February 01, 2023

Zentangle® – January 2023

February 01, 2023/ Gwen Morrison

I created 97 tiles in January…made some hard choices to select the 31 to feature in the blog post. The skew toward square tiles continued. I am enjoying new pens too. In addition, I found a great red gel pen in a draw with pencils and ballpoints in Carrollton…not sure where it came from but it was fun to use; red became the most frequent color for the month!

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. “Zentangle” is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

January 02, 2023

Zentangle® – December 2022

January 02, 2023/ Gwen Morrison

31 tiles selected from those made in December. There were not as many to choose from as usual. My week in Carrollton was so busy that I didn’t make as many tiles…and crocheting was competing for time (and had priority since I was working on a lacy white scarf I wanted to wear during the holidays).

Most tiles are square this month…and include experiments with a variety of pens.

Enjoy the December 2022 mosaic!

December 05, 2022

Crocheting Again

December 05, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

I learned to crochet early on, probably when I was about 10 years old. My grandfather taught me! He didn’t crochet himself, but he read the instructions and taught me the basics. I can remember the setting: on the couch in his living room as my grandmother looked on. It was several years after the accident that had caused one of his legs to be amputated; he wore a prosthesis (primitive by today’s standards). My memories of him before the accident are vague, but I remember his interest, attention, patience, and kindness to me and my sisters all the years afterward. As I’ve started up crocheting again…thinking about how I learned…I realize that I was the only grandchild that he saw all the way to adulthood.

I don’t remember anything I made early on…I picked up crocheting again when I travelled with Up with People my junior year of high school. There was a lot of time on the bus between shows. I made slippers to use for rehearsals (wore them out very quickly), a hat and scarf. The hat and scarf were dark blue to match one of the colors from the tweed coat I wore then. I still have them but haven’t worn them in a long time. I tried on the hat and discovered that the yarn had degraded somewhat…making it less stretchy, too tight to be comfortable.

I made crocheted stars for Christmas tree ornaments in white shortly after I married…and then in red more than a decade later.

In my early thirties and before I had my daughter, there was another burst of crochet activity. I made some yellow dollies. I don’t remember why I chose the color! Around the same time, I was still making my own blouses for work and crocheted ecru or white pieces to sew into the neckline. I remember being very pleased with the results and wish I’d saved the crocheted part when the blouse fabric wore out.

I also made three crocheted scarves in red and green (wore them together for Christmas then separately at other times) and variegated pink with black. I’m not sure when I made them…probably about 20 years ago since I remember wearing them during my career and I’ve been post-career for over a decade.

Now – I am crocheting again. My initial project is to make a series of cotton scarves to keep the sun off the scar on my neck so that I don’t need sunscreen all the time while the scar fades. So far, I have made ecru and black scarves…am working on a white one. Light green and turquoise crochet threads have been purchased! It feels good to be crocheting again and making something that fits my need (cotton, colors, length) exactly.

Another aspect that pleases me about this new crochet project is the wooden bowl that was given to me in the 1970s by a friend I’d known all my life. I hadn’t used it for salads since its finish was damaged, but it is the perfect size and shape to hold the thread and my project….and reminds me of the good experiences I had growing up with her.

Through all the years and projects – crocheting has been an activity that I can do some deep thinking while making an item I need. Maybe that’s why I restart crocheting all over again.

December 01, 2022

Zentangle® – November 2022

December 01, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

30 Zentangle tiles made in November…or rather 30 chosen from the much larger number of tiles I made during the month. The tiles are all squares this month – a rare occurrence for me. I was trying not jump ahead to December motifs but couldn’t resist a cluster of stylized trees and red dots! Otherwise, I stayed focused on the fading green and orange color pallet for fall…and then using up gel pens from my sister’s teaching career for the tiles I made while I was in Carrollton.

Enjoy the November 2022 mosaic!

