Author: virginiacmccoy

The sun was lying gently on the water tower and the trees as I stirred my little pot of morning oats and gazed out the kitchen window. Just as the peak of the roof across the street got its kiss of light, an impatient and hurried white-haired fellow hove into view with his two little dogs, as he does every morning. One appeared to be a chihuahua and the other seemed to be a wonderful mix of schnauzer and dachshund with the most comical walk. He had such short legs that he looked to be in a desperate hurry, which must have gratified his hasty human companion. As the man and his beasts tramped the street, a crow was languishing in their path. The dogs were willing to engage said crow, however their master would have none of that. He took his usual position of quickly walking toward his destination, which I presumed must be home, coffee, and breakfast. He looked neither to the right nor to the left. As they progressed, the crow lifted himself up and slowly landed upon a post in a yard to their left, mocking and scorning with all his might, to the infinite frustration of the little doggies. In no time at all, Master yanked the leashes and poured forth a lecture on the evils of pulling. The dogs very politely and earnestly gave ear to their beloved and, immediately upon resuming their walk, were dive-bombed by the naughty crow. Whereupon, pulling commenced with as great a force as two miniscule canines could accomplish. Master, appearing to realize the futility of trying to stop the wild behavior of his charges, set his face like a flint and headed for home with the two warriors flailing at the ends of their leashes and the crow making their lives miserable. As they disappeared around the bend, I smiled and longed for my own dearly departed doggy. I dished up my oatmeal, sat at the table, and watched out the window for the next dog and pony show.

---

The bond with a true dog is as lasting as the ties of this earth will ever be. — Konrad Lorenz

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork. — Psalm 19:1

This is the landscape that I am the happiest with in my entire artist career. My spirit lifts when I look at it. I have always been easily overwhelmed by the bigness of creation. I remember coming around a curve on the interstate in West Virginia once, years ago, and being confronted with mountains and bursting into tears and praises. I can also be overwhelmed by the minutiae. I have been known to burst forth into song over the luscious juicy experience of eating a ripe peach warm from the tree. I wish I could glorify God with my art better than I do. He is so beautiful!

---

The highest glory of the creature is in being only a vessel, to receive and enjoy and show forth the glory of God. It can do this only as it is willing to be nothing in itself, that God may be all. Water always fills first the lowest places. The lower, the emptier a man lies before God, the speedier and the fuller will be the inflow of the divine glory. — Andrew Murray

We just recently watched the movie “Babe”, again, for the umpteenth time. I love everything about that movie. I love everything about that farm. I love the colors, the design, the story, the characters. I want to be just like Mrs. Hoggett when I grow up. LOL! Maaah is one of my favorite characters. (They are all my favorites.)

---

In my early 20s, a friend and I worked for a few months on a sheep farm in New Zealand. Working with ewes, I learned a lot about the power of wool – how it keeps you cool when you’re hot, warm when you’re cold, dry when you’re wet. — Anthony Doerr

I have a coffee table book with an awful lot of photos that I had never seen of this lady. This one really struck me. I really like another one, also, but it is spread over two pages with the spine going through her face. (!?) I have been working on her for months. I finally decided to get ‘er done. I tried to be loose about it, but it is hard not to get caught up in details to the detriment of the overall picture. What say y’all? (Y’all? I am back in the south. LOL!)

---

I’ll be a wife and mother first, then First Lady. — Jackie Kennedy

I did a quick charcoal sketch of this particular bird, the other day, in preparation for this painting. I haven’t seen one of these lovely birds since leaving Ohio. Their territory does extend to south Florida. I hope I do see some, soon. I enjoyed painting this.

---

The morning was a cup filled with mist and glamor. In the corner near her was a rich surprise of new-blown, crystal-dewed roses. The trills and trickles of song from the birds in the big tree above her seemed in perfect accord with her mood. A sentence from a very old, very true, very wonderful Book came to her lips, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” — L. M. Montgomery, Anne of The Island

In an effort to get more into painting in the great outdoors, I decided to make a convenient way to carry wet paintings. I priced ready-made ones, but decided that I could make one for free that would work just as well. It may not be as purty, but who cares?

---

---

Also, did you notice the new Shop in my webpage menu? Click on it and it will take you to my Fine Art America site where you can buy prints or merchandise with my art on it, like coffee mugs, pillows, t-shirts, tote bags, etc. I can only have 25 artworks up at a time, so, if there is anything that you want that is not in my shop, please let me know and I will take down one and add the one that you want. Please look it over and shop ’till you drop!

---

Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping. — Gertrude Stein

This was painted from a photo I took at the beautiful White Oak Farms in Mount Vernon, Ohio, a while back. This thing must have been 20 feet high and big enough to hold an awful lot of bats.

---

Twinkle, twinkle little bat
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea-tray in the sky.

-- Lewis Carroll

I know, I know… It is not autumn. I just liked this photo that I had taken of a barn across the road from us in Ohio. I took a lot of photos of that particular barn. It was always there, looking good, when I took Toby out for a walk. (Oh, I miss him…)

---

This past week, I decided to give painting outdoors another try. I have only done it one other time, in Ohio, in front of my garage of the field across the road. So, Ron agreed to accompany me and we loaded up and took my stuff to the clubhouse here in the park. This park has about three good sized lakes and one of them is across from the clubhouse. I looked around and decided to paint the clubhouse, so I set up and Ron set up the chairs and he sat down in the sunshine. I was under a big old oak tree. I got to painting. People rode by in their golf carts and cars and walked by. They all looked at me, but few said anything. One guy stopped and laughed and said, “That alligator really has his eye on you.” Then he took off. I looked around and didn’t see anything, so I just kept painting. We were out for about an hour and I decided that it was time to go. As we were packing up, Ron saw the alligator. We were on the edge of a small, dry retention pond. The alligator, which was about six feet long, was sunning himself on the other edge, about 50 feet away. He was well camouflaged by all the grass and stuff. We were glad to be on our way home. LOL! I don’t know if I will do it, again. Not because of the alligator, but because it is such a big job to get all my stuff set up and then to break it back down and load it up. We will see.

