Julie's garden is growing beautifully, but she has a visitor in it; a chipmunk or a thirteen-lined ground squirrel (which is what Julie thinks it is and has named him "Squirreley") is entering right through the wire, burrowing in and out and up and down and having a fabulous time.  She is now trying chicken wire.

 

 

But it's doing well.  These are San Marzano tomatoes; pretty how they grow.  She also has Roma, Better Boy and Brandywine.

 

 

eggplant

 

 

beans

 



 

 zucchini ... and much more.

 

 

And, of course, zinnias are a must!

writing stories

At the beginning of summer, I looked for some ideas of things to do with the girls on the days that they were here with me.  Found a great book on Amazon called "Show Me A Story" by Emily K. Neuburger.  One of the projects, to encourage children's storytelling and imagination is this one. 

I made a bunch of cards with words and phrases printed on them.  Then I made three "fancy paper" envelopes and divided the cards into them.  I named the envelopes "Beginning", "Middle" and "End".
Each time they were going to write a story, they chose a card from each of the three envelopes, taped the cards at the top of their paper and began composing their story with the beginning word, the middle word and the ending word.  So these are Danielle's and Kassidy's resulting stories.

and...

 



 

and...

 



 

and...

 



 and...

 

and...

 



 

and...

 



 

fun!

the frog

This is a collage that I did a while back in one of my classes.  I felt it needed an addition of "something" and so had just been sitting on the side waiting for my muse.

Found this lovely frog pin at "Shirley's Place" in Palos Heights last week and decided I was meant to find him to put into this piece.  He is happy hopping around these water plants and I am happy to put him in my upstairs bathroom with all my collections of shells and seaside items! 

Ribbit!  Ribbit!

Art at Lake Katherine

This week's art session was at Lake Katherine; a beautiful place to be on a beautiful summer day.

 



Beautiful trumpet vine and a very busy bee...

Lois, sketching and keeping an eye on all of us.

 



And here's Joan taking in all the beautiful colorful flowers.

 



 

 Later, back at the critique, here is Joan's painting of the garden...

 

and another of those colorful lilies.

 



Everyone ended the day with beautiful drawings and paintings. 

Mary's...

 



and Mary's butterfly watercolor.

 



Lois C

 



Peggy's cone flowers

 



 

The critique (back at The Center).

 

 

 Tish's vibrant flowers.

 

 

 Luce's pencil drawing

 

 

and Leslie's pencil drawing.

 

 

Luce also has a lovely start on this watercolor.

 

 

Sandy's waterfall.

 

Marge's flower watercolor.

 



 

Leona's waterfall

 

 

and pen & ink by Lois H

 

Another very enjoyable day.