More rustic beauty

Sometimes life seems strewn with pink petals.

Magical almost, seen between showers in the afternoon light.

Ordinary raindrops appear to be crystal.

Barns like rural palaces where anything can happen.

A little drive down the road leaves me promising myself a whole day this summer when sunlight lasts for hours, bicycling around the valley to sketch the farms and barns.

Blessed. I am blessed.

On my work table

I haven't posted my art in ages.

Not because there hasn't been a lot (Oh, heavens! Quite the opposite!) but because there hasn't been time.

So here is a little peek today at what's laying on the art table as I prepare for the big show in New York in just a couple of weeks...

I shared about the farm and the goat cheese recipes multiplied;

now the rhubarb is up and there is a hoard of summer's blueberries in the freezer just begging to be turned into jam.

I am thinking so much about how grateful I am for this land in which we live.

With all its faults and blemishes, I'm beyond thankful for this nation and my own little piece of it, aren't you?

Simple pleasures

Produce stands opening again are a sure sign of spring.

In our valley, we hold them dear, not only for the local produce they sell, but as a social hub, a meeting point.

Neighbors rendezvous after a tour of the flower fields for a piece of fresh halibut and some seedlings for the garden. Perhaps a carton of organic duck eggs (remember, you are not in the city here.)

And an ice cream.

You can not leave without a cone.

It would almost be a crime.

A decadent cone, too, is a rite of spring.

This is the stuff of which memories are made.

A lifetime of  happiness consists of relishing these small, daily joys

and seeing them for the treasures they are.

Too soon the last drips are licked.

The light is turning golden.

I tuck the sketchbook and camera back into my purse

and we head for home.

Content.

Simple pleasures really are the best, aren't they?

Our little town

What fun to live in a small town, where you can bike past the library and have your neighbors shout greetings from their car, dog leaning out the window for a sniff of spring.

Past downtown, and that charming little steeple, past the coffee shop where everyone knows everyone, past the tiny Thai cafe where two sisters are already chopping vegetables, laughing all the while...

It was early morning and we had already packed the Easter boxes with food for the hungry. Soon I'm pedalling back over the bridge toward home.

What an amazing impressionist painting I saw in the water below...

like Monet come to life right here, right now.

 

Ours is an ordinary town full of extraordinary pleasures...

shadows on the bridge,

dandelions sprinkled on the sides of the path atop the dike along the river...

And then, just below that beautiful river there are the tulip fields.

I am alone here in all this splendor.

Sun shines through the petals as I bike along, wind ruffling my hair. 

I am by myself here in the fields, singing at the top of my lungs.

So much splendor and I am alone with all of it,

drinking in those amazing colors, ready to spill it out onto paper when I get back to the studio.

For some odd reason I just love to lay back along the row and gaze at the tulips from the bottom up.

And when you're alone, you can do just that!

There is nothing more refreshing than sunlight through flower petals.

Then I hop on my bike again, cycling down the back road for home, and the pleasures of our own garden. Cherry trees in bloom beside the studio window, where I sit sketching little boxes for a new collection that will be out in January.

Like Anne of Green Gables, "I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."

And this is just such a day in our little town.

Splendid creativity

Inside the studio, it's a bustle of activity

and outdoors it's no different.

Splendid creativity as far as the eye can see.

Someone once said, "Beauty is God's gift to artists."

I believe it.

I've been working a lot lately and playing hard in short bursts, with little time for sleep.

I'm aware again how even the finest art, our creativity, all our joy in the process is such a wonderful yet weak imitation of the amazing creation all around us.

All this really is a love letter from God...

Every leaf and cloud,

every puff of wind and every shade of the rainbow.

Pretty amazing, isn't it?

Bloom time

 

Our little valley is beautiful in every season but never more than spring.

And this year seems the best of all.

Every square foot is jam packed with miracles.

Even a simple path to a farm house shines.

 

 Tulips and daffodils in splendid brilliance that goes all the way to the horizon, looking for all the world like a travel brochure come to life. 

 That lush, lush shade of green seen only in spring.

Barns and flowering branches.

You can't take a single step without seeing something amazing...

even the dewy grass is beautiful.

I am so thankful for the place I live,

rich with color and beauty,

especially in springtime,

seen from a bicycle as you pedal with a dear friend,

laughing down the lanes, painting for hours in garden and fields

 and making memories you'll cling to long after the blossoms have gone.