Wordless Wednesday

One benefit of looking up - a silent glider floating past

Medieval Crown Jewelry Box - challenge entry

I made this small Medieval Crown Jewelry Box last week for the October edition of the Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy's monthly challenge, the theme being "Medieval".

The jewelry box opens to hold a small piece of jewelry, some coins, or any small items that are special to you.

I had a tough time with this challenge initially, my plan was vague, "a castle", but when it came time to put it into action, I had nuthin'! So I began searching the web, and in the process I learned so much about medieval art and medieval times. I know I took that class in high school, why wasn't it as interesting then?

Finally, I came upon a video tutorial by Tejae Floyde for these small crown boxes, and I decided to see if it would have merit for the challenge. I was so pleased to be able to create this box by using her ideas! It was really fun and I'll be doing more and yes, they will be listed in my Etsy shop soon.

I hope you will vote in the PCAGOE challenge this month, please!! To do so, all you have to do is click on this link - Voting Link - and choose your favorites. Voting is until October 7th. Three voter winners will be happy to choose from the awesome prizes offered, one of them could be you!

Thanks for looking and extra thanks for VOTING!!

Lenticular Clouds Sunset

Tonight's sunset with a bold and dramatic Lenticular cloud formation totally rocked! I was surprised at how dramatic it was and took a lot of photos of it. Actually, it was better in person because the part of the cloud formation in this photograph is only about 1/4 of the total thing that was spread across the sky. God used his BIG cloudbrush for this one. :)

Please do click on the photo to see it in all possible glory. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Squares vs. Hexagons - All In A Day's Play

After a lovely visit from our young granddaughter, it was time to get down to brass tacks and clay again. I clayed while she was here but not with the same focus as when I'm working alone. She's a very mature 3-year old, but she's still a 3-year old.

I've had the nicest couple of days with my clay, falling in love with it all over again. Also, our clay buddy Matt of the newly opened ClaybyKerm at Etsy has done the impossible... he has me thinking in hexagons instead of squares! I just know he's laughing behind his hand as he reads this, as we've had a few conversations about square vs. hexagon. :) I'm not sure if he's completely converted me or not. Hexagons are rather interesting, though, as I'm learning.

Here is what is on my clay table today, and it was hard WORK (okay if I'm being honest it was hard play....), and I'm going back to play some more. Hope you like these!

Click to see larger photo:

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wild Ride - Reno, Nevada

Quail!

Quail show up for a brief couple of months at the end of summer here - they travel in family groups and they're really cute, but man, are they fast. And nervous. They are come and gone in an instant, running on their stretched-out legs and disappearing over a rock or behind a tree, in seconds. They also blend in with the ground and bushes really well, so they're hard to see.

But today I was blessed! My husband saw them and called out to me, and I was able to get some close up shots of a quail right near me, for some reason it either didn't realize I was there or it wasn't scared of me. I quietly opened the back door and click, click, click, I got a few pretty good photos:

I have a photo from last year with three of them running like mad across the lawn, they were over that edge in a second but my camera was quicker:

I hope you'll click, click, click on these photos to see them bigger. :)

I believe the species of quail in these photos are "Mountain Quail", but the photos on the Internet always show much fatter and sleeker quail than I see here in the high Sierra Nevada mountains. However, I did determine that these are not "California Quail" because they don't have the feathers on their fronts that look like fish scales. The main threats to quail are hawks, coyotes and feral cats, not to speak of hungry humans. Hunting is limited to 10 quail a day by permit as I understand it.

I enjoy seeing them each year and hope I can continue to photograph them in the future.