A Warm Summer Day In Jacksonville, Florida

This photo is for all of you who live in the southern hemisphere . We are still in our coats and sweaters here in North Florida. The weather reports for the U.S. sound like someone's bad dreams - snow, killer tornados, ice storms, baseball sized hail, huge trees uprooted, telephone and electricity out, dangers of mudslides and floods The earlier fears of a shortage of heating oil may come true if the weather doesn't start behaving in a more "normal" fashion.

While freezing temperatures sweep through large sections of the country, the inhabitants of the far north are seeing the icebergs melt and the ice sheets getting smaller and smaller. With evidence of global warming showing up in the polar regions, and the extreme weather patterns throughout the US, I don't understand how anyone can say that global warming doesn't exist.

I understand that weather changes are part of the natural cycles that our planet goes through. This same series of weather events may have taken place thousands, or millions of years ago. But my concern is for right now, and for the next generation. What about contamination of the groundwater and the water that I drink from my well? What is that stuff that floats by each day as the tide shifts in the creek? If the water levels are rising, how long before the foundation of my home is compromised by erosion? Will the beautiful blue herons that nest in the tall pine tree each year be poisoned by the the chemical runoff from lawns that are sprayed for weeds and insects? Will our next President actually do something about the environment?

The small steps that I take to be gentle with Mother Earth pale in comparison to the severity of the problems that face us. I recycle everything that I can. Our city, and county, takes glass, metal, paper, and some plastics for recycling. The grocery store accepts paper and plastic bags and certain foam trays and cartons. Many of the products I use come in containers that have recycled plastic in them, but I can't recycle the recycled containers! The businesses here aren't given recycle containers and cardboard boxes spill out of dumpsters when they could be reused or recycled.

I don't have any answers for the situation other than to encourage everyone to do whatever they can to help. Please reuse boxes and padded envelopes. Don't throw the "peanuts", bubble wrap and brown paper stuffing in the trash, either save it to use yourself or recycle it through your local agencies. When you get a package that is filled with peanuts that aren't biodegradable, write to the company that used them and encourage them to switch to the peanuts made with cornstarch. You can toss those in your garden and the first rain will dissolve them.

I could go on and on with suggestions and ideas. Instead, I will end this rant here with one more suggestion: Starting today, choose one more way to reduce the stress on the enviornment where you live and act on it for the rest of 2008. Please...

Ahhh - Donuts, My Favorite Food - EDM #146

There couldn't possibly be anything better than donuts - better tasting that is, not better for you! I really do love donuts, any kind - except for the ones with coconut on them. The type that I have illustrated here are a lot safer for me to have around the house than my most favorite kind - Krispy Kremes! If you have never had a Krispy Kreme Donut, it is probably a good thing. Once you have one, you will always remember the flavor, smell, texture, and melt-in-the-mouth goodness of this local treat.

I don't know what city they were born in, but here in Jacksonville Krispy Kremes are sold at gas stations, grocery stores, church breakfasts, and at the Krispy Kreme stores themselves. If you are a true Krispy Kreme aficinado, you will make a trip to the Krispy Kreme store where you can sit, hot coffee steaming on the table in front of you, and watch how they are made.

First, tiny balls of dough become limp rings of white floating through space on row upon row of wire racks. They travel up and down the conveyor belt, through the warmth of the oven, where they rise. When they reach the end of their journey in the rising oven, they are flipped, shelf by shelf, into a vat of boiling vegetable oil. Sizzle, snap, hiss - the rings puff up as they float along in the bubbling fat. Halfway through this leg of their journey, they are quickly flipped over by a device that rises up from the roiling grease to toss them over a dam into their second bath in the hot oil.

At just the right time, when they are golden brown on both sides, they careen over a metal ledge through a downpour of white, liquid, sugar, to emerge as donuts that are "Hot and Now!" The flashing neon sign in the window announces their readiness for consumption, and you are about to learn the truth of melt-in-the-mouth delight. The line attendant uses a wooden chopstick to deftly pluck your donut from its journey to the packing area, places it on a clean napkin, and hands you the warm, light, sticky treat. Mouth-watering joy is yours. One bite, another bite, maybe a third, and it is gone!

What do you think, shall we have a refill on the coffee and have another donut, or, maybe two?

A Few Of My Favorite Things - EDMs #48 and #99

WOW! I finally did it! I don't know why, but my computer let me upload some of my art work for the first time since last November. This is a sketch of the Lamy Safari fountain pen that I bought in September. I've had the pencil sharpener for about 15 years and must get a new blade for it if I am going to get a good point on my colored pencils. The little bit of eraser is dirty and brittle. I added it to the sketch just before I replaced it. I spent a good deal of time on this piece and was actually content with it when I finished and decided that I would post it.

Being content with any of my art work is a novel experience. No matter how hard I work on them, or the positive comments I get from others, my sketches always seem so primitive, unpolished, or - heaven forbid - overworked! I just finished a post card size piece yesterday, (you can't see it yet because I'm sending it to Anita Davies), that is only partially overworked! If called upon to describe my artistic style, I would say that it is "colorful, tending toward realistic, but overworked."

Perhaps it is because I am a "beginning artist" - in spite of taking classes, reading books, studying catalogs, talking to artists, going to workshops, and owning every expensive art supply that Joe, Jerry, Dick, and Daniel ever advertised! I have been told that it is a temptation of beginning artists to "overwork" the products of their artistic endeavors. Well, duh! I figured that out all by myself! I do despise being so predictable and ordinary! At least predictable anyway...

Enter Kate Johnson (she has a new last name now, but my book has "Johnson" on it) and her marvelous talents, delightful students, and her encouraging entourage of faithful followers. The alumni of her online classes give glowing reports about the things they have learned, the improvement in their art work, and the fun they have being part of the on line alumni group. I am not being cynical, but completely serious. I have been collecting Kate's books for many years and have loved every one of them. Now I have the pleasure of becoming one of her faithful followers for real - in "cyber time" none the less.

I am about to begin my first online class with this esteemed artist and teacher and I can't wait! It starts on Tuesday and I have spent the past two weeks "overworking" the computer by reading blogs, setting up my Flickr account, figuring out how to post my art, negotiating links, tags, and art sites written in languages other than English. Gosh, that only leaves me a day to round up all my pencils, brushes, sketch books, tablets, erasers (oops, I shouldn't have mentioned that), bags, containers, boxes, tins, kleenex, paper towels and rags!

Let's see - shall I use the Prismacolors, Derwents, Neocolors, Faber-Castells, or Graphtints on my first sketch? Wish me luck - I hope I don't overwork it!