Comfort Cottage

A Walk In The Park

A few weeks ago, after photographing the Brandywine Rughooker's exhibition, I noticed a beautiful park across the street from the library.  It was one of the first really nice days of spring, so I decided to take a closer look through the lens of my camera.  Would you like to take a walk with me?

 

 

Doesn't that bench look inviting?

 

 

I love the pattern of bricks at the entrance.

 

 

The flowers were glorious!

 

 

The cherry blossoms were amazing against the electric blue sky.

 

 

Wouldn't this be the perfect spot for wedding or prom photos?

 

 

All over the neighborhood, the magnolias were bursting into bloom.

 

Their pink fluffiness makes my heart skip a beat!

 

 

Down the street from the park, I found a lovely koi pond where I captured beautiful reflections on the water.

 

 

The koi appeared to be swimming in the clouds!

 

 

All the earth has come to life.

 

 

 They look like neon confetti!

 

 

The light brings out every detail.

 

 

 

We are surrounded by miracles.

 

 

I hope you find a few miracles of your own today.

 

 Happy Pink Saturday to all of my pink-lovng friends out there.  To enjoy all of the wonderful pinkness, click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.  Thank you to Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for hosting today's pink celebration!

Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Until next time,

 

Christmas In November

I know it's a bit early, but I just can't help myself.  A few years ago, my sister and I visited Longwood Gardens for their annual Christmas display.  Needless to say, it was magical and breathtaking.  Lorrie called me earlier this week to firm up our plans for this year.  I'm so excited because I'll be able to document our visit with my new camera.  Somehow, I missed sharing my photos from our 2008 visit.  They were taken with my old camera, but the beauty of Longwood shines through.  So come along with me, and we'll start the holiday season early.

 

 

This is the scene that greeted us as we entered the Conservatory.

 

 

I've never seen so many pointsettias in one place in my life!

 

 

 

I love the way the light played with the petals and leaves.

 

 

There was no shortage of Christmas trees!

 

 

The theme for that year was cranberries, so of course, there was a cranberry bog.

 

 

As always at Longwood, you have to remember to look up.

 

 

 

I love white lillies.

 

 

There was a gorgeous white poinsettia topiary surrounded by a sea of red geraniums.

 

 

 

 

The horse is made entirely of vines!

 

 

The cold didn't seem to deter this little fellow.

 

Sometimes we just have to remember all the beauty that surrounds us.

 

Until next time,

 

 

 

 

A Never Ending Story

Hello there!  How are you today?  I hope you'll drop me a comment today and tell me what you're up to.  I'm looking forward to a day at home.  Yesterday started with a bang.  My nineteen year old college sophomore son was diagnosed with pneumonia.  Of course, I spent the day running him to the doctor, whose appointment secretary insisted that there was no record of him having ever been a patient there.  It turns out that she looked up the wrong name.  That'll do it every time :)

I'm so happy you are joining me for Texture Tuesday.  To find out what it's all about, and to see many wonderful examples of digital art, please pay Kim a visit at Kim Klassen Cafe. Thank you, Kim, for providing us with such wonderful photoshop textures and inspiration!

This week's theme is Love.  It took me awhile to figure out how to approach this.  I went through my photos and finally, this one jumped out at me.  It is yet another one I took in Maine.  The lovely pair of flowers reminds me of the beauty of two hearts joined in love.  Not even when parted in death does their story end.  It lives on in the hearts and souls of all who loved and were loved by them.  It's effects spread out like ripples on the water.

 

 

I used one layer of Kim's Scripted Edges texture set to Linear Dodge over the photo.  I added a layer mask to the texture layer and brushed the texture away from just the pink blossoms.  It seemed to help bring them forward.  The font for the word "love" is Felt Pen.  The layer is set to Screen at 73 percent opacity.  The font for the rest of the text is Porcelain, set to Normal.

Thank you so much for visiting!

