Children's Theater, June 21...Storyland

The entire play was entertaining, full of humor and lively songs. The children and their parents made the costumes. The action was swift.

 I took 167 photos and still missed some I would have liked to have for this blog. After looking through the photos many times, I  selected 29 which give a brief story line. The theme was folktales from around the world. The first was the lively Tie Me Kangaroo Down from Australia. The 24 actors and actresses sang enthusiastically (and in tune). There are the Koala and the Platypus.

And part of the chorus...

Here are the kangaroos...

And the Wallaby, who loudly insists every time the kangaroos are consulted as part of the kangaroo court jury, "I am not a kangaroo, I'm a WALLABY!" The chorus replies even more loudly..."WHATEVER!!"

Storyland bad guys, wolves and spiders in jail...

Part of the lyrics for the next portion as near as I can remember them..."Little Red Riding Hood, You sure are looking good, just what a big bad wolf wants...."

Little Red Riding Hood explains to Shek and Donkey why the wolves belong in jail.

Then the wolves give their side of the story. They are really misunderstood. Little Red Riding Hood, Grandma and another wolf listen.

Two wolves and Little Red Riding Hood and her grandma await the verdict.

Waiting for the verdict from the kangaroos (and the wallaby).

Happy with the verdict...

The wolves are not happy as Shek sends them back to jail and calls up the next case.

Miss Muffet presents her case, singing, "Spiderwebs".

But one spider insists, "Spiders are good. We brought all the stories to you." (This is an African story.)

And then the actors and actresses present that story. The spider children want the spider father to bring the stories from Nyame.

Nyame won't give up the stories unless he brings her special gifts. He has to capture them and bring them to her. To capture them he has to play tricks on them. These are some of the creatures he brings her.

Finally, he succeeds in bringing the stories down to earth and that is why there are stories in the world today.


The next story was about a frog who drank all the water in the world. The animals want it back. The Wallaby and the Cockatoo speak to him. The Frog refuses.

The animals have a discussion about their problem.

Even the Emu's beautiful dance doesn't make the frog give back the water.

After many difficulties the animals succeed in making the frog give up the water and he admits he was tired of feeling waterlogged.

Now Father Spider becomes Brer Rabbit and the chorus exclaims, "Now THAT is magic...changing a spider into a rabbit."

Brer Rabbit is captured by Brer Fox and Brer Bear. He lies down and laughs and laughs and laughs.

He promises to take Brer Fox and Brer Bear to his laughing place and he does.

And then he explains that this is HIS laughing place and everyone has a special laughing place. The chorus sings and dances to "Everybody Has a Laughing Place".

But Grouch is not happy with the singing and dancing and pops up to tell them so. But the chorus would have nothing to do with Grouch.

They continue  singing Laughing Place and finish off the day's performance with Zip-A-dee-doo-dah.

Lilian Nichols, Polymer Clay Artist...Faux Jade, Antiquing and More

Between the storm and power outage on Friday and the power outage on Sunday, we had a respite. That was the day Lilian Nichols taught us a variety of polymer clay techniques and gave us lots of tips, the kind that are often overlooked in books. Those tips are the best reason I know for taking classes now and then, no matter what the subject. The details of the photos show up better if you click on the photos to enlarge them.

We began by learning more about creating colors from basic colors. I was so intrigued with the process that I forgot to take a photo of the colors she had laid out for us and  the sample mixes she had made. However, I played with the technique with clay I had on hand on Sunday morning. I mixed colors with translucent clay. The first photo shows the set up, the second shows the results of mixing a bit of color with two circles of translucent clay.

The colors Lilian set out for us were mostly blues and yellows so we could experiment with making faux jade. She also brought molds, some pliable and some stiff. The following photo shows her pieces with the molds she used and after antiquing them.

Lilian showed us her technique for antiquing using artist quality oil paints.

Here is Sally's faux jade before antiquing.

And here it is after antiquing.

These are Mary Ann's pieces. Mary Ann was intrigued with mixing colors as well as mixing faux jade. I neglected to get a photo of her green piece and her pale magenta piece after she antiqued them. I am sorry. The pale magenta piece turned a beautiful soft old rose color.

This morning I compared the piece I antiqued with a jade pendant my son and daughter-in-law bought for me in Hong Kong.

Temperatures in the Nineties, Storms, No Electricity, No Air Conditioning,..Pant, Pant

I'll use anything for an excuse.  I have been lax about blogging the past couple weeks. I skipped last Tuesday to mow the lawn and clean house. Last Thursday, I played around most of the day with watercolor experiments and then decided to post on Friday, rather than Thursday.

