Five on Friday: Autumn is Falling !

What season in your life are you welcoming?  Here near the base of Mount Hood near Portland, Oregon, I am celebrating the official arrival of Autumn!  With thanks to Amy at Love Made My Home, I am joining in  her Five on Friday link and I hope you will enjoy visiting some of the others who are doing the same.  Just click on Love Made My Home on the right sidebar or click on Amy's name to connect with others' posts; and here are my five for the week.

One:  

A tree by our front pond is the first around us to don orange-red-yellow leaves and all of a sudden there are enough dried leaves on the ground my older granddaughters went outside today to try to rake up a pile of leaves to jump in.

 Two:

I brought out an autumnal tablecloth and some Fall decorations I have used for several years.  I knit one pumpkin and crocheted several others and a gourd.  The big yellow Maple leaf on the right of the basket I brought in from outside today.  My youngest son, Tim, has been successfully salmon fishing.  Tonight he made salmon cakes for us and we sat at the table to enjoy eating them.

Three:

At this time of year it seems I have an extra challenge trying to discourage spiders from weaving luxurious webs inside.  I have been wielding various dusters in battle.  Today I used some orange oil on the sea chest and rearranged some yarn and dishcloths, and acorns and Oak leaves on the chest after raising a cloud of dust while dusting.

Four:

This afternoon by my favorite chair I fixed some Pumpkin Spice tea and enjoyed it while recovering from inhaling the cloud of dust I had raised.   While sitting in my favorite chair this past week I tried my hand at making an arrangement of acorns and painting a watercolor painting of them.  Then just from my imagination I tried to make a painting of a bunch of radishes. I still have not got the hang of making shadows in proper places, but I am having fun trying.

Five:

It is definitely getting darker earlier these days, and I have been enjoying my little electric fire in the fireplace again.  The other evening I even was inspired to find my Ruby shawl and crochet some more on it.  Do you think I will finish it this Fall?  I know it is risky, but I hope you will cheer me on to to complete it before another Autumn falls!

xx
Gracie

Memorials

Here in the USA, my future son-in-law is one of those who is out and about

setting out flags for the celebration of Memorial Day this weekend,

 to honor and remind us of those who

gave their lives

so that we can enjoy the freedom

that we do today.

Flags, buildings, pictures, songs, enactments, foods, and paintings...

can all be reminders or memorials.

Southern journalist, Don Lee Keith is no doubt much to blame for my interest in watercolor memorial painting.

In my mid teens one summer day I sat on a beach in Pennsacola, Florida, trying to learn how to

play a ukelele I had just been given.

Handsome, Don Lee, nine years my senior (and now deceased) strolled up

to where I was sitting and plopped himself on the sand to chat.

He revealed he was a columist for the Times-Picayune in New Orleans, Louisiana.

In the following years we corresponded a few times and he sent me some samples of the

humorous column he then wrote.  When he wrote the book, The World of Rolland Golden,

in 1970, I got a copy of the book signed by both Don Lee

and the southern watercolorist, Rolland Golden.

I was then and still am fascinated with Mr. Golden's artistry.

In July, 1975, when God enabled my husband and me to meet our future adopted son in Seoul, South Korea,

we were also invited to the home of Taiwanese novelist and water colorist Wang Lan in Taipei, Taiwan.

Wang Lan gave us a signed copy of his book Wang Lan Watercolor Paintings which I would love to show you.

But, respecting their copyrights, I can not show you the prints I have of either man's work.  However,  their styles

 bring to my mind words such as impressionism, abstractism, and surrealism.

In my blogging explorations I currently enjoy viewing the artistry

 of Vanessa Cabban, Rebekka Seale, and Teresa Kasner.

Creating memorials is a part of the very fiber of being human, I think., 

 whatever medium we choose for expression,

From time to time I like to unleash the six-year-old within me

to exercise her primitive memorial making calling 

 with  watercolor painting.

My imaginary ocean in this picture reminds me

of many of the Saylorish things I celebrate in this blog:

faith, family, friends, freedom.

(see the reflection of me taking a picture of my picture(:  ?)

What memorials are you creating today?