Until next time,

 

A Maine Pink Saturday

I'm just getting back to somewhat of a normal routine after our summer adventures, and I have some wonderful pink to share with you.  Yes, even in Bass Harbor, I found you some pink.  The thing I was most enchanted by as I strolled through Bass Harbor was the seaside cottages.  Of course, it's always fun to read about them in magazines, but it was fabulous to get out and photograph some of them myself.  Are you ready?  When I saw this one, I could hardly believe my eyes.  You can probably guess what went through my mind when I saw it.

 

 

Is this cute, or what?

 

 

 

There was a botanical garden of wildflowers in Acadia National Park.

 

 

 

I found lots of beautiful pink flowers on the islands.

 

 

These lovely geraniums were growing in the yard of a historic church.

 

 

I think these are nootka roses.

 

 

 

This beautiful garden was in Bass Harbor.

 

 

Another magical Bass Harbor cottage.

 

 

It's gardens were inviting.

 

 

On this trip to Maine, we explored a new place.  We went to Deer Isle.  Deer Isle is accessible by a very narrow, high bridge.  Though the ride over it is a bit hair-raising,  the island is a peaceful place to escape from the real world.

 

 

On the opposite side of Deer Isle is one of the most productive fishing ports in the country-Stonington.  I fell in love with this town.  It was everything I imagined a seaside town could be.   Street after street of shingle-style  cottages charmed me.  Like the brilliant hues in my paint box,  color dripped from window boxes and mingled together into a dazzling sea.

 

 

The fushia was such a deep pink, it was almost red.

 

 

 

I walked to the end of the main street and followed the road up a steep hill.  If I had stopped just a step to soon, I would have missed this storybook bed and breakfast.

 

 

 

 

These looked like giant zinnias but I'll bet some of you gardeners out there will know what they are.

 

 

I found bunches of these growing by the roadside.

 

 

It is called fireweed, because it is also commonly found growing in burned out areas.

 

Finally, for today, a few beautiful Maine sunsets from Mount Desert Island.

 

 

This one is from the marsh at Seawall.

 

 This is from the shore on the other side of Seawall.

That's all for now.  I hope you've enjoyed sharing the pinkness of Maine with me.  If you would like to visit all of the Pink Saturday participants, please click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.  I want to thank Beverly at How Sweet The Sound for hosting another wonderful Pink Saturday.

I have much more of Stonington to share with you.  I hope you'll join me later this week as we continue our tour!

 

Until next time,

 

Pink Saturday Sunrise

Hello, my friends!  Happy Pink Saturday!  It's been awhile since I've been able to come up with some pink for you, but my recent trip to Badlands National Park in South Dakota has provided me with some gorgeous pinks.  Before I share them with you, I want to thank Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for hosting our weekly pink get-together.  If you would like to visit all of our wonderful pink particpants, just click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.

 

This week, I visited Dixie at French Lique for the first time.  If you love antiques, you will love her latest post.  She takes us to visit an amazing shop called The Curious Boys, in French Lique, Texas.  Thanks, Dixie!

 

Finally, I have some pink to share with you.  I snapped this photo at sunrise last week in the Badlands.

 

 

 

There were many species of wildflowers.  This one is the musk thistle.

 

 

This one is field milkvetch.

 

 

Those were the more tame photos from my Badlands trip.  Next week, I'll show you the rattlesnake that was curled up three feet behind me as I waited for the sunset.  Have a great week, and thank you for visiting.  You are what makes Comfort Cottage special.

 

Until next time,

 

Stubborn Is Good

Artist lady say what???  Yes, there is a time when stubbornness is the only response that will do.  In this roller coaster that is life, I am coming to believe that the quality that will sustain us the most is the one we often find less than attractive.  What else can you do when things are falling apart, you have no answers,  and that freight train is approaching with alarming speed?  God's goodness and faithfulness are a guarantee.  It is when we are about to go over the edge, that the greatest power comes to us in the form of stubborn faith.  It is so liberating to stamp your feet, dig in your heels, and refuse to believe that God is anything but good and faithful.  It turns us from victims to victors.

 

 

 

Let's all be bull-headed today!

