I’m in a serious funk here, it’s cold and cloudy and windy here. I wish I weren’t so in tune with the weather, days like this I just want to go curl up in bed with my puppies and my iPad. Not very productive…

Last week when it was nice and warm, I went out to get a picture of the nest in the refuge. I’m assuming from the size it’s a bald eagle’s nest. For the past 3-4 years, we’ve had a bald eagle swooping down in the pasture to grab left over hay. It’s fun to see them fly right by my window.

A pretty cardinal,

and a pretty amaryllis.

I finished my Tiger drawing and am on to my next one,

Some humor to brighten a gloomy day,

It’s a howler out there tonight! It snowed today, and then the wind switched to the northwest, so it’s blowing the cold air back in. But there’s hope!! Next week we’ll start warming up. Yup, time to start poring over the seed catalogs.
After a couple of false starts, my leopard drawing is progressing nicely,

Double Helix came out with a new glass, Iaso, and I’ve got a half pound coming Monday. I’m really excited about it, it’s a copper glass,

and reduced,

Some new beads on Facebook,

Less than three weeks to go until the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. That’s the first hump to get through the winter, then three weeks later, the days start getting warmer (statistically). Once we get past that, I can start feeling like the worst is over and I can start planning my gardens. I’m going to get some moving around of my bird feeders. I read an article that feeders should be closer than three feet or more than 30 feet away from windows to prevent birds from crashing into them. And of course, right now all of my feeders are inside that danger zone.

After finishing my bird drawing, I was wandering around feeling lost because I just couldn’t settle on a new drawing. I decided to get my embroidery machine out and try working on that, but couldn’t find the power cord for it!! I cleaned out the half of the foyer closet where I keep my boxes of thread, not there. Cleaned and went through the boxes of fabric and misc. on top of the bookshelves in the middle bedroom. Not there. So after wasting two days (well, guess not wasted since I cleaned or organized) I decided to go onto Amazon and see if I could get a replacement cord. Had to check the embroidery machine to get the model number, and guess what I found under it. The power cord.

Work in progress, A Confusion of Stripes, (I got inspired after watching some National Geographic shows about zebra migrations). This one is larger than my normal size, about 9x11 inches.

We had a surprise at our bird feeder the other day,

I think they’re cute, but I’m not enthused about having them around, since they’re so destructive, so we had Suka chase him up a tree a couple of times. He got the hint and moved on to more peaceful feeders.

Speaking of Suka, this dog has a huge personality! When I get Lukas up to shower him, Suka has to find his toy and claim his spot on the bed. Such a silly puppy!

I must have been especially uninspired August of 2013. I just finished photographing the last of the beads from that month, and there are quite a few ‘blah’ beads. My bag of rejects is going to be growing as I winnow through them.

I’ve gotten a few new funny photos off the web, here’s a couple,

I finished my drawing of a female red-breasted grosbeak. I’m not satisfied with the leaves, but I do like the way the bird turned out. Now I have to figure out what to do next.

Since it’s been too hot to work with the torch (or work outside), I’ve been spending time in the drawing room working on my Baltimore Oriole drawing. The feathers are driving me CRAZY!! I should have made the drawing bigger so I could get the details that I like, or smaller to cut out the details.
Too late now…

Not too much new here, other than the summer heat has moved in, and we’ve had the rainiest June on record. Although ‘on record’ seems to have a different meaning for news reporters these days. I was listening to a report on the local news the other night about how high the Minnehaha Creek in Minneapolis is flowing, and the reporter was enthusiastically stating that it was the highest measured since they installed the latest measuring device… in 2006. Wow! Really impressive! But seriously, this is the 2nd rainiest June since the 1870s, and we’ve got the mosquitoes to prove it.

Most of our birds seem to have moved on. We still have the blue jays, red winged blackbirds, chickadees and cowbirds, but very few orioles and hummingbirds. Even the goldfinches are few and far between. But I did get a couple of nice photos that I haven’t posted yet, an Indigo Bunting and an oriole,

I bought a kid’s wading pool for the dogs. I thought they would enjoy it in the heat, but Pyr had to be persuaded (actually, lifted) to go in, and Suka had more fun just playing with Christian,


I finished with my mule team drawing, and am moving on to a Baltimore Oriole drawing,

It’s a blustery, cold March day here. Oh, how quickly we forget… it’s 43° here, a month ago that would have been a heat wave.

I’ve opened a new Etsy shop (besides revamping my website) to sell my prints and notecards, and am slowly getting it stocked. It’s https://www.etsy.com/shop/GreyhavenArt. Between the website and the new shop, everything else was put on the back burner.

Our last trip to Florida we spent several days at a nice RV park in Gainesville, and they had an outdoor aviary with parrots in it. They were nice enough to let me spend some time inside to take pictures. Here’s the start of my drawing of one of the parrots,

I’m still doing beads, here’s some of my latest listings,

I really, really enjoy Pinterest. I’ve got lots and lots of recipes there, along with gardening and bead and art inspirations. I’ve also found a couple of my drawings there, with others claiming to have done them. I just can’t put my finished drawings on the internet without a watermark any more. I don’t like doing that, because it really detracts from the drawing, but really have no choice. I was really surprised to see how many people were using my Friesian stallion drawing, but the majority of them were using it for their profile pictures, so no harm done.

What a lovely day today!!! The sun is shining, it’s almost 20° and there’s a 40° day in the forecast! And my bobcat is coming today. I’m really looking forward to this summer and using it for landscaping etc.

I’ve been working on more murrini,

Some new listings on Etsy,


I finished the drawing of my latest butterfly, so now comes the magic of putting down the watercolors,

Some funny pics,

Winter just won’t quit. Yes, I know it’s only February, but by this time of the year we’re all so sick of winter, well, you get the drift. Speaking of which, more snow coming in tomorrow night, and then after that, another cold wave with -0 temps coming. Yup, so very, very ready for spring.

Not too much beadmaking going on here. With propane being so expensive, I turned down the thermostat even more, so this a.m. it was 51° in my studio. WAY too cold to be creative!! But I did finish my drawing of Baxter.

A funny pertinent Internet pic,

I’m REALLY sounding like a broken record, but we have another cold wave coming in, -17° tomorrow night. Getting really, really tired of it. At least it’s been sunny.

I’ve started on a new drawing, quite a bit smaller than the last, just 5 1/2” x 4”, so this one won’t take nearly as long as the elk. This is Baxter, our kitty that we just had to put down this past fall, when he was a kitten. He had such pretty blue eyes. This is in progress,

I just listed some new beads, and have several that I really like, especially the last one,



And a couple of funny Internet pics,

I’m going to sound like a broken record, I’m tired of winter and want warm weather!! It’s headed down to -14° tomorrow night, we’re going to have a warm up of one day with a low of 0°, then back down to -14°. Tired, tired, tired!!!

I finished my elk drawing, and am not really happy with it. I got too involved with the pen and ink in the foreground, so it got too dark, and the colored pencils dull the ink.

So it’s back to the drawing board to find something new to work on.
Funny internet pics!!