November 18, 2022

Donald Maxwell Illustrations

November 18, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Donald Maxwell was an English writer and illustrator active in the first third of the 20th century. This week’s free eBook selections are 5 of Maxwell’s self-illustrated books that are available on Internet Archive:

A dweller in Mesopotamia (1920)

Unknown Kent (1921)

The Last Crusade (1920)

Unknown Essex (1925)

Unknown Sussex (1924)

These are easy books to browse for the illustrations which are a mix of line drawings and color plates. Enjoy!

November 13, 2022

11 years of Blogging

November 13, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

I started this blog 11 years ago this month – November 2011. It was one of the activities I started as I prepared to leave my career behind….anticipating that I needed new rhythms to take the place of work days. Writing a daily blog was one of the first ideas I had for a new daily rhythm, and it has continued to be an outlet for the evolution of my post-career years.

The broad categories of my favorite activities – reading, writing, traveling, photography/art - have been reflected during the 11 years…with the shifts I’ve experienced over the years evident in the posts:

My reading is almost entirely digital media now – dominated by Internet Archive and website feeds (via Feedly). I’ve gone through spurts of multimedia learning/reading (Coursera courses and webinars with details charts and references) but am in a multimedia lull right now. My interest in botanical prints has continued…with a goal of finding/browsing 20 new books on the topic each month. My interest in climate change has ramped up…and I have taken/plan personal changes; I’d like to leave the earth a better place…or at least not a worse place (that idea is getting more and more challenging).

Writing has been a way to reduce stress for me since the 1980s; I’ve trained myself to ‘write it down and let it go.’ The upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated cultural divisions in the US has been a greater strain on that training than ever before and there was some faltering in late 2020/early 2021. I am realizing now that writing is, again, my most effective way to bolster my resilience to whatever happens.

Traveling for the first few years of the blog was motivated by my daughter’s location (in Tucson) with road trips to and from Arizona and traveling with her to Hawaii…then helping her move to Pennsylvania and then to Missouri more recently. My volunteer work (leading themed hikes with elementary school children, coaching high school teams doing water quality assessments in streams/rivers, etc.) enabled me to discover natural places close to home. Birding festivals became a favorite travel motivation (to New Mexico, Florida, and Texas) in the few years before the pandemic. Then it all stopped. Since the pandemic, our travel is day trips or for family visits (my parents and daughter) and then our moving to Missouri….and it has all been road trips.

My expertise (and equipment) for photography has increased dramatically over the 11 years. I go through phases…most recently an uptick in macro photography (with my phone). I have refined my Zentangles over the years…and going through phases: new tile shapes (other than square), white highlights, coloring (with different kinds of pens). There is a lot more artist creation in my life now than during my career and my blog has reflected that increase over the past 11 years.

That sums up the state of the blog 11 years in!

Here is a summary of the regular posts (weekly and monthly):

Gleanings 1st one was for week ending 12/31/2011…use the gleanings tag to see all the posts

eBook(s) of the week – 1st monthly post was in October 2012 (i.e. started out as monthly transitioned to weekly on October 9, 2020)…use the book of the week category to see all the posts

eBotainical Prints – 1st post with the eBotanicalPrints tag was on December 17, 2018…use the eBotanicalPrints tag to see all the monthly posts

Zoom – 1st monthly post was in August 2013…use the zoom tag to see all the posts

Ten Days of Little Celebrations – 1st monthly post in October 2012…use the celebration tag to see all the posts

Previous anniversary post: 10th anniversary

November 11, 2022

Snow and Ice Photography

November 11, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Herbert Walker Wagner’s Snow and Ice Photography was published in 1938 and is available on Internet Archive. My takeaways are from two perspectives: 1) composition ideas for my next encounter with snow and ice and 2) as a historical record of the state of photographic art in the 1930s – just before World War II. The ‘looks like’ (ice herd example) idea emphasized through cropping and the naming of compositions are my top two compositional ideas from the book. Historically – the realization (again and again) about how much easier it is now to take and enhance photographs; digitization and software has changed photography tremendously.

