NZD 12282009

Gotland Sheep

I love the feeling of home and comfort in this one – the content sheep, the grass, and the bright yellow flowers behind the fence.  I love the black faces and legs of the sheep to contrast the grey of the wool.  I love the strong horizontals of the fence and the verticals of the flowers, the posts and the legs on the sheep.

NZD 12282009

I love the haze and the shadows in this one, but also the gleam of the light on the water.  I love the texture of the rock in the foreground and the small splash of blue in the sky.  I also love the vertical of the land versus the horizontal of the clouds and the sea.  Then there is the layers of the islands in the background that draw my eye to look further out.

NZD 12282009

Walk on the Beach

I love the starkness of this picture.  I love the ripples and textures in the sand for themselves, but then how there are strong verticals and horizontals in the greater pattern.  I like how the seaweed breaks up the sand in the foreground.  I love how the seal is on the move “on-all fours”.

NZD 12272009

Hidden Beauty of Keas

The kea is the only alpine parrot and is covered mostly in a dull yellow brown.  But then in flight on can see an entire rainbow under the wings.  Here is just a hint of the color of a folded wing.

I love the varied directions of the feathers and the definition of each feather.  I love the bright colors of the blue-green and the shine on the yellow/brown. 

NZD 12272009

Moon Rising Over Bluff

I am in SC this week and may actually be able to do a bit of blogging.  In any case, I’ll take whatever happens and each entry as a gift!

I love the half moon breaking up the solid blue of the sky.  I love the break up of the land as well with the darker blue of the water.  I love all the buildings being highlighted the the setting sun behind us.  I like the clouds adding interest to the sky close the to the land.

The Forms of Tile

Do you ever feel the closer you get to something, the further away it seems?  With the major construction complete on the house, one would think that we are close to being able to get that assessment and listing, but alas the list is still dauntingly filled with smaller tasks that can be tedious and require a lot of time just gathering the supplies and tools.  Still at this stage, the results are quite satisfying because when the little task is complete, there is nothing left to do, but enjoy the finished product.  Sadly, this is the most beautiful our house has ever been and we’re moving….

Here is the nearly final for the den that is attached to the kitchen.  The dogs are so exited to see the couch again.  Slipcovers on the furniture are a lifesaver! Across from the couch is the see through fireplace we had installed last month.  This past week James took some of our left over slate tiles and tiles the hearth and surround.  If you look closely you can see the coffee table in the living room through the fireplace! I show you that to see how pretty things can be around here, but also to point out they don’t last long.  The very next morning everything was changed to store large items from the kitchen.  Ah….. This was all done for those boxes in the foreground.  James is planning on installing the kitchen floor.  Here’s a before picture…. We’re putting in a resilient plank/tile flooring called allure by trafficmaster from Home Depot.  We chose it for the speed of installation and the price did not hurt either.  It’s a floating resilient floor where the planks have adhesive strips that glue one piece to another.  The biggest issue is making sure the substrate is flat – for unlike laminate floating floors, these planks will show every bump and crevass along the way.  Fortunately, like laminate, it goes down quickly.  In half a day, it was finished.  No curing, no waiting, voila! Now don’t think I was simply watching – while James was on his hands and knees, I was working on the living room side of the fireplace.  The old fireplace had a stone hearth and partial stone surround.  We did keep the hearth and were able to salvage much of the stone from the surround, but there was not enough for the new.  There was no more stone to be found that matched, so we settled on strips of small stones to fill in gaps.  Here’s the before…It took some hands on attention and a flexible sense of playfulness.  It was really rather fun – like playing in a mud puddle and working on some summer camp arts and crafts project.  The stones themselves turned out better than I expected, but the grout really finished the job.  And the after… Much closer and a number of items crossed off the list.  Now the big hurdle is to clean out the James’ shop!

NZD 12272009

Tourist Landscape

In one gallery, an artist painted abstract landscapes in an effort to balance the number of artists who painted “tourist landscapes”.  I smiled, but I still prefer the more realistic in this case.  The landscapes are so different than what I know.

I love the number of colors of green on these mountains and how the ridges are emphasized by a run of dark evergreens.  I like the clouds following the peaks and wish the sky had come out a deeper blue.  It is hard to see in this size, but I love the horizontal green bands of the fields in the foreground that counter the vertical heights of the mountains.