---

The years rolled their brutal course down the hill of time. Still poor, my clothes still smelling of the horse barn, still writing those doubtful poems where too much emotion clashed with too many words. — Paul Engle

This is what we see from our living room window. Well, not all of what we see. Using artistic license, I left out a LOT! The mobile homes here are so close together, that I could not get it to look right when putting all the stuff in the picture, so I made it look like there was only one home. Basically, I was loving on those trees…

I have a feeling I will be doing quite a few paintings of those trees. I love them. The big one is also a rookery, which I want to capture at some point. This is an 8×10 oil on panel which was done wet on wet.

---

This morning, I started soaking some quinoa for lunch and as I stirred it, I was fascinated by the pattern of the grains swirling in the water. So, got the camera and took some shots.

The quinoa was good, by the way.

---

I started reading Murder at the Washington Tribune by Margaret Truman, but I gave up. I got almost a quarter of the way through, but found myself wincing and not feeling good, so I decided not to read it. If you enjoy gritty hard crime thrillers, then they may be for you. I want to feel good when I read, so I go for cozy. I have decided to start Jan Karon’s Mitford Series again. So cozy, fun, and relaxing. I have a hardcopy of the bedside companion, which I quote from, below. But, in the meantime, I present my latest psalm to the Lord.

---

---

Of all situations for a constant residence, that which appears to me most delightful is a little village … with inhabitants whose faces are as familiar to us as the flowers in our garden; a little world of our own, close-packed and insulated like ants in an ant-hill, or bees in a hive, or sheep in a fold, or nuns in a convent, or sailors in a ship; where we know every one, are known to every one, interested in every one and authorized to hope that every one feels an interest in us.

How pleasant it is to slide into these true-hearted feelings from the kindly and unconscious influence of habit and to learn to know and to love the people about us, with all their peculiarities, just as we learn to know and to love the nooks and turns of the shady lanes and sunny commons that we pass every day.

… nothing is so delightful as to sit down in a country village in one of Miss Austen’s delicious novels, quite sure before we leave it to become intimate with every spot and every person it contains.

— as quoted by Jan Karon (from Our Village by Mary Russell Mitford) in her book The Mitford Bedside Companion

This is a charcoal sketch, about 8×10, on charcoal paper.

I have not found my missing paints, yet, but I am sure that they are watching me search for them and they are mocking me. LOL!

---

I am reading book two of the Isabel Dalhousie series by Alexander McCall Smith called “Friends, Lovers, Chocolate”. Book one: “The Sunday Philosophy Club” and this one are okay, but I don’t think I will continue in the series. They are not all that great for me to take the time to read them. A while back, I read his first book in the 44 Scotland Street series, which is the name of the book, also. I remember that it was rather boring, also, and I just didn’t pursue the series and forgot about it. What got me started on this series was that I got book two of the Isabel Dalhousie series for free on the cart outside the library bookstore. So, I wanted to start the series with book one and checked it out at the library. It was okay. I had the second one, so I thought I would give it one more chance. Chance over. Moving on.

The next book on my To Read list is a little locally published book called Dandelion: The Triumphant Life of a Misfit by Sheelagh Mawe. It was published around 1985 at a small publisher here in Orlando. It appears to be a children’s book, but we will see.

After that is my first foray into the thrillers of Margaret Truman, President Truman’s daughter. The one I have (free) is Murder at the Washington Tribune, written in 2005. I didn’t know she was still alive in 2005, but she published a couple more books after that.

---

I am learning to use and love Bullet Journaling. I tried it a couple of years ago and it didn’t work for me (or I didn’t work it). I have been trying, all my life, to get my act together, so I came across this again and thought I would give it another try. It is working so well! I am amazed! If you look up Bullet Journal on the internet, you will find some of the most complicated and fanciest things around. That is not what I wanted. I need simple and flexible and, as Ron says, dynamic. And this is it. There is an ebb and flow about it that makes it live and it fits my scatter-brained style. I checked out the book by the creator of the bullet journal, called “The Bullet Journal Method” by Ryder Carroll, and that helped me get it up and running. I just could not use any of the tutorials online that had so many fancy stencils, lettering, drawings, colors, etc. You would think, as an artist, that I would love that stuff. I love to look at other people’s artistic bullet journals, but, for me, I need simple and plain. My art is separate from my bullet journal.

These are just a couple of pages that I would show, but I didn’t want to share what I had written, so I blurred them. But, you can see how plain they are. I do use a little color, but not much.

---

Mamoo finally had some pictures hung in her apartment. They will not allow anyone else to do it, they must do it themselves and it took them a long time to get to it. I would never have put them over a window, but that is really the only place available in the living room. It looks okay, considering… She likes it. And it looks much better than them sitting on the floor, leaning on the wall.

Closeups of my art that is on her walls:

I hope everyone is well and enjoying God’s beautiful art everyday.

---

Husband and wife are having a literary discussion whereby she voices her opinion and asks him if he understands her position. He says, “I hear you.” She says, “That is not the question that I asked.” He says, “That is not the answer that I gave.” — Anonymous (for obvious reasons…)