Dispatch From Lodi: Leaves, Scenes, and Dreamy Faces.

Hello Lovely People.  Its Halloween weekend and I live right outside the quintessential Halloween Party Town.  People are already highly costumed and liquored up and its barely 10 a.m.  Let the festivities begin.  I can say that because I usually stay out here in the country where the only ruckus is my hungry pony banging on the gate telling me "hey lady, you're one minute late with an oat".

The country silence in the studio was perfect for contemplating which leaf was the prettiest.

I did this for a long time.

Each one is prettier.  Surely you get it.

I kept lining them up and making them smile for me.

Smile dang it.

I realized I couldn't stop looking at them and playing with them because they were inspiring me to make leaf watercolours.  That's next on the list.

I love these little imperfections and patterns and veins and spots.

Poser.

More posers.

Last one I swear it.

I have a ton of Baggin' 'N Taggin' to do.  Well, taggin', the baggin' is complete for the most part.  I do enjoy a nice tag and nice tags take time people.  So right after I attempt a leaf watercolor I'm going to "design" some nice tags and then whip them out with some help from my rubber stamp alphabets.

She needs both Bagged and Tagged.

I had to go to the GitMo day before yesterday and this sky greeted me upon walking out the door to the parking lot.  Walking out of GitMo in and of itself is always wonderful, but this made it even more so.

So I took the new highway instead of the old highway to go home, which btw is the exact same distance to town so its a decision I love to make.  Each route has its own perks and pleasures.  This way is quite scenic, I love it up on the ridge.

And today was especially nice.  Can you see the nice brisk fall wind in this picture?

And just look at that red barn against that sky.  I am so blessed to live here.

The cows were starting to go to the barn.  Feeding time.

Low Autumn Sunshine.

Sky.

In b&w it sort of looks like the end of the Earth up there.

Nope, just more prettiness up over the hump.

Then I started to see it...

a rainbow.  Its pot of gold must be at the farmhouse.

It was trying to be a double rainbow.

Further on up the road is what I've always called the Haunted Woods.  I'm certain the Blair Witch lives in here somewhere.  I obviously never recovered from the movie which I watched years ago in a living room on a humongous couch with about 25 kids.  It was somehow comforting and got me through it.  I highly recommend watching scary shows this way, the more kids the better.

It is one of Life's Most Wonderful Pleasures to pull in your driveway, isn't it?

Earlier in the studio I had been going through a box of older work.  I had to snap a photo of Baby April.

Baby April and Sunny.

April's sister, doin' her thang.

A quick shot of tere's Tunnel.  Goodbye leaves.  Tony Cavalier says wet leaves can be as slippery as ice so watch it party people.

Its not looking very tunnel-like right now.

These little mixed media kids are from a journal I made.  I like their dreamy expressions.

Ok I swore that was the last leaf picture but I lied .   Here's another one yay!  Have a fabulous Halloween Eve!  xoxo

Dispatch From Lodi: Assignment Yellow Chair.

I finished this piece months ago and its been sitting in the studio.  Its kind of lost.  I got it out today and put a finish on it and then photographed it.  It was so nice to see it.  I feel its time is coming soon.

"Assignment:  Yellow Chair"  Mixed Media by tereSager

detail

Then since I was already doing it, I put a finishing coat of gel medium on this small bookcover painting.

I started playing with a half-forgotten piece on watercolour paper from "the pile".  Once I got going I started liking things.  This is a detail area of the piece, and its hard to tell that its a pony's face.

He has his long nose down in the flowers/grass.

Yes you read that correct.

It must have been my mood, even the plastic tablecloth looked pretty to me today.

Was this gigantic SuperMoon shining across the road making me see things in a different light?

It started raining again and walking in the house the aroma of U.S. Senate Bean Soup hit me right away.  The house was cozy and that soup tasted good.

I wish I could tell you some wonderful "secret" to making this soup taste wonderful, but honestly its different every single time I make it.  I do think one secret, not just to this soup but to all soups, is to saute' and slightly caramelize things in a cast iron skillet before adding them to the pot.  Especially if you're cooking it in a CrockPot.  And if that skillet has been used everyday for over a hundred years, even better.  But I just made that up.

Obviously its waay past my bedtime.  Goodnight party people.  I'm very late because Daylight-Savings-Time-ends-this-weekend training was supposed to be going on and I forgot to go to bed extra early.  xoxo