 I intend to post blogs of the children's plays I saw at the Troy Civic Theatre but I am still in the process of sorting photos from the two  plays, one on June 21 and one on June 26. I always take too many photos to post and have a terrible time deciding which ones to discard. When I say too many that is 167 on June 21 and 60 on June 26.

On Friday, I was tired after Tom and I spent a pleasant midday visit with my college roommate and her husband in London (Ohio). I decided I would post after supper.

Hah! About 4PM a windstorm blew in with gusty winds that broke branches and blew off leaves. And about 5:30, we lost our electricity which meant we lost access to the computer. Thirty years ago after the big Ohio blizzard, Tom installed a generator so we soon had basic electricity, enough to run a few lights, the refrigerator and freezer, and the pump which pumps up our water supply. No blog. No air conditioning and the temperatures were still above 90 degrees Fahrenheit. About 10 PM when us old folks are asleep with our eyes open, electricity was restored. We went to bed happy and comfortable in the restored air conditioning. In the morning we cleaned up the yard.

The only damage to the house was a cap blown off the chimney.

We gathered up the limbs in the back and side years. Most of them were dead anyway.

Tom cut up the few small limbs from the front yard.

We were lucky. Neighbors and others in Ohio had more problems. By Sunday, July 1, there were still people in the state without electricity and the temperatures were well above 90 degrees Fahrenheit still. Shelters were opened. Free water and ice were passed out. The governor declared a state of emergency. Even President Obama took notice.

On Sunday we went to a fifteenth wedding anniversary celebration. The shady backyard was comfortable for the barbecue even with temperatures still in the nineties. There was a pleasant breeze. Stormy weather predicted for the morning never arrived and more stormy weather predicted for the late afternoon hadn't come.

After we returned home, the late afternoon storm did hit. We got more rain which pleased us. But about 6:30 PM we lost power again. This time it wasn't restored until Monday about 8 Pm. Our generator sputtered and died, maybe for all time about fifteen minutes before the electricity was restored. Again, we were lucky. And today I am typing this in comfortable air conditioning, the temperature is supposed to climb into the high nineties again and, of course, more pop-up storms are predicted.

Happy Birthday, Treven

Hi, Treven, I hope you were feeling well enough to enjoy your birthday. It has to be a bummer to spend so much time aching and feeling bad. I'm glad that bio-feedback is helping. This is the photo I took of you just before we headed back to Ohio last October.





Since your family moved 500 miles from here when you were two, I don't have memories of reading special books to you when you were young. I do have good memories of looking at the Anime style drawings you drew. Every time we visited you had a collection of new ones that you had drawn.





I was always happy when I could find a book that had drawing ideas in it that I thought you might like.  I remember finding some good how to draw hands diagrams in this book. I am not sure I sent you this book but I am almost positive I sent you the diagrams of the hands.





Enjoy your day.  Happy drawing until I see you again.  I expect Grandpa and I will visit you some time this fall.

Painting With Friends...Marsha and Me

Yesterday, Marsha Elliott and I spent the morning painting in my basement studio. We had  music to paint to...Old Time Gathering, featuring Hammered Dulcimer, Autoharp, Guitar, Mandolin, Fiddle and Banjo, then the Time-Life Treasury of Folk Music, An All-star Hootenanny 2 (Disk 1). Marsha brings her IPad on which she has the photo she is working from. I am always impressed with the confident way she works. She had this painting finished and signed by noon.




If you go to her Red Bubble site, you can see it there, also. There you can buy it as a card or a print. Her address is

www.redbubble.com/people/melliott

While she worked on her painting, I worked on two but didn't finish either one. One thing that Masha does differently than I do is using a hair dryer to dry her painting so she can continue painting. I almost always paint on one painting until it needs to dry, lay that painting aside, and paint on another painting while the first one dries. I switch back and forth between two or more paintings. Just a different way of working.

  I painted on Camille's portrait, mostly on her hair. I took off masking and replaced it as I added various colors to her hair.





While paint and masking fluid were drying, I started a painting of a Great-Spangled Fritillary on Milkweed. Tom took the photo a few years ago at one of the county parks. I had put on the Masking fluid some time ago so it was dry when I started. Since I was putting on very wet variegated washes, this painting spent a lot of time drying while I painted hair on the portrait.