Friday Favorites Sept. 30

Crazy weekend! I'm smack in the middle of four straight days of showing my art. I'll let you know how it goes after it's all over.

But now, my favorites from this week:

Love this fabric from ifabricstore - the colors, the designs, everything!

Absolutely gorgeous horse portrait from DLysons. Very similar to some of my work - maybe that's why I'm drawn to it.

Incredible star photograph from DeepSpacePhotography. Our universe is simply a wonder, and I love seeing photos of just how much there is out there.

This "quilt art" piece - I don't know what else to call it - from Quilts2Love. I love to paint and to quilt, but it would never occur to me to do both at once.

I love multi-panel paintings, and I love the blues in this one from GabriellaStauffer.

Friday favorites Sept. 23

Love this fall candle from melindawrightdesigns.

And this wreath too from the same place.

This unicorn cake topper from SugarDoughDesigns is amazing - way too cute to eat!

This woven basket from SitaraShop is so wonderfully colorful!

This unicorn painting is absolutely stunning! Easily one of the most gorgeous pieces of art I've seen lately!

And since I've long been an admirer of DragonsAndBeasties, