Maximum Sunshine

Selfie of me lying down in bed with a grey and white cat half wrapped around my neck. His arms are on either side of my head/neck and he's using my chin as a headrest. His body is going down my body his little butt ending on my belly, though not pictured. This photo cuts off mid way down his torso just under my chest.

He'd crawl inside my skin if I let him. And he's trying. Oh but he's trying.

#CatsOfBluesky #JaskierTheCat #HeIsABard

There is a crate fully covered by a navy blue quilt. There is a white laundry basket full of children's picture books with a box on its side on top. Between these two things is a grey cat tail the rest of the cat hidden under the quilt because maintenance is here so he's scared.

What cat?

#MaintenanceIsHere. #CatsOfBluesky #Ash

Treated myself to 10 in the hot tub to soothe my muscles too.

Did it! Swam my cardio PT. 1000 yards, 200 pool squats, and some leg-based water aerobics. I feel better like I knew I would!

Time to drag myself to the gym and swim laps. I'm always glad to be doing it, and glad to have done it, and the dragging myself out of bed part never gets easier. Just gotta pep talk myself the reminder i gotta get the zoomies out.

I'm glad you got to enjoy harvest fest! Love the little festivals you can find in small communities like that. We have a zucchini fest here. Completely different vibe though. It's like comparing, well, zucchini to apples. Both are produce but that's about where similarities end.

View of the road ahead, bending to the left. A view of the tree covered hills is straight ahead, not too far back from the bend in the road. Trees line the road on either side. Ahead on the road is a (stranger) guy on a motorcycle. He really adds to the composition, and his license plate is far blurry enough i don't have to worry about him being doxxed.

Probably one of my favorite photos from the drive through the Blue Hills of Northern Wisconsin a few weeks ago. I visited my 22yo who moved to the general area a few years ago and he showed me the scenery.

#bluehills #wisconsin

Listen closely at the end to hear him purr. This little guy is Ash, one of my 14yo's ESA kitties. He's a cuddle bug and a huge fan of making biscuits.

#CatsOfBluesky

Watercolor photo of a purple lilac on a brown branch with green leaves. Maybe 4-6 different shades of green were used for tye leaves. The lilac bloom utilizes at least a half dozen different shades of purple, some darker and some closer to pastel.

This is the third #watercolor I made in my quest to teach myself art in my 40's. This lilac is in a watercolor workbook where the lines are laid out and i learn how to make colors happen along with different saturations.
#beginnerartist #flowers #beginnerart

Patch of lush green yard sprinkled with yellow dandelions. There are about 17 yellow dandelion heads. The rest of the image is grass.

Close-up up on a small patch of 8 bright yellow dandelions. The rest of the image is grass.

In a shift of the ages and stages of dandelions, this image of my lawn doesn't show a single yellow dandelion head, and is instead filled with many dozens of white seed pods, ready to be picked and blown across the yard by a 14yo giving his momma the gift of dandelions.

Small patch of white poof dandelion seed heads, some blown and spread in the wind, some waiting for my youngest kiddo.

My second favorite #flower is the #dandelion. An amazing #earlyspring source of pollen for bees. And an amazing early promise of the sun's return for Max. Every year my 14yo picks every white seed head they come across to spread the seeds through the yard, to create more dandelions for his momma

Shows a flower bed of black eyes susans surrounded by the wooden deck of a 5th-story courtyard. The flowers are a deep orange-yellow, with a black center, and lush green leaves and stems. Around the edge of the courtyard are more beds with trees, lined with benches. The courtyard is up against a building, visible in the background of the photo.

Close up of the black eyed susans. In the immediate foreground, one of the flowers has a cone effect, the petals pulled down, the black center at the tip of the cone. Lots more flowers in different stages of cone are shown in the photo.

More of the flower bed at a different angle. Mulch of the bed is visible as are some of the trees, and the building.

Another photo of the flower bed. It's easier to see the courtyard benches in this photo, in the background.

Hidden up high 5 stories off the ground is a garden of black eye susans. And you pretty much have to be having one of the worst days/weeks of your life to see them. They are there to comfort when you need them the most, hope you never do.

#bloomscrolling #flowers #naturephotography #hiddengarden

Left of frame a sunbeam filters through the tall trees in a dense forest throwing it's hopeful light on a gravel path. The forest floor is littered with leaves that create a golden carpet. Beyond the beam a sunny spot just up ahead, trees illuminated with a warm inviting glow. The trail disappears from view as it meanders through the beyond.

sometimes you meet a sunbeam

#nature #behopeful #offthebeatandpath #photography #lifeisbeautiful #daybyday

Dione floating against Saturn’s layered atmosphere with delicate ring lines stretching across the black sky.

Saturn and its icy moon Dione captured by the Cassini spacecraft. About two thirds of Dione's mass is water ice.

Credit: NASA/JPL/SSI

Good morning all and happy Caturday to all of you and your feline friends 🐈💛

#Caturday #CatsofBluesky #Photography #PhotographersOBluesky #Cats

This mornings spooky cloudy sky in Minnesota.

