Waterfall...Deadwood SD

Deadwood Gulch South Dakota.

Discovering gold 'em them thare hills...eventually had many digging in the same area for the same stuff, and in time, the town evolved. This was a rough tough rowdy town.
Hills skyping straight up!!..you look up ..and there is a little shack or a house ...a building of some kind..i do not know HOW they got their supplies there to construct anything!!

In addition to human dangers were mother nature dangers. The weather!...they put their town in the gulch, in between mountains..which when it rained...they flooded.
I am here t tell you, no way would i want to spend the winter trapped there.
All this aside...it is GORGEOUS!!

Here is a waterfall, straight off the mountainside.
I have this 'thing' for waterfalls...i love the sound they make...and they are so pretty to watch.
I took this at 7 a.m. (it gets light there at 4 a.m.!!!)
the waterfall is on the west side of this hill.

Thank you everyone who responded to my question last post...we got some great answers and I really appreciate the helpful guidance.

:)

thanks for coming by...

Blog Question??

Here is a project Ang and I undertook while visiting with mom in VA...Ang made a special trip to come to me from Alexandria VA...Ang brought flowers and veggie plants galore and proceeded to clean moms outside beds of the old to place the new and updated moms outer sanctuary...I took an old chair and cleaned it up...painted it a color of moms choosing and when we were in town returning a few items found the perfect cushions!
So mom has her sanctuary back to go out and enjoy the outdoors.


My question for today...for you who blog, is it more proper to answer a comment within the comment section?

Usually i answer in an email directly to the visitor...but I see more that answers/thankyou's are given within the comment section.

How do you handle this?

The Road is OUT!

We are by NO means experiencing horrid floods like Louisiana, Mississippi or probably Kansas...but we have a few issues. It has been raining quite a bit of inches in a day and the creeks and ponds and ditches and river is FULL..all backed up. The water is raging. Of course I have the pictures backwards but the pipe that goes under the road for Eggerton Creek (our creek) erupted on the neighbors side (pic 3).. Within an hour the water was on the road raging demolition to the top as well as the bottom the bottom is seeing a LOT more raging action than the top. Our side still has the pipe and that may help the road base.

This shows the erupted pipe with the water on top the road. Really washing. there is a road closed sign up and idiots continue on through...will it be the next one or the twentieth one to try and pass when the road caves??

the third picture shows the pipe errupting. i think the tree stuck in it might have caused the intial lift off. Rain through tuesday...!

Thanks for coming by...

New Student...today was session one

Shayla is a freshman in high school...loves to sketch and draw..but wants some help learning to mix colors and use a paintbrush...so

we began today learning some of the basic block building stuff

i introduced her to paints and she got a feel for mixing and how to use her brush some...working up 3 backgrounds to use in the next session...on 3 different substrates.

Her blue background is on acrylic paper, the middle background is canvas, the third background is watercolor paper.

She also made a simple easy sew book but I forgot to get a picture.

I think she had a good time and i hope i didn't bombard her with too much information in the session.

I was exhausted when i was done so i do believe i imparted with a fair amount of information!

I haven't taken the pictures of my class projects from art and soul VA yet....

thanks for coming by

My Trip to VA

I went back home for a month!
Visited family, enjoyed my friends! and met an on-line friend in person!
Angela lives in the DC area operates a plant nursery and took time to come visit and help me at Mom's...she is taking a break fishing off the dock at Mom's..she is the energizer bunny...and her battery never gets low! She planted mom a garden with plants she brought with her, cleaned out the old beds and ran me around town.

Here is a sample of her gorgeous plants!


she found this plant stand in the trees and it makes the perfect showpiece on moms deck she can see it from her regular chair place...and just loves that.








This is my childhood home! I flourished sketching and fishing and just sitting on the beach!













Anne Gaal and her husband Brian drove up from NC just_to_meet_ME!
How special is that!
Two of the nicest people!!
Both are artist so we never stopped talking..then went to supper at an Italian place in Ocean View..it was delicious we had a FABULOUS evening!!

I talk a lot about Colleen and Angie HerE they ArE!!!


Colleen and I went to Art and Soul Hampton and took 2 classes...I will talk more about them in the next post.. The box arrived today with my class samples

I need to take pictures.

We all had a glorious time helping mom and visiting her...oops I didn't add moms picture

so I will in the next post...sorry!

Thanks for dropping by and more thanks for those who have emailed me wondering where I am...and asking about my health...Y'all are so thoughtful!

More later...

It Passed Us!

The big storm passed us...and I HOPE it passed the others in its path.

You can just see the funnel forming in this picture then it slid off to the east.

The only report I heard was the storm was intense. I didn't hear about a tornado touching down.

Not a good sign...

You see this group? They are Storm Chasers!

you know what they do? Chase bad storms like tornado's...you know where they are! parked 5 miles from my place in town waiting for the tornado's...how impressed am I??

