bright and cool

What a shift in temperature and light. It was so cold last night that I shut the windows. Wally would have had them wide open. Those are the nights I tell him to go and sleep in the backyard "you camper you"- but he doesn't.

I thought I might do some interior vignettes this morning,

this of the clothespin basket that hangs in the vestibule.

The Broom and the ancient message centre hang there too, original to the house,

as does the homemade cookies sign.

I imagine Marion (original owner with two successive husbands) making homemade cookies and taking messages from her customers, all so quaint and old-fashioned.

I do get drawn out of the vestibule into this surreal day, with its harsh light, its jolly breeze

and cooler temperatures. Strange little clouds float along the horizon like UFO's.

As I step off the back deck I notice that Wally has bundled the Echinacea which were sprawling all over the place. Their colour has faded and the bees aren't much interested anymore.

mauve blooms from the hostas in the foreground, the huge "prehistoric" plant with its yellow blooms breaking out of their "pods"

I wander over to the vegetable garden, the peas mostly done on the green trellis

that Wally set up for them,

their scribbled tendrils still reaching out for something to grab on to.

Without much new to share, I wander back to the house, breaking off a large hydrangea bloom as I go for the kitchen table.

Muji has been waiting by the door the whole time and is still there when I sit down

"You lookin' at me?" I can never figure out why I get these looks...

Babu has finished clean up duty (Muji always leaves "crumbs") and also has an odd look.

I put the hydrangea bloom in a cut glass vase that I bought at a big secondhand market held in town here the year we were house hunting, taking it back to Muskoka to pack for the trip back out here along with a rock from the ocean.  Sometimes even I think I'm weird.

With many pictures made since this one, I will share two again today.

This trio done in coloured pencil, the border outlined in white China marker. The white sharpie pen highlights are showing much stronger than they actually are. 

This piece evolved from Derwent watercolour pencil in Sea Blue that I began doodling with.

From there I got the courage to draw the face in one of my favourite black coloured pencils, a Koh-I-Noor from Czechoslovakia. With the figure in place I began to doodle in similar fashion with a white Sharpie paint pen, adding more of it to the face, etc. A very light use of moistened paint brush to waken the watercolour pencil went on last. That night I left my sketchbook under the laptop to help flatten the paper, so rumply after the water was added.

each day a gift

the message of presence therein