Enjoy the three samples I picked to include in this post…there are many more in the book which is well worth a look!

November 01, 2022

Zentangle® – October 2022

November 01, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

31 days in October….31 Zentangle tiles. A lot of the tiles this month have a seasonal palette: orange, muted red, pale green. I had a purple gel pin that I was using up too. Most of the tiles in the mosaic were made in London, Ontario during the hotel room part of my ‘retreat’ from my normal routine. One of the ways I filled the time I gained from not doing online activities or interacting with people was making the tiles. I had taken plenty of supplies.

I also drew 31 tiles that I didn’t color. I’ll probably finish them next month…maybe post the before and after images.

October 19, 2022

London, Ontario: Museum London

October 19, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

The Museum London was within walking distance from my hotel…just a little shorter than my walk down to the Thames. My first foray to the area was on a day the museum was not open.

There was an outdoor garden with a small pond; plants were changing with the fall temperatures but there were still some flowers.

I always enjoy photographing small gardens and this one was no exception. Most of the plants were familiar except for the one in the water that looked like lettuce (I put the picture into iNaturalist and discovered a common name for it is ‘water lettuce’ - it is normally a tropical plant and is considered invasive in many parts of the US.)

The second time I went, was for the museum itself. The upper floor is Canadian art and the lower floor is history. All the pictures I took were on the art floor!

Just before I went down to the history floor – I realized that the museum had an excellent view of the Thames…the area I had walked through a few days earlier.

I learned some trivia of London history as I browsed the lower level: the diversity of the citizenry over the years (including an influx of escaped slaves from the US prior to the Civil War…one of them with an apothecary business) and the decorative features on the fronts of older buildings made of painted tin.

Perhaps the best part of the museum was its shop. I found items for gifts and splurges for myself. More on that in an upcoming post.

September 23, 2022

Advertising and British Art in the 1920s

September 23, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Walter Shaw Sparrow published Advertising and British Art in 1924. The illustrations in the book are historical as art…also for what they were ‘selling.’ Quite a few of them were about travel…places to go and how to get there!

The book got me thinking about art and advertising 100 years later. We do so much with photographs and digital media now….very different than the 1920s. Some of us have shifted somewhat to experience over additional possessions when it comes to discretionary spending – which would fit in with the ideas for travel in the book. But it seems like most of my ideas come from destination or topical searches rather than advertisements!

August 19, 2022

Rockwell Kent illustrations

August 19, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Earlier this summer I browsed two books written and illustrated by Rockwell Kent and available on Internet Archive. According to the Wikipedia entry, he spent an extended period in Alaska (1918-19) and Tierra del Fuego (1922-23) so the art in these books emerged from being immersed in a place rather than a quick visit. He is quoted as saying ‘I want to paint the rhythm of eternity.’

I selected two images from each book but there are many more that are just as appealing in both books….worth the time to take a look. These are not the typical illustrations of adventure and travel; they skew toward a deep inner journey….the place being a backdrop.

Wilderness; a journal of quiet adventure in Alaska (1920)

Voyaging southward from the Strait of Magellan (1924)

August 01, 2022

Zentangle® – July 2022

August 01, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

31 days in July….31 Zentangle tiles! I made 100 during the month so had plenty to choose from. The majority were circular or square since those are the ones I tend to make when I am traveling…and I made a lot of tiles on the2 road trips in July: to Maryland/back to Missouri and visiting my parents in Texas. I have a box that holds tiles and a few pens that is easy to pack; the color palette is limited though. In Texas, I use some aging gel pens left over from my sister’s teaching career; more and more of them are dry or out of ink each time I visit. Enjoy my July 2022 Zentangle mosaic!

July 28, 2022

Unique Aspects of Days - July 2022

July 28, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Settling into our new home in Missouri is still prompting unique aspects of our days!