This mornings spooky cloudy vibe sky in Minnesota 💦
#Photography
#Photographers
#BlueSkyArt
#EastCoastKin
#Mood
#Nature
#Minnesota

A sweet Bee glides from one flower option to the next as the Cosmo blooms provide a great pollen treat in the Fall.

It’s the weekend and we are buzzing! 📷 🐝 🎶 …

"Happy families are all alike ; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."

-Anna Karenina
(Lev Tolstoy)

🌸🌸
🩷 🩷

🍃
A blessed day 🍀

(Photo by Kirpal Singh)

This is why you never name your sea monkeys

Imaged with GSO 10" f/4 Newtonian and asi1600mm at Mt Pinos, CA. Approx 3 hr integration.

NGC 7635 "Bubble Nebula" in SHO - From Ryan Kinnett (rkinnett.bsky.social) - https://flic.kr/p/2m8E3Qv

Aurora borealis, high in a star filled sky

🩷
💚

A small postcard size drawing of a blue butterfly sitting on a pink and lilac toned flower with very soft rainbow colour colour pencil.

More work on my new techniques with colour pencil. A brighter colour subject this time. Used sumi ink paper for this, not ideal as I can't erase with this paper in order to pull out highlights.

Photo of a black cat we call Soot. She looks uneasy like she's not a fan of this photo being taken. She's lying down in the photo kind of hunched and is coming into frame on a diagonal. She looks ready to bolt by her body language.

Ash, a grey cat, is sitting handsome on my kitchen floor aware he's being paid in treats to pose. He looks alert and at ease. He's looking just to the left of me instead of at the camera. 3 guesses where the promised treats are. It's very important you know his left ear is crinkled. It makes him extra handsome.

Close up of the calico, Angel. Her face is about 60% black, 30% brown, and 10% white. As she is a calico, these colors are in patches. She looks a little confused that's just her norm.

Jaskier looks mostly white in this photo due to it being a close-up of his shoulders, front legs, and head. What grey there is makes it look like he has a receded hairline of grey hair. If you mess with his fur you can give him an effective comb over. He's looking down in the photo because he's snoozing, blissfully unaware of having his photo taken. He's also used to it.

Meet my 4 household kitties!
Black - Soot Sprite Spooky Pants
Grey - Ash
Those two share the job of ESA to my struggling 14yo
Calico - Angel - My 26yo's ESA
Grey and White - Jaskier - My 17yo's ESA
#caturday

I used to read on my walk home from school the two years as a kid that I lived close enough to school to walk. Used to baffle people but I was too busy reading to care.

Bouquet of watercolor flowers. I don't know flower types so I'm no help there but it's got about 6 different flower types you might find as wildflowers and put in a vase. The flowers are in an array of colors and each color uses a couple of different hues and saturations. There is a large yellow and yellowish brown flower front and center. To the left is a small navy flower with different degrees of saturation so it's lighter and darker. Up from there are different yellow flowers we'll see again on the right side of the bouquet. Up from there across the top is some greenery (also scattered through the middle of the bouquet), a white flower with blue edges, a different flower that has the same fluffy quality as a peony, and then another of the white flowers with blue edges. Going down the right side are more of those yellow flowers i promised would return, as well as a purple something. All these flowers have green stems that come together and are tied up in a bow with some teal ribbon. Going back to color use and saturation, none of the flowers nor greenery is flat color. Each is a complex mix of colors playing with, for example, different shades of green for the greenery. There are probably a dozen different shades of green used, all of them a slightly different shade as I add in a yellow here or a brown there, and now more green, the puddle of green paint I was working with was ever evolving. A similar process was used for each color and each flower. Though green is an outlier in the number of shades used. I also used different amounts of water to increase and decrease how saturated the colors are. Sometimes a flower might be just one shade of purple but the amount of water changes within the flower itself so some parts are darker and some are lighter.

This is the unaltered page of the workbook showing the provided line work that I worked within for the piece described in the previous photo. It's all of the line work with none of the color. You can also see that this workbook is spiral bound.

So this #watercolor workbook I'm working my way through (this is painting 7) provides line art that I then fill in with color. The book also offers a reference for how each image might look, but it's only a suggestion. Some I take, some I leave.

#beginnerartist #flowers #beginnerart

Look at that face! Such a sweet face!

Hmm. Today is a great day to fill my feeders. I do it as I think of it. ADHD makes a bird feeder routine hard, but I hear them out there, it's been a couple of weeks since I last filled them, and my 4 cats love the kitty TV.

Oh I'll happily follow along on your journey! Happy to have come across you your art is beautiful!

I'll tell you what. Nothing makes you want to create quite like sharing the things you've already created and receiving encouragement.

I started (besides embroidery) with oil pastels in May when my youngest was on his 8th grade trip to DC in May. Scared the shit out of me with well he's queer and Trump was back in office by then. I'd been trying to talk myself into the courage to create and soothing my worry was the final push.

I've also taken up embroidery which was actually how my artistic endeavors started. One fuels the other and all of it is so satisfying!