Summer in the Desert

 This picture was taken on a recent trip

 to the Desert Botanical Garden. 

I love the juxtaposition of the beautiful

delicate flowers, alongside the stiff piercing thorns.

It reminds me of life. 

Summertime is coming. It's held off until

now, and we've had such beautiful weather. 

My husband and I were on our walk this morning

and talking about how this is the longest we've gone

into the year without having to turn on the air conditioner. 

Thanking God for that blessing!

The following are a hand full of some

recent pieces I've painted. 

My husband cut a silhouette of Arizona

out of pine wood for me on our scroll saw 

and I did my thing. Cheerful as

cheerful can be. I really love the 

way this turned out. 

This is a landscape I did on a gallery wrapped

canvas with acrylic paint and posca pens. 

A couple of sweet kitties. . .

and two colorful fish, finish

out the bunch. 

Now it's time for me to get back to work

on a couple projects. 

I hope you're having a wonderful day! 

Terri 

Catching Up!

Things started getting really busy

around here once the holiday season started 

and it's been hard to get back in the 

swing of blogging ever since. 

I've missed my blogging friends

though, and look forward to touching

base and saying hello. 

Here are a few of my creations

from the past months. 

I hope you're having a wonderful week! 

Blessings,

Terri 

Lost in a World of Painting

This week I'll share some

of my most recent creations. 

The following piece

is dimensional. I designed 5

raised pieces that were cut

out and attached to a 

plywood base. 

Trim was added to the edges

to frame it out. 

Blue Kitty. 

Purple Kitty with some mixed media additions. 

This is a sweet little kitty that started

as a pattern I drew and my husband

cut out for me on our scroll saw. 

He used pine and said it was a really nice

material to cut. I painted the sides to

match the floral motif on the front. 

I also drew a fish pattern for my husband to

cut out for me using the same pine. 

It was fun painting something new. 

Lastly is this yellow kitty

that I just finished this morning. 

Such fun! 

I hope you're having a wonderful day! 

Thanks for stopping by.

Terri 

Frida Boxes and Fur Baby

Our little grand pup is growing quickly!

Gus loves this little patch of grass we

have in the backyard for our tortoise. 

It's the softest and coolest place to lay.

No wonder he gravitates there

every time he visits. 

Our son-in-law is in the middle

of a 2 month long chemo treatment. 

Every opportunity to help the kids out

during this tough season of life is a blessing. 

This is one of my two Frida 

shadow boxes. 

The yellow background on this

one is an easy way to tell the two apart. 

(Just a little side note, there's a glare

in this picture that isn't in the actual piece.

These are hard pieces to get good pictures.)

This one has loteria cards

on the side. 

 This is the second one. 

It's sides are painted with gems added here and there. 

I've left a spot in front of each to

place some tea light flameless candles. 

It'll help to light up the inside. 

Personally, I don't think pictures

do them justice. 

I love the way they look in person if

I do say so myself. 

Hoping you're having a wonderful 

week and all is well with your soul! 

Terri 

Frida Folk Art Painting

I'm having fun working on some

Frida boxes that I look forward 

to sharing with you in the near future. 

In the meantime I finished this 

Frida painting. 

We're finally seeing a break in

the weather here in the southwestern United States. 

The monsoon season is coming to a close. 

We look forward to sleeping with the windows

open very soon. 

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead! 

Terri

Paintings and Thoughts on Procrastination

I've found one positive thing about 

myself in regard to procrastination today.

When I procrastinate about doing 

the thing I don't want to do, I'm extremely

productive in doing everything

else that eventually needs to be done. 

Laundry's done, dishes are done, birthday card

that had to go out is in the mail, blog post

almost finished. . . 

Speaking of which, I'll get

started on now. 

I was sort of willy nilly in my

painting this week. 

I had some wood pieces my husband

had cut for me that I wanted to use up.

Here's what I came up with for now. 

It's funny, the thing I'm procrastinating about

is not a big deal at all.

It's just something I don't feel like doing. 