1st doctor’s appointment in Missouri. Getting medical records transferred from a specialist in Maryland to a new specialist in Missouri was a first for me…and I was pleasantly surprised that it happened so easily and that the new doctor continued the monitoring/treatment as I expected.

**Callery Pear to the recycle center.** It was a unique experience to discover a pear tree growing in a crepe myrtle in a front flower bed of my new house. I cut it down…discovered it had thorns…and was very pleased to get it cut up enough to fit in the back of my car and then to the recycle center yard waste bins without injuring myself. It was an experience I hope is unique!

Unpacking the art glass. I packed it but my husband unpacked it. There was a joy in packing and unpacking the beautiful pieces….savoring them individually and then again as a whole in the display cabinet. We left 2 pieces that are on light stands out on a desk beside the piano to act as ‘night lights’ in that part of the house. It has been over 25 years since we enjoyed the glass the way we did in July.

Making a compost ring with cedar edging. I bought two sections of edging made with 3-6 inch vertical lengths of cedar branches and formed a circle to hold my kitchen scraps and soft yard waste under one of our pine trees. There is not enough material to require a bigger compost bin so this is a relatively unique solution. I’m not sure whether I will move the ring once the compost is deteriorating enough to continue as a pile without the ring or ready to spread out. There is space to move the ring and start another collection nearby.

Finding the camera battery charger. It seemed like there were about 5 times this month where we came close to panic because we couldn’t find something we needed in our new home. The one that had me most worried was not knowing where the charger was for my camera battery; luckly I found it after an hour or so of hunting through boxes. Now that we have unpacked most of the boxes, it is less likely to occur…making this particular kind of anxiety unique to July 2022.

Forgot my toiletries. I travel frequently enough that I rarely forget anything I need…but I did for our trip back to Maryland for the closing on our house there! The compartment bag for toiletries was left hanging on the bathroom door in Missouri. I quickly bought essentials…glad this event was unique in my travels.

Hot and dry Josey Ranch lake. The lake at Josey Ranch near where my parents live was lower than I’ve seen with deep cracks where there is usually water or mud. The cattails area is dry and other plants are taking over. I hope this is unique and not what it will be like every summer from now on in Carrollton TX.

Hummingbird moth. I was surprised…glad I had my camera with me…when I spotted a hummingbird moth at the Springfield Botanical Garden. They are fun insects to watch and I always feel priviledge to see even one a year.

Hummingbird outside my office window…on the crepe myrtle. I looked out my window one morning and saw a hummingbird checking out the crepe myrtle outside my office window. It was the first I’d seen in our Missouri yard.

Missouri watermelon at the Carrollton (TX) Walmart. I noticed that the watermelon I bought for my parents in the Carrollton Walmart had been grown in Missouri…and discovered when I got home to Missouri – the watermelons in the Walmart were from Missouri too!

July 06, 2022

Springfield Art Museum

July 06, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

The first time I went to the Springfield Art Museum was back in June 2019 when I was helping my daughter move from State College PA into a rental house in Springfield MO; the key had not worked to open the door to the house and it was too hot to wait outside for the rental agent; we escaped to the air conditioned space of the museum. It was another hot day last month when my daughter, sister and I visited although we went for the museum itself rather than an escape for heat.

The Mend Piece participatory exhibit was just off the large entry way. There were tables of broken white cups with supplies to put them together (twine, glue, white rubber bands). My daughter and sister went on to see the other exhibits while I made my ‘creation’ with ceramic pieces, rubber bands, and a little twine. The twine was more decorative than structural. It was a good experience for me…caused me to realize that my daily Zentangle practice has developed my artist side that had been buried for most of my life! A man that was working on his creation when I came into the room and was still working on it when I left commented that it seemed like it was very familiar with this kind of activity!

I caught up with my sister and daughter in the Watercolor USA exhibit. That exhibit encouraged people to vote for their favorite. It was a difficult choice.

