return of winter

After several weeks of warm albeit often cloudy weather we're having a cold spell. The thermometer isn't expected to reach 50 degrees today and tonight we may experience freezing temperatures. We've had to turn the furnace on again. "They" say North Texas has never had a freeze during the month of April (March 20 is supposed to be the latest). Of course "never" really only means as far back as they've been keeping track of these things, which in this area would be about 1900. There's no telling what things were like before then. Still, that's a long time. My mom brought in the one tomato plant in a pot that has tomatoes on it and she is covering the tenderest plants outside with plastic grocery bags weighed down by bricks.


Here's a collage I made for another challenge called Inspire Me Thursday. The theme this week was "change of scenery." I took myself and my notebook into our little sunroom yesterday morning. The cooler temperatures had already arrived, but the room was sunny and comfortably warm. I relaxed in a rocking chair and drew the base of this page, "Beware the Caffeine Dealer." Later I cut and glued my collage in the same space. I was so happy with the feeling of the room I may have to make it a permanent semi-occasional workspace. The light was wonderful!

I used a graphite pencil and a plastic template to draw a square border and a bunch of circles. Then I used a felt-tip marker to embellish the border. I got the idea to cover my drawing with a thin layer of yellow paint. You can still see the pencil marks although they're muted a bit, and the border embellishment ran into the water-soluble paint, creating some nice blurred and mixed up tones.