeing some leaf color in about 2-3 weeks. Every year for this is slightly different.  Some years wild color...some very subtle.  No one really knows why.  The amount rain fall, number of cold or warm days, etc. all impacts the color.

Violet Virginia's Alphabet Book

The first 13 pages of my great granddaughter's alphabet book are now done.  (The fist two pages were posted previously).

I'm skipping around the letters.  
Of course these things take longer than you first imagine!!!
The pages are small (4.5" x 6") on wc paper.
So here I thought I'd zip right through this!  HA. 
Well, I am half way.  

A few of the pages will be photos.
G will be grandma and great grandma for instance.
Mommy and Daddy will be photos. 

Then a cover.  
My daughter (grandma) is thinking she'll take the book and have it finished for me.  Bound in some way.  Maybe scanned?  







This one has the poem "This Little Piggy" as a border.














So tomorrow is my outdoor sketching group is meeting in Boulder Junction, WI for the morning.  And we think we might actually have nice weather.  It's been up and down in the Northwoods here.  45 degrees at night here but then often warming up 30 degrees by mid-afternoon!!!  Crazy days.  

Days are shorter now...acorns are falling and mushrooms on the forest floor.  We'll start to see some color in about 3 weeks if things are normal.  I know we are all amazed that it is almost Labor Day weekend!  The kids are all back in school.  

Outdoor painting at Dillman's Resort

What a beautiful morning out at Dillman's Resort today.  Sunny and  close to 80 degrees!  And we only had 5 people out today!  I think it's high season and lots of folks have company. 

This is the entry way for the resort.  I've taken lots of art classes here over the years.  I plan to do a little writing in the white spaces later.  

Then around 2:30 the clouds rolled in and down came the rain.  
Now at 7:30 pm it looks like it is clearing off.  Hoping that we have good weather for OUR company arriving tonight...Greg's son and daughter in law and grandkids.  

Hope you all have a good weekend.

August Painting

This is on very inexpensive card stock (4 x 6) with envelope.  Just an experiment.  So this is another example of idea of just laying on some paint spontaneously and letting it flow around.  After it dries you add details.

The inspiration is Simon's Feed Store in downtown Leesburg...an old time store that sells everything from bedbug poison, to grass seed, to potted plants.   So fun.  In the back there is a pool with fish, parrots, chickens, dogs, etc.  This is the back porch lined with plants.  The outdoor paint group meets there and off through the winter.  Always something to paint.

This is a Happy Birthday greeting for our granddaughter, Abby who will be 19 next week and is heading back to Coe College in a few weeks where she is a sophomore.  

I am working on a little alphabet book for our great granddaughter, Violet Virginia.  She will be one month old on Aug 12. 

Here are the first two pages.  I am thinking of laminating it and then having it bound.  I am using lower case letters in the book because it always frustrates me that kids come to school knowing upper case letters only!  We use lower case much more!!!  

Watch for more pages as the month proceeds.  

Outdoor Painters in northern WI

The Northwoods Outdoor Painters meet every Thursday morning (during the "high" season of summer) in the Minocqua/Woodruff/Boulder Junction/Manitowish area of northern Wisconsin.

That would be June-August primarily.  

Our fearless organizer, Florie, sets up a schedule (usually before the season is even over), for the next season and posts it on our own blog and then on the Manito Art League blog as well.  It's open to everyone and is usually 8:30 to 12:30.  

People bring easels or sketchbooks and spend time enjoying some art work out of doors. Then we go out to lunch!  This week we painted at JJ's Acres which is a local nursery...lush and colorful at this time of year!  It's located just north of Minocqua in Woodruff.  

I am using my Stillman & Birn (Beta Series) journal for this sketch.

And a Lamy pen and watercolors.  It's fairly small...5 x 7.  

This is the way the two page spread looked after I got home and added the map and the writing.  This is something I don't always do but it is nice for a memory to add a little personal note to it when I have the time.

We ate lunch at the Wild Boar restaurant in Woodruff.