A bit of a long stretch since last post again… I ended up in NJ for nearly a month finding out that a mother never forgets how to care for newborns no matter the age, but with that age, I found that it’s REALLY tiring. I was helping care for a set of twins- Great grandbabies (can’t share more than that)… a new thing for me, and one was a girl! I had never changed a newborn girl’s diaper… I had all boys and there are more grandsons than daughters.

I was participating in an Instagram sketchbook challenge during February, and did keep up for the first 17 days. The 18th day, the prompt was envelopes, which I had no idea what to sketch, until watching the twins swaddled next to each other…. in their little “envelopes”. This is the last sketch I did due to total lack of sleep and hands full with the little ones.

Since returning home, and after catching up on sleep, I began again with playing in Photoshop. I did manage to keep up with a few more Spoonflower challenges while I was away, and once home… there were three in a row that fit in with “my” thing.

I did the last two- Blue Flower Show Trellis, and Peep Feathers after home. Peep Feathers used sketches I did during the challenge of a few feathers with photos of some of my Peep’s (Guinea) feathers. I debated whether I would leave the feathers stark black and white or add color. I left it black and white for the entry. After, I did some playing with different versions with and without color. Below is one of the first versions- feather color inverted, placed over a background of one of my sunprinted fabric images that I manipulated.

Playing with the image of the sunprint, started me doing more with other prints I have photos of. I found I could end up with interesting tone on tone designs by duplicating the images, turning them, offsetting then and stacking them with various opacities… fun to see what happens.

Even though i am not able to do the actual painting right now, it is great to be able to take photos of some of my favorite prints and turn them into some pretty fabrics or patterns to be used on various products. A new batch of proofs has been ordered from Spoonflower and I hope to soon announce the availability of them for purchase.

It’s winter in Pennsylvania… which means we could have snow, rain, mud or ice. In recent years, it seems that the heaviest precipitation ends up being rain and not snow. The good thing about that is that we don’t get buried under feet of snow. The bad… we can end up with lots of slush, or major puddles that later freeze into sheets of ice. A week ago, we had the coldest temps so far this winter with lows below zero and highs barely above. Sheets of thick ice and bumpy frozen slush. Now it is raining… all the snow we had is gone and in the place of the ice is a LOT of mud.

Bella appreciated the lowered snow depth after a meltdown of one of our big snowstorms, so she could run around again. She loves to chase squirrels and have the freedom of not being stuck to the shoveled paths. Now that things are muddy again, she really loves the outdoors to sniff out more critters. She also tracks a lot of mud inside for such little paws.

The Peeps (Guineas that aren’t so little, but still peep a bit) don’t care for the rain and mud… They will run about and pick at the grass when there is some snow. During the deepest snows and coldest days, they were left in their coop, so when weather is nicer, they enjoy their freedom. Bella looks as if she’s hunting them down in the above photo, but seems to want to play with them… they take turns running at each other.

Since gardening outdoors is out of the question in winter, I have to get my “fix” playing with flowers indoors… on the computer for now. I did a design using some sketches I did for the latest Spoonflower challenge. The theme is a limited palette of coral, midnight blue, goldenrod and gray. All four colors were to be used, and unlike some limited palette challenges in the past, no black or white were allowed. A definite Challenge! The gray makes a good background color, even if it looks a bit dingy. In the first few versions of the design, I tried the yellow in different areas of the flowers. After stepping back and looking at a mockup, I didn’t like that, so I took the yellow out of the center parts of the flowers. I like it much better now.

So far I have only done one coordinating design, just using the swirls and splashes (or Fleur-de-lis). I hope to be getting these designs and others that I have done in the past months proofed so they can be available for purchase on fabric, wallpaper and gift wrap on Spoonflower. You can check out my Spoonflower Shop- AndrusGardens to see what is available now. I am up to well over 200 designs so far.

In the month of February, I am participating in an Instagram sketchbook challenge. It is getting me to continue to do some things I would not have normally done. I will share some of those sketches in a future post.