 

Until next time,

 

 

Expect The Unexpected

Those of you who follow me here at Comfort Cottage know that I just returned from an amazing adventure in Badlands National Park in South Dakota.  If there's anything I've learned from this trip, it is to expect the unexpected.  Due to our downstairs air conditioning unit burning through it's circuit board, and the ensuing enormous repair bill, we had cancelled our camping trip out west.  I had made peace with this turn of events and accepted that the trip wouldn't be happening this year.  Then, a miraculous turn of events, and we were on our way to South Dakota.  God's ways are not our ways.  Just when we think we have things figured out, He does the impossible.

 

 

Since I had two and a half days on the way out in the car, I did a lot of drawing in my art journal.  I added the paint when I returned home.  It's amazing where your mind goes when you're confined to a car :)

 

I hope you have an unexpectedly wonderful day.

 

Until next time,

 

Home From The Heartland

We are home at last.  My hubby decided on Saturday that he wanted to drive straight through from Minnesota to Pennsylvania.  Have you looked at a map lately?  It was a twenty-two hour marathon.  We arrived at our doorstep at 3 a.m. on Sunday.  Needless to say, I slept until noon.  I was so happy to get back to my own computer so I could begin processing the 958 photos I took this week.  Yessiree, I broke in the new camera good!  

 

We had one of the Badlands infamous thunderstorms on Tuesday.  The weather here is amazingly variable and often violent.   At 8 a.m. it looked like this:

 

 

By eleven, it looked like this.

 

 

 

The open prairie is not the place you want to be when you are the highest object out there.

 

 

Before the storm we got out of the car at Cedar Pass and went for a walk.

 

 

 

I heard a loud rustle in the bushes, and then...

 

 

Wild turkeys!

 

 

As we walked, we were treated to beautiful views.

 

 

 

This little guy, a rock wren, was out hunting for his breakfast...a nice juicy slug.  Yum!

 

 

You wouldn't think anything could grow on this rock, but it does.  It was especially green this year, due to the unusually heavy amount of rainfall.

 

 

When walking, it's so important to remember to look down.  There is a wealth of life at your feet.  This tiny creature is a notch-tipped flower longhorn.  It is a member of the beetle family.

 

 

 

 The white flower is bindweed.  It is a member of the morning glory family.

 

 

If you look closely at the upper left, you will see three little beetles munching away on the plants.  The only species I could match the photo to is the asparagus beetle.  They were accidentally introduced from Europe to Maryland in 1881.  Since their habitat is usually vegetable gardens, I can't imagine what they're doing in the Badlands.  They're obviously enjoying the bindweed.

 

 

 

That's all I have for today.  I'll be sharing more with you this week.  Have a wonderful day!

 

Until next time,

 

Open Tulips

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!  I've been busily painting in my studio.  I pulled out another photo from my Longwood Gardens archives.  I was so taken with these tulips.  I've never seen them open like that before.  They looked so dramatic.

 

 

 

Open Tulips

Watercolor on 140lb. cold press paper

 

In a day or two, I'll have photos to share with you from a charming place called St. Peter's Village.  Keep on creating!

 

Until next time,

 

Pink Saturday Water Lilies

Hello to all of my Pink Saturday friends!  I hope you are all well.  For all things pink, click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.  You'll find plenty of good things to satisfy your pink craving.  Most importantly, let's let Beverly at How Sweet the Sound know how much we appreciate her hosting our weekly event!  Also, pay a visit to Francie at The Scented Cottage.  She's sharing a wonderful tutorial on rewiring a lamp.

 

This has been a rough week in the studio.  I was determined to complete this painting for today, but it was definitely a fight.  After a few false starts, I finally came up with something.  While kayaking, I shot quite a few photos of the waterlilies on Hopewell Lake.  They inspired my painting this week.

 

 

Pair of Water Lilies

Watercolor on 140lb. cold press

 

I spent a few late hours, but it was worth it!   Have a wonderful weekend!

 

Until next time,