SummmmmerTimetimetime...

Yay!  Let's hear it for summer!  Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray!! I celebrated early by painting green green trees.



These.  All on the clearance rack.  I feel like I struck gold.  I got one of each colour, and two of a few.

Details of the Masterpiece I was able to produce using these fine clearance items:

Ok, so its not a Masterpiece.  But I had fun painting it.  And somebody somewhere will like it.  Until then, its living thumbtacked to my wall.

Summer Solstice Pink Sky.

This morning's watercolour.

 I got more of those clearance VanGogh tube Watercolours at the HobbyLobby.  Today I couldn't resist the #327 Madder Lake Light.  That, along with a little Olive Green #620 with some #270 Azo Yellow Deep and I got happy.

I didn't spend any time on this, I just played with my new toys.

Random Q:
Do Christmas Cactus always bloom in the summertime in addition to Christmas time?  Or is this one just confused?  Happily confused.

I have been drinking my kefir out of this mug everyday and it is making me so happy.  What's not to love?

Here's some more luscious VanGogh colours in that crazy Anthro journal that won't open right and cost a fortune.  I don't care, I still love it.
Happy Summer Solstice everybody!  xoxo

Bonnaroo At Home.

I did this watercolour at 6 a.m. while listening to Bonnaroo Live on the RedBull channel.  I watched Leon Bridges and then I watched it again later on because it was just that good.  I even turned Grandma onto it and she loved it.  Grandma loved it!  JAH turned me on to this channel.  Her quote, "I love Bonnaroo At Home, it reminds me of the Phish Couch Tour".

I, too, am a fan.  Bonnaroo At Home.  Waaaay more convenient than going there. And camping.  I have been living Bonnaroo all weekend long through my teens. They took off and went there and my house is so quiet. So sooo quiet.  All I can hear are the Cicadas, and even that's dwindling.

Every so often I get a SnapChat update.  They're positively fascinating, these SnapChats-from-teens.  The GlitterBeard my son was sporting was a super-special SnapChat which I shall always treasure, at least until it disappears in 10 seconds.  First thing this morning I watched Dead&Co SnapChats and they sounded INcredible!  I am very very happy that they went so I didn't have to.

All weekend long I did things like listen to the quiet, and I cleaned up their secret hidden messes, and I shopped at the HobbyLobby- all one word in my world.  I found these, Van Gogh tube watercolours in the clearance section.  Yay!  They're what I used to paint this masterpiece.  I don't know that they made me paint any better, but they are quite nice.

Now mind you, this "weekend" has lasted since last Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. (well it was 7:20 when they finally pulled out of the driveway).  What I'm saying is, its been a long  long weekend here for us adults.  I am so ready for all one hundred of my teens to come home.

Giant Cicadas Lurking.

Giant.

Some of them are a lot bigger than the others.

Lurking in the garden.

Trying to blend in.

His wings are a little lopsided today.

This huge one should be shedding his skin any second now.

This one is living on my RedNeck Fridge.

I almost didn't see this one, he's hiding in hostas.

I am embarrassed to show this photo but there was one in my washing machine after the campers returned home and did one hundred loads of soggy wet laundry. I think he is a goner.

NMF Cicadaville.

Nelsonville Music Festival.  Our little Coachella.  Practice site for Bonaroo. This is such a sweet scene.

This year the Cicadas were everywhere, enjoying the music.  This one was in my teen's tent-under-a-pop-up.  I think he's been living with them for the entire weekend.

photo by Lucy Williams

Cicada technicians.

photo by Lucy Williams

These golden Cicada shells adorned a hat.  I don't know if he found the rare, gold shells (which are worth thousands), or if he spritzed them with some krylon.

This was one of the fancy variety.

No, I did not pull wings off of Cicadas.  They left them for me all by their own free will.  I looked down at the floor of a shelter house and they were everywhere, little iridescent wings.  I saved them for Fairies to borrow.

I have to admit, I didn't like touching them so I paid the little children to gather them up.  Didn't phase them a bit.

This path leads to Festival Cicadaville.  There's some hardy campers back there.

More Cicada Love.

These two are doing something.  Is THIS how they do it?  I'll bet its so they don't have to look at each other since they're so ugly and all.  I mean really, its for the best, don't you agree?

Cicada Love.

They. Are. Everywhere.  And I mean everywhere.

These guys just crawled right out of their shells.  And they just leave them laying around (see above photo).  Rather rude if you ask me.

Then they start their march up the trees.

Sometimes they get confused and mistake blades of grass for a tree.  Hey, they've been underground for 17 years, it takes a minute to get it together.

The migration "up".

I do not like it when they come up on my porch.

Stay outside, please.

I think a Hummingbird and a Grasshopper and a T-Rex got married one day and had a baby and it was a Cicada.  The first Cicada.

No no, Cicada's didn't do this to this poor tree.  A Pileated Woodpecker did this, according to my dad.  Apparently this tree has an insect problem and the Woodpecker is happy to try to help.  Oops, he may have went a little too far.

Obviously the bugs are winning out here in this neck of the woods.  Its fun to say it.  "bugs, winning".  (Say it like Charlie says it, because that's how I am saying it in my mind.)

Thank Goodness there's a new mobile chocolaterie parked in town.  Saved!