After walking around the rest of the museum, my sister decided to do a Mend Piece as well. She created a flower! It looked best still on the table…not clear that the glue was going to hold well enough.

We both put our pieces on the display shelf along with creations of other museum visitors.

A hot afternoon well spent!

June 27, 2022

Unique Aspects of Days – June 2022

June 27, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

June was probably the most unique month of 2022; moving from Maryland to Missouri made for a lot of firsts…made more unique by the time that had passed since our last move (more than 25 years ago). It was hard to choose just 10.

Move out day in Maryland. Packing up was hard enough…seeing it all be loaded on the truck in one day (rainy toward the end) was overwhelmingly intense – certainly not a ‘normal’ situation. And I knew I would be getting up early in the next morning to head to Missouri.

A lot of armadillo road kill. In Maryland the most common road killed animals were deer. In Missouri, there were armadillos; perhaps it was the time of year they go walkabout.

Closing on a Missouri house. I hadn’t closed on a house in over 25 years and this is the only time in my life (so far) that there was no mortgage.

First sunrise at Bentwater house. Firsts are unique simply because they are the first!

Blowout of my driver’s side front tire. It was not a totally unique experience but the last one was years ago (2017) and only the third one in my 50 years of driving!

The neighborhood pool for the first time. I wasn’t sure I would use the pool but I discovered that there are times it is not very busy…a very pleasant respite from the heat.

Mend Piece. I’ll do a post about the experience in a few days….it was a unique hands-on experience at the Springfield Art Museum.

Making popcorn in the downstairs kitchen – first time. It felt a little odd to make popcorn in a place other than the main kitchen…but the mini-kitchen near my office in the basement has a microwave. I used my Nordic Ware bowl…melted butter in an old stoneware cup. It’s great to have a hefty snack without having to go up or down stairs!

Our Maryland house went on the market…under contract 4 days later. We hadn’t sold a house in a long time…and the previous experiences had not been quick. This one was lightning fast – just as the realtor had predicted. We were pleased and overwhelmed all at the same time.

New washer and dryer. I don’t remember the last time we had a new washer/dryer….so I am counting it as unique….and still enjoying the big improvement over the older models: quieter, more effiecent use of water/energy, quicker. Also – the laundry chute in our new house is a very nice feature.

June 01, 2022

Zentangle® – May 2022

June 01, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

31 Zentangle tiles for May. It was a little more challenging to do one a day with the flurry of activity getting ready to move….but I did it (although with fewer extra tiles than usual). There were more rectangular tiles in May because I was at home; the rectangular tiles don’t fit as well as the square tiles in the box is take when I travel as happened in prior months…and will happen in June too.

April 03, 2022

Zentangle® – March 2022

April 03, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

March was a busy month with an overlay of trauma (laptop problems, getting sick while I was traveling) but making Zentangle tiles helped me weather the increased stress. The daily routine of creating at least one tile is one of my most reliable methods of coping with whatever is happening otherwise.

I am still using up old pens so there are fewer colors in this set…although while I was in Texas, I had the box of old gel pins to add to the variety. I used more round and square coasters this month – realizing that some of them were yellowing after being unwrapped – perhaps absorbing some moisture from the air and beginning to deteriorate. There were a lot fewer rectangular tiles this month. Overall – I like the patterns and colors in this collection.

I’m always a little surprised when I choose the tiles for the month….enjoy again what I created during the month.

April 02, 2022

Gleanings of the Week Ending April 2, 2022

April 02, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Where Have All the (Big) Cypress Trees Gone ... And Are They Coming Back? – The cypress stands survived logging but they may never again be as dominant as they were before. The largest trees now are about 3.5 feet diameter; the largest stumps from logging are about 5 feet diameter.

8 bird migrations, from past to present – The annual movement of birds is a part of spring….part of the yearly progression.

