A Time For New Adventures........

We've been in Florida for a month now and just love it here.  On our road trip I got to stop in VA and meet a friend of mine, have dinner together and enjoy a wonderful evening with her, it was an amazing treat.  The dogs weren't all that thrilled about the car ride but they made it just fine to their new home here in Orlando.   I'm saying goodbye to blogging for now, for many reasons, I think it is a decision that will be good for me.  I'll be leaving my blog on line but will no longer be posting.  If anyone needs to reach me, my new email address is:  rhwelter@gmail.com   . 

Time To Hit The Road......

With just 1 1/2 weeks left until my move, I'll be hitting the road with Chris, Dudley and Orchid, heading to Orlando soon.  I'll be taking a few weeks off from blogging to get my new house in order and complete some projects we would like to work on right away (before we get lazy).  Will see you in July with a new, well organized art studio (that is the plan anyway).

Retirement Day Ceremony

After 26 years of service in the US Army Chris had his official retirement ceremony this past Thursday morning.  While we are not leaving until the second week of June, we scheduled the ceremony this past week to allow plenty of time for family to fly in to join us .  Thanks to the band's publicity section for the wonderful photo of us at the ceremony.  After 26 years in the US Military Academy Band at West Point, of which I've been along for the whole ride, the good and bad along the way, Chris will leave in June and we'll start a whole new chapter of our lives.

This is a photo of the band during the 2007 outdoor summer concert series at Trophy Point.  There is a beautiful view from this location out to the Hudson River, it is a very pretty place to have concerts each summer.

When we head out in June we have lots of great memories and photos to take with us.

NY Botanical Garden Orchid Show - Pt 1

A few weeks ago Chris and I went to the annual orchid show at the NY Botanical Garden.  There was not a theme to the show this year, just beautiful orchids everywhere we looked and funny enough, this was my favorite show in years.

There are too many photos to share in one post so I will spread out the eye candy over a couple of weeks.

 

We even had some fun with the new digital camera with some of it's interesting features.

The displays were just stunning this year and words are not really needed to take the tour.  This event is always a visual treat for the eyes and a perfect afternoon spent celebrating spring.  ENJOY!!!

First Day Of Spring.....

My newest painting was finished this past week, my last one for a while.  My studio is being cleaned, sorted through and boxed up over the next week or so.  It is amazing how much junk I found and also located things I've been looking for as well.  Too many art supplies and too little time I guess.  I probably will not be getting back to painting until July as we'll have things to do on our new house that we want to take care of right away (to actually make sure we do them) and also, we want to spend some time driving around and doing things in our new area, to get to know everything and have a bit of fun as well.

Last week we finished all the odds and ends in the basement and I stumbled upon a bit of a surprise. 
I found our old coffee table buried under a pile of boxes that had accumulated over it through the years ( I knew about the boxes so that was no shock ) but the coffee table had quite a pile of nuts on it.....yes, nuts and nuts mean that there was a squirrel in my basement at some point enjoying a meal.  I'm so glad he left before I could run into him down there, I would have screamed my head off.  We're leaving NY for Orlando on June 12 and while most of the work is done, there are still some things to sort through.  Hopefully no more squirrel surprises though.....yuk.

Anyway, this little chickadee is 6" x 6" on gallery canvas and the bird, tree and greenery are all done with stucco for extra texture. 

Sun Drenched Irises......

"Sun Drenched Irises" is the latest piece to roll out of my studio this week.  I really love bearded irises and wanted to create another painting of sunny colored flowers this time around.  I decided on the very pretty yellow / orange shade and got to work on my canvas.  This one measures 16" h x 8" w and is 1 1/2" d.

The blooms and leaves are once again done in stucco so you can see and feel the texture, which I'm really liking these days. 

The rest of the week was spent doing a bit of work around the house , still purging junk but at this point, we are almost finished with that end of it, which is a really good feeling.  Also trying to get out there and enjoy some spring weather too, nothing like a good walk to clear the cob webs.

Cleaning The Clutter Of My Life......Plus Some Art Card Designs

 Before I get to the clutter part of my life, I did make a couple of new art cards a while back.  The "Butterfly Garden" card above was created from the original painting below (with Chris's help cropping and sizing everything).  I'm very happy with the way this one turned out.

Chris had to do a bit more work on the "Bearded Iris Garden" card because the original painting below was a big square and he was trying to change the shape while keeping as much of the main subject as possible.  I would love to get these art cards (including all that I did before this) photographed and onto ETSY but I just don't think that is going to happen at this point.  Seems like too much to get done for now and this kind of thing can wait until the upcoming months.

With just over 2 months until we leave West Point, I have some clutter and garbage to remove from my life.  For me, the worst possible thing would be to not bother with it now and have the movers pack all my trash, with me having to throw it all away when I get to Orlando.  I'm trying to avoid that so I've been working in my messy studio above to go through everything, recycle what I can, throw away what I don't need and just organize what I'm taking with me to make it easier to pack.  I tackled the messiest part of the room this week, the area to the left of my desk that is actually not in this photo.  It is all clean, organized and ready to go....I was able to get rid of a ton of junk from this area.  Going through everything I found things I hadn't seen in years, things I wondered why I didn't throw away long ago and many items that gave me the "so that is where it has been all this time" moment.

Dudley of course kept me company through the whole thing and I think was standing there in awe of my finally having done the stuff I should have done a long time ago.  He by the way offered no help with this task what so ever but did stop long enough to pose for the camera.