elephants and early morning's philosophy

Yesterday, I used an overhead projector to enlarge an elephant for a first grade project today. I really was surprised at what an elephant looks like; their tails and trunks are about the same length and their backs have quite a hump. Today the kids will have a little drawing lesson and then they'll color and/or paint one third of the large elephant to hang in their classroom. I'll post the results on the ArtistsWorkshop blog in a few days.

I woke up about 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep (the prednisone, I think). So I came down, stoked the woodstove, and started work on bills and the calendar items for the next few days.
I looked at the school calendar for 2011. Yikes, time flies...

the trench

It's cold for December all over the country. We have about 25 degrees and 60 inside. Roger's working like a beaver to get the project under the porch done before snow comes. Today, he'll cement the remaining two sections. Tomorrow he'll begin framing. We've had an open space under our porch/studio. We have had a water problem here and some shifting because of no proper footing. Once it's closed in, we'll  feel a big difference in the temperature in both the porch and my studio.

And we won't dread the rains of winter and spring that nearly always have washed under the porch and cellar door into the cellar. We have pioneer memories of being out in the cold getting the water running through a hose, digging a trench for the water, building temporary dams of boards. Being cold from my tips of my hands to my toes is much less fun than a few years ago. This suffering always made me feel tough and Puritanical, I guess. Now I like warm, dry and secure !!!

 After the second  100-year  flood in a year four years ago, I got on-line ( never have I appreciated the www more)  and ordered a submersible pump, which works wonderfully.One of us stays up to keep an eye on it and if we lose power (we did last year), we have a lot of water. Now (after 30 years- another example of time flying) we'll have solved that nightmare.

 three sections

DAILY HAIKU 2009
December 8
This card has a curve because I treated the surface with a gel medium, just to see what it felt like. I never did another...
The colored section is a piece of vellum inked irregularly and adheres with the medium. I used  a Flair felt tip for the lettering, floating over the entire entry. The day and date are in pencil , in words and numbers.

I love the muted colors of late Autumn/pre-winter. There's a dreamy quality to them after the glowing fall colors of the trees. The cloudy, grey sky provides a sensuous background, perhaps it's preparations for the  slower pace of,  at least Mother Nature, in winter.