End of April Notes

Today I am posting on April 29...the end of a month long riot of weather in Wisconsin that made spring very difficult to find! But the daffodils and bluebells did arrive briefly in Julie's garden and she brought us beautiful gift bouquet.  And out in the lovely woods at Oakwood here in Madison...the bluebells, spring beauties and crocus come just before the trillium.  Bird song is loud and joyful.  

I close the month of April, though, with generally happy thoughts about art and family.  Around here lot of joyful things are on the calendar...a new great daughter due on the 7th, a grandson graduating from high school and some spring birthdays...Maddy and Patrick in April and Ben in May.  I got a new computer and Julie and Mark made is safely back from their winter trip west.  

  

    The new Oakwood art library is beginning to fill in with furniture, paintings, and other joyful accommodations.  Hoping for an open house in June.  

Julie and I are teaching a Zentangle® class at a new venue in Madison at the Monroe Street Art Center this Friday.  I plan to theme it around this book: We entitled the class "Dingbatz, Frames and Cartouches."

Here's how one of sample frames might look (Maddy's Birthday Card).

 

You'll notice that the frame I tangled is around Layla (Maddy's dog) and then the Dingbatz is in the corner of the envelope.  Which, if look closely, can be cut off and used as a bookmark!  Dingbatz are actually sort of "placeholders" usually in text or poetry to divide spaces, announce new chapters or sections, or otherwise enhance a lot of text.  Or tucked in the corner of an envelope!  

 I'll post more images after the class so you can see more examples.

We had a fun little art exercise here at Oakwood Art groups thinking about the characters from Beatrix Potter.  I picked Mrs. Tiggywinkle who is a hedgehog.  Sketched her into my sketchbook and then sent a copy to 5 year Violet (my great granddaughter.) The hedgehog is holding an iron in her hand (she does the laundry for the forest animals).  I told Violet to ask her grandmother what an iron is.  Would children even know?  

This was just a short blog...to let you know Greg and I are still around and learning new things. Tomorrow night my chorus has a performance and I have two more Sundays in May at church with choir to the end of the season.  I'll miss the music.  

Hoping you are all well and you have a good May.

 

 

The Oakwood Art Library and spring

 So here we are on April 4 in a full blown 3 day snow blizzard in Madison, Wisconsin!  AH spring. 

The crocus and daffodil have been up for a few weeks thinking that the warmer days back in March (even February) signaled a new season.  the robins are back and the lovely mother goose is sitting on her next in the middle of the pond. The grass is green and the Easter Bunny came.  

But alas, we've had about 5"+ of wet heavy snow over the last few days involving street plows and shovels (again). All the local lakes and even our up-north Tippecanoe Lake have opened up early think...haha SPRING!  Foolish as we are, we even began dreaming of "maybe" putting away our mittens.  Foolish people!  I heard from friend Barb that Tippecanoe Lake up at our cabin actually re-froze.  OHmygosh!  Certainly confusing the local turtles and loons!  

So, it's a time for thinking about finishing up inside winter projects.  And just keeping in mind it's predicted to be 60 here by next Wednesday and the community street vendors will be back on April 14 at the Outdoor Markets down the block!  

My latest project has been in trying to complete the new Art Library here at Oakwood University Woods.  Yes we have a great "general" library that is full of wonderful fiction and non fiction and it also has circulating books from the Madison public library!  BUT now we also have 3 satellite libraries here: A Nature library, a Spiritual library and now an Art Library.  

I've been busy collecting furniture that folks have been willing to donate or that already belong to Oakwood but are just stored in hallways unused.  You can see one big bookcase I found but I have an order in to purchase two more as many books are still waiting to be shelved! They will go where the plants are currently sitting. 

Hopefully as we proceed some art work will begin to appear on the walls to cozy things up and I am looking for a foot stool for the sweet chair.  A stamp and stickers to label books have been ordered and the committee will help with that.  In addition I have created a sign to announce the library. It is Zentangle of course!!! This was part of a project put out by Zentangle HQ to help demystify the concept of illuminated lettering.  

You could buy a "kit" of materials for this but I just looked at the project and sort of plagiarized the concept to my own purposes.  Still I followed along with the videos for ideas.  If you are interested you could just do a YouTube search for "Zentangle Project Pact 23" and all of the videos are available publicly.  My project is about 12 x 16.  I drew everything myself and did not purchase the kit which does get mentioned in the videos.   

So here is where it is framed and hanging now

So I am off to fix some hot breakfast for Greg.  We are looking forward to "real spring" and I hope to be out sketching soon!  Hoping all is well with you.