Cherry Blossom Time In Washington, D.C. – I was glad to get home in time to see the cherry tree in our yard bloom; it’s a little behind the trees in DC (we are a little north and not on the water).

Nature Conservancy to build solar farms at abandoned coal mines in Virginia – And thus an energy producing community, continues…leaning into the future!

The sound of Merlin: like Shazam, but for birds – An app that IDs birds by their songs…a learning experience to take on a walk.

Higher risk of temperature-related death if global warming exceeds 2°C – We’ll have to be more aware of heatwaves. Perhaps we would modify our behavior during those times…and medical interventions might help. There is a heat threshold above which our bodies are not adapted very well…that will cause increasing problems.

Rarely Seen Paintings by J.R.R. Tolkien Portray a Lush ‘Lord of the Rings’ Landscape – Another perspective of Tolkien…through his art rather than writing.

No breathing easy for city dwellers: particulates – Southeast Asia has seen the largest annual average increases in concentration and mortality rates between 2000 and 2019 from this type of air pollution.

How climate change is leading to bigger hailstones – The records for the largest hailstones have been broken in the last 3 years in Texas, Colorado and Alabama….reaching sizes of up to 6.2 inches in diameter. Large hail causes a lot of damage…if the incidence of large hail increases the damage/costs will trend higher too; the post includes a picture of a car damaged by large hail…daunting to anyone that doesn’t have their car parked in a garage.

Missouri Man Indicted For Fire That Destroyed Ozark National Scenic Riverways Visitor Station – I am paying more attention to news about natural areas in Missouri…now that I am preparing to move to the state. It’s sad when this type of destruction occurs – hard to fathom why someone would burn a visitor station.

February 25, 2022

Daniel Giraud Elliot’s Bird eBooks

February 25, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

Daniel Giraud Elliot was a founder of the American Ornithologist Union and its 2nd President in 1890. I browsed through 7 of his well-illustrated books about birds from the later 1800s. Taxonomy has changed over the years, so they are not the ‘references’ they were when first published. But - they are historically interesting…part of the the uptick in documentation of the world’s flora and fauna in the 1800s. I looked at the illustrations as ‘art’ and wondered how many of the bird species depicted no longer exist. Enjoy the sample images…and take a look at some of the volumes via the provided links.

A Monograph of the paradiseidae or birds of paradise (1873)

A monograph of the Pittida, or family of ant-thrushes (1895)

A monograph of the Tetraoninae, or, Family of the grouse (1865)

monograph of the Bucerotidæ, or family of the hornbills (1882)

North American shore birds (1895)

The gallinaceous game birds of North America (1897)

The wild fowl of the United States and British possessions; or, The swan, geese, ducks, and mergansers of North America (1898)

February 01, 2022

Zentangle® – January 2022

February 01, 2022/ Gwen Morrison

31 days in January…31 Zentangle tiles selected from the ones I created during the month.

I made a commemorative Zentangle tile on the back of the card stock rectangle that was my name plate from the door of my hospital room. The nurse handed it to me just before we headed down to the area where my husband was waiting to take me home….and I covered the back with my patterns a few days later.

There were various types of card stock and cardboard for the square tiles…all reused materials that would have otherwise been recycled. The lighter ones are from decades old file folders from my sister’s clearing out old files from my parents’ storage; some of them were over 50 years old! The darker one was more recent…from boxes of canned soft drinks. In both cases – I use a paper cutter to create the 3.5-inch squares. The limited color palette is caused by me trying to use up older Ultra Fine Sharpies before I open a new package.

The rectangular tiles are all made from light weight cardboard inserted as dividers in boxes of small cans of cat food. There are several kinds…varying shades of light brown. The texture also varies. I used the paper cutter to make them 3.5 x 4.75 inches tiles. Most of the time I prefer the rectangles over the squares – not sure whether it is the larger size or the textures or the colors that are the greatest appeal (probably it is all three!).