Oh, I just remembered the pomodoro time

management method!

That's what I'll do, set the timer and get started.  

Thank you for visiting today!

I hope you have a fabulous week.

Terri

Back on the Farm

My sweet friend Aimee asked if

I'd help add some color and

cheer to some of her animal shelters.

She wanted a border painted around

the edge of two of her new shelters

that someone had kindly donated. 

I knew there would be no way I could be up

on a ladder in 105 plus degree weather

during monsoon season

with all the inquisitive (and large) animals 

trying to figure out what I was up to. 

I immediately thought painting wooden

boards that could be affixed to the metal

sides was the way to go. (I'd let

my husband work out those details). 

Twenty-three wooden flowers were added 

throughout the design to give it dimension. 

My husband gets the credit for cutting 

those out for me. He had at least as much

work on this project as I did. 

I had 10 boards to paint. At one point they

were spread all over our family room floor,

the fireplace, our kitchen table, 

and the kitchen counter. 

It's so good to have our house back!

As I was painting and maneuvering backwards

on my hands and knees around the boards

I felt a sharp painful pop on my left side. 

It turns out I dislocated a rib. Ouch! 

When we went to install the pieces, I decided

to feed the animals first and keep them busy

while we worked. 

This is the larger of the two shelters. 

Her family of animals are so sweet and

she takes such good care of them. 

Aimee also asked if I'd paint a board

with a rainbow and a peace sign on it

for her horses palette shanty. 

There'll be some girl scouts coming

by soon. She's asked them to paint

the rest of the shanty boards in rainbow colors. 

Now I'm back to painting

some smaller pieces and

giving my ribs a rest. 

I hope you have a wonderful week

and greatly appreciate you stopping by! 

Terri

Daily Paintings of Late

My goal is to finish

a painting a day. 

I'm not always successful

with that goal, but I have

been successful in pressing

forward whether I reach it or not. 

This fact is a win for

me on it's own. 

Here are some

of my most recent

accomplishments. 

I'll keep my words

to a minimum in this post.

Thank you for visiting

and touching base.

I hope you have a fabulous week!

Terri

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall. . .

One of my neighbors kindly gave me

a big mirror a couple of months ago. 

It's 38" x 32". 

Another neighbor that knows about the mirror

keeps asking me if I've done anything

with it yet. 

Well, it's finally time to call her over

to see the mirror. 

I should say, the frame of the mirror. 

I'll let my husband get the mirror

part securely back in the frame. 

The frame was initially a brown

mottled paint and it was primed

in white to start the process. 

These first few pictures were taken at sunrise.

That's why they're a little dark. 

Next, I drew out my design and made

patterns for wood pieces that my husband

gladly cut out for me on the scroll saw. 

I placed the pieces where I wanted them

just to check my design, before

they were adhered to the frame. 

Voila! The finished piece. 

It's much more bright

and cheerful now. 

Thank you for stopping by.

Hoping you have a wonderfully

creative week! 

Terri

Giving New Life to an Old Guitar

My dear friends and neighbors

will sometimes give me things

they think I may like to paint. 

This old broken down

guitar is an example of one 

of those things. 

It's been sitting in the corner

of my art room for  a couple

of years waiting to be brought

back to life. 

I had a design percolating 

in my mind, now it was a matter

of putting it all together. 

The same friend that gave me the guitar, 

also gave me the cool wooden heart she'd

designed and had her husband cut out for her. 

I designed a pattern for wings and the "Love"

sign, and my husband cut them out for me

on the scroll saw. 

I strung beads where the tuning keys

would've been.

I used my wood carving tools to 

give the "Love" sign a little dimension. 

I also decided to change the plain heart 

into a flaming heart. 

My husband made

sure every piece was secured

properly with a combination of 

liquid nails and nails or screws. 

Here's another view from the front. 

I'm pleased with the way it 

turned out. 

It was so much fun to create. 

I hope you have a wonderful week ahead! 

Thank you for stopping by. 

Terri