my happy ending

I am in the Idaho mountains... cool days, cooler nights. After the first couple of days dealing with some sort of stomach malfunction I have climbed back in the saddle. I brought more in the way of art and book making supplies than I did clothing (I know from experience I wear the same thing day in and day out).

I have a card table facing the deck and look out onto a mountainside covered with pine trees... I watch the hummingbirds fight over the bird feeder, I sip tea, pop my ipod in, and play with color and texture.

I brought a couple art journals I have in the process... here is a page I've been working on since I got here... see the cyclists on the ridge line? I had gone to a mountain bike race the second day I was here... This shot doesn't show what I've done to it in the last day of two...
I did make a book : ( it is a dud.

And finally I was feeling well enough to take to the trails and along with me I brought a small water color journal. First hike was Adams Gulch... and area where the trails loop around and back all over the place, and also a place I can walk to... goal: to refill the tank when I'm on my way out of the valley in September.

This is a creek crossing that had a nice shady place to sit and a view of the trail ahead.

And here is my watercolor sketch. I've told myself I'm going to try for one a day... develop my observational skills and my color mixing.

Today, because I walked early and did a Nia class... and it was threatening rain... I chose this spot which is an easy stroll from the apartment... I even had a picnic table to sit on... this is a wood bridge over Warm Springs Creek.

And here is the water color sketch... rain drops made me pack up and run. Better, I think than the day before.

And here is the never ending scarf.... yes, roo, I am knitting... it is loooong! right now I can wrap it around my neck 3x and have the tails hang to my waist... but I will not stop until I'm out of yarn. Hopefully that will be by the weekend, since I've ordered The Sweater Workshop, and want to start the sample so by the time I make it back to Phoenix I have the nerve to start a sweater from that beautiful yarn I purchased a month ago.

FYI... Payne gray sky and rolling thunder... pure heaven for a desert rat. sheets of rain!!!!