NOT VERY!

Last count were 75 of these individual teams! They travel as a herd...I don't know if you know this...now you do...

More lessons

Two more compositions I achieved using Susan's workbook...

Hanna's graduation picture was my fist accomplishment...

these other two pictures were in the workbook...actually the lady with the umbrella i did more to and this isn't the correct finished piece...but i am not redoing the post

Digital Practice

Learning digital compositions using Susan Tuttle's new workbook

Photo Impressions

has helped me tremendously. she gives good lessons with step by step instructions...helpful inspiring works to get you going and a CD! that has ready images and brushes to get you going and sources to grab more!

IF i can achieve decent results...anyone can.

She is also offering a workshop on line.

Check out the book tho you won't be disappointed.

And NOWWWW where they put me up!!!

Dacotah Prairie Museum put me up at the Ward Hotel, a historically preserved hotel on main street. Gorgeously kept up and restored!!
My room was small but cozy and CLEAN . This is what i saw as i entered



Then from another angle the other side... HUGE window! overlooking main street









This closet was nearly as large as the room..I can only think so to put out the extra bed if you needed one??







the bathroom..









waiting for me at the desk...was this gorgeous bouquet of flowers Colleen sent for my birthday!!! they smelled so good like wildflowers as you walk the field...

I really enjoyed my room...I didn't get to see much of it as I had duties to keep me at the center until late every night...everyone else was done by 3 right after the last session...but firing the kiln kept me going some longer...it was worth the efforts
The hotel had a restaurant too and their food was delicious!!!

Days for Aberdeen Class Seminar Arrive

I arrive in Aberdeen and set up the classroom.

You see along the wall under the windows I set up assembly style.







After a brief lecture about glass in general and about points specific to fusing...the students make a tile.






After much dilemma over kiln issues...no plug after all, for my huge kiln I brought along..a borrowed kiln that essentially wouldn't heat up well...I pushed the little quick fire I brought along to handle the many fuses of the day and here are the students results.
Bails attached and ready to send to them...this about 1/2 of the class projects..at the time the others were in different stages of completion.

All in all I think the students had a great day!

3 other artist involved were
a couple: Nick and Nichole Fisher represented murals
Rocky Hartberg for Story Illustration
Michelle Bacon on Ceramics

Judging workshop with Nathen Cantwell and Emily Williams Wheeler
key note speaker: Brad Bachmeier


We had a full 2 days...it went smoothly and I think everyone teachers included came away with information to ponder.

:)

Prep for Intro-Glass Fusing

I am late late late...posting the process for this class.

This class was given through the Dacotah Prairie Museum in Aberdeen, South Dakota.
April 22-24

For the past 15 years they invite High School students interested
in art to this seminar to learn more on the subject through accomplished artists shown through the museum.


To prepare I made samples of their project.


Cut blanks they worked on decorating with glass powders and frits.






Shows decorated tile before firing in the kiln.








Tiles coming out of the kiln. You will see in another post the students work from that workshop.

The top picture of the necklace was demonstrated to show them where they can take their finished tile.
Glass drilled with holes and jump rings made to fit...created a wearable art piece.

Film at 11:00!!

It has taken forever for me to get to this point! First, not everything I needed did I order with the camera...frustrating! (they should have a more complete list) but, the piece arrived and I finally filmed something.

THEN, all the 'fun' begins...NOT!

The program discs that were sent with the camera to work through editing and such tasks...a task as necessary as getting the film OFF the camera were so confusing. It took me 2 days to get the film off the camera...then editing oh shuuuure ...that wasn't happening.

Then I remembered I had a different program that I had ordered a long time ago when I was considering getting a camcorder... Corel VideoStudeo Pro X2...

I am removing those other programs!

This came with instructions! the Canon did not..these instructions have pictures! ThankYou! VeRy Much!

So here is my debut..How to Drill Glass...In the bazillion years of instructing glass techniques..one of THE most frequent questions I have been presented with "how do you make holes in glass?"

Diamond tip bits, and water to keep the glass cool are the most important aspects of the process. This shows the simplest set up for single layer glass to be drilled..the thicker the glass the setups change however, this is a basic introduction to the process.

Now you can take those little pieces of found glass shards from a walk on the beach or park, drill them full of holes and incorporate them into all kinds of projects...from jewelry to decorating journals and fabric projects...lets go find some glass!...(hey or shells...)

I need to add that your hands remain dry while using the drill..just the tip of the drill bit is actually wet. Remain aware of what you are doing at all times so you prevent shocking yourself.

There are available foot operating pedals that you can use for turning the drill on and off, you may want to investigate one of these tools for other applications such as the grinder...they make excellent partners to equipment.

Be careful, if you do have any questions please do not hesitate addressing them here..

Thank you!