A Mermaid's Tale

We have just come back from a glorious week beside the ocean in Maine. Two days at home and my head is still back in Maine with the mermaids, sea birds and beach glass.

Mermaids, you ask? Well, the only one I was able to get a photo of was a beautiful sand sculpture made by Emma and her cousin, Erica. But I think there's a possibility that there were other mermaids lingering behind the rocks just beyond my camera's reach.

Emma and Erica's beautifully sculpted mermaid complete with seaweed hair.

We rented a house with my sister's family. We spent many hours walking on the rocky beach in front of where we stayed. Each tide would bring in more sea glass, enough to share with everyone who was there.

My collection of sea glass and pottery. The most amazing find was the glass stopper pictured on the right.

It turns out that Emma has an eagle eye for finding sea glass. Even after the rest of us had combed the beach thinking we had found it all, Emma would find pocketsful of sea glass treasures.

And speaking of eagles, we saw one!  A bald eagle flew by on more than one occasion. Once, it flew within feet of the front porch. I don't have a photo of it that time. We just stood there awestruck. Here's a photo of it a little higher up in the sky on one of its fly-bys.

We also saw loons, herons and seagulls. I took a series of photos of one heron looking for and catching his supper.

I've started a painting of some of my beautiful beach finds. It's a way of me staying in touch with our beautiful Maine vacation while I slowly get used to being back home.

This painting is still in progress. A few more details to go.

Uh oh. It's happening again. There go my thoughts, somewhere back in Maine with the mermaids, beach glass and sea birds.

Across the World

When I began my blog nine months ago, I'm not sure that I knew what to expect. I was in the midst of resuming my painting career and I felt it was a way of making a public commitment to that. I knew I liked to write. I was an English major in university (not a surprise I suppose that I like to write). What I didn't expect was the friends I have made. Lovely friends in all parts of the world.

Last week, I receive some mail. Good mail. Really good mail.

One of my blogging friends sent me a collection of shells, sea glass and feathers from Australia. Thank you, Cindy. I hope you understand the thrill and joy I felt in receiving and opening your beautiful package. Aside from being a blogger, Cindy Lane is a wonderful artist, amazing photographer and an art teacher. She lives in Perth, Australia.

I visited Australia many years ago.  What an absolutely beautiful country.  Sadly, I didn't get to Perth. We did visit Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Alice Springs, Cairns and Brisbane though. It was an amazing trip.

When I received my wonderful package from Australia, it felt good in so many ways. It was a beautiful gesture from a blogging friend and fellow artist. It was a collection of gorgeous natural objects from a country I love, not to mention that someone took the time to walk on a beach thinking about me. Pretty special.

This past week, I visited an art supply store--one of my happy places. I bought some new watercolour paper.  I have almost always painted on 140 lb. cold press Arches paper. I have painted occasionally on Arches 300 lb. cold press paper, Saunders 140 lb. cold press and, most recently, on Saint-Armand handmade paper. Having Cindy's beautiful shells as inspiration allowed me to test out some of my new papers. Here are three quick little shell studies (ACEO size) on Arches 300 lb. hot pressed paper, Arches 140 lb. hot pressed paper and BFK Rives 280 gsm paper.

Most every happy story has a tragic underside (English major bias I guess). Well, here is the one that belongs to this one. When I was photographing Cindy's shells for my blog, I was juggling more than one thing.  I had the camera around my neck. I had a blank stretched canvas propped at the side (and steadied with my knee) to reflect the light, as it was a dim day. I was using a tripod that was not quite at the right angle for my photo, so I was tipping it forward. As I was manipulating all of these things, the canvas slipped and fell. Do you ever have something happen in front of you and you feel that it is occurring in slow motion? This was. As it happened, I yelled 'Nooooooooooo' and it just might have been heard in Perth.  When I lifted the fallen canvas, everything was fine except for the two beautiful sea urchins that were smashed into many pieces. I am not a gazelle but I have a pretty good track record for looking after delicate things. These lovely objects had made it across the world intact and within 24 hours I had broken some of them. I cannot tell you how terribly sorry I was. Tears may have been involved.

My sea collection with two pieces from the smashed sea urchins at the top

Thanks again, Cindy, for sending me these gorgeous treasures from the other side of the world. What a beautiful place we live in.