A Summary of Spring and Summer thoughts...

 

So summer came and went with alacrity this year...streaming by in a myriad of images from here in Madison to up north at the cabin. Back and forth.  This year we went with a 3-4 week on and off plan.  The idea being not to have to pack and unpack so often which for two old folks is arduous.  

Weather in Madison was on the average this summer was dry and quite hot.  Weather in Lac du Flambeau was on average cold, dark, and rainy.  So both had their ups and downs.  

So to simply highlight our happiest days...my sister's visit in May as she was making her way across country was splendid and so wonderful.  Then in June the visit of our granddaughter, Maddy,and her entire family was amazing. Getting to meet Maddy's fiancé AND our two beautiful great grandchildren.  What a special time.  

So summer "up north" was totally full of joyous community and family gatherings.  4th of July was a local potluck of lake folks.  Great to see everyone!  

In between family gatherings I tried to keep a little sketching going.

I found the name of the clouds to be amusing as they sounded like perhaps a bad chest cold?  When they gather in the north like this it is time to be watchful.  

Beth made the trip all the way from Rochester Hills, Michigan by car this summer to the cabin for a sister duo with Julie!  Greg's son Mark and his big family came and my son Rick and his darling family came.  Katy and Chris came as a sister duo and we loved that!  Julie and her husband came.  What a treat. They all spoiled us so!  

I found a wee amount of time to keep up with sketching some  botanicals around the cabin although I found that walking too far along the verges was harder for me this year.

We returned to Madison on Friday the 8th of September.  The summer warmth will linger awhile in Madison..as autumn generally comes on slowly and with sweet colors.  Then suddenly as October approaches it will rain and the colors will slide away from us offering us the always bleakness but coziness of November.  We are already beginning to think of the holidays in general terms.  With a large family one has to plan ahead! 

 

Art wise Julie and I have a few Zentangle® "gigs" in the works.  I am helping here at Oakwood to plan a new Art library which should be fun.  Choir at church starts this week AND a new Oakwood choral group is beginning here which should be joyful.   

I brought back a lot of old paintings stored at the cabin that "never made the cut" and so am thinking of collage and gift card making with those this winter.  I am sure I'll start up some beginning Zentangle classes here at Oakwood and need to look over the calendar for that. 

In the spring I did part of the project pack for Zentangle.  I'll drop a few of those in so you can just see a sample.   It was an odd project which was designed to get one to look at familiar zentangles in the sense of possible botanical implications.  Here's an example.  The format was unusual to say the least but I enjoyed the challenge of making "make believe" plants.  Complete nonsense, of course, but a way to push your ideas into a project that most of us wouldn't have dreamed of.  I got five of the 8 done before we went up north but hope to get back and finish the rest this fall.  

 

Wishing you a good autumn.  And GO Packers!