August 13-17, 2021 Fort Collins, Colorado

 86 and sunny today.

Spent the day working on glass. And trying to figure out how to get photos from my phone into my computer. After I few hours, I did figure it out. These are phone photos. On first Friday last week we got coupons for two free beers at Horse and Dragon Brewery here in Fort Collins. So today I rode my bike to the brewery, John met me and we had beers. John had two kind of IPA and I had a coffee stout. Very good beer. I then rode my bike home. Cool clouds down the alley from our place. 

Sunset tonight with the moon from our deck during dinner. The dot plate after it's first firing. It has some bubbles and devitrification -which is the scuzzy looking stuff in the lower left, and the kiln loaded for the next firing. I broke the bubbles and sand blasted the plate, sprayed it with super spray to get rid of the devit. On the upper right are some more dots in progress, below those is a basket center made with the dots, lower left is a basket center made with some of the puddles and the lower right is 7 pieces of glass in rainbow colors to make more puddles out of. 

 

Some pieces of dichroic glass masked off with stencils to sandblast. Beautiful black eyed susans at the library. I wish I could get those to grow in my garden. I love them. 

100 pairs of earrings and 78 pendants. Lots of work and more to go to restock my supply for the winter. For dessert tonight I made a peach crostata. It was very good. 

The river is low today. In the late afternoon the light on the bike path is just magical.

Cool light on my bike ride. Prickly poppies.

Smoky late afternoon light on McMurry Ponds. 

Path around the ponds. Smoky sun on the way home. 

Mural in the alley in Old town Fort Collins. Fresh out of the kiln. the dot plate to the left. On the right top is a basket center made out of glass dots and below that is another basket center made out of glass puddles. 

August 6-12, 2021 Fort Collins, Colorado

 94 degrees and partly cloudy.

Rainy on my bike ride. A donut hole of sky at McMurry Pond.  Poudre River. 

A rainy sunset instead of smoky. We walked around for first Friday. We stopped at the Museum of Art and saw the Art of the Aloha Shirt exhibit. These shirts we from 1938-51. They had the art, then the shirt. These were all the same artist, John "Keoni" Meigs. Very interesting. 

Woke up to bad smoke, can't see the mountains or much father than a block or two. I guess Denver had the worst air in the world today. Good day to stay inside and work on glass. Last night I cut hundreds of little squares of glass, then place them in the kiln so they were not touching. It took 3 hours. Top left all the squares, with a test piece in the middle, lower left this morning after they fired all night. Upper right close up of after fired. Lower right are dots! Stand by for art made with them. 

Pendants fresh out of the kiln. Pendants that I replaced the bails on. 

Smoky sunset, but much better than this morning. I made puddles by fusing 5 pieces of different colored glass together. Then I cut it up. set on their edge  and fired again.

Puddles. Orange sunset again. 

They are still working on the railroad bridge and the bike path is closed under it. The smoke makes for some interesting effects in sunset. 

McMurry pond and sunset. 

The smoky sunset over the bike path with tendril of moss in the trees.

These puddles are really fun to play with. I piled some of the smaller ones and some dichroic glass on top of the bigger ones and fired them. Before the firing on the left and after on the right. A couple of pieces fell off, but I can fix those.  I got a new phone . It is a Samsung S-21. I am learning how to use it. It is a lot like my last phone, but a lot of the apps are different. It has a good camera. I am playing with it, but have not figured out how to get the photos from the phone to the computer to use. 

I went to Denver to two drs appointments. This is the view of downtown. Usually you can see the mountains, but not today with the smoke.  The Dot plate before it's first firing. 

Sunset tonight was not as colorful. The air had a lot less smoke. But there was only this one measly cloud and the crescent moon.

July 30-August 5, 2021 Fort Collins, Colorado

 

John smoked a roast and had friends over for my birthday. It rained, so we had dinner in the garage. Jimjim, Martha, John, Barry, John and Mandy. The cool weather was nice and it was wonderful to see everyone. The food was scrumptious. John got me these lovely roses for my birthday, He also gave me a camera. My camera was sent off for warranty work at Best Buy to get a new lens but by some error got junked out, they don't make that one anymore. They did give me a full refund store credit at a store I no longer want to buy anything.  I had given him one this year and he gave it back. What a sweet heart. Mandy made the card , it came with some delicious raspberry liquor. Wonderful birthday season.

Fresh out of the kiln, some new pendants.  The river along the bike path is a weird color, muddy, but also back from the fires last year. 

Bee plant, blanket flower, sunflowers. The bike path through the young cottonwoods.

Thistle, goldenrod, pink flower and speedwell. I had lunch with my good friend Jamie today. I was great to see her and catch up.

Smoky sun. The tiger lilies I planted in our yard.

Smoky sunset. I was inventorying my jewels to see what I need to make. I have a lot. 

John took me out to the City Park for Food Truck Tuesday. It was a little drizzly today, but there was a good turn out. A frog in the City Park Lake. 

Great blue heron on the City Park Lake. Sunset over City park lake. 

My brother Jerry came up and bought us dinner for my birthday. We are at Lulu's Asian Bistro. They gave me a complimentary dessert of green tea ice cream with a candle. Great to see Jerry and the food was good as usual.  I got a new camera. A nikon coolpix W300, waterproof point and shoot. Here are some test shots around town. Petunias, coleus, an octopus on a train car mural and a metal sculpture. 

John in the fountain in Old Town Square. Yet another smoky sunset.

I have been playing with dots in the glass studio. Lots of little squares that I fired into dots, but I did not fire them hot enough, so they are not all the way dots, will have to fire them again. And a small piece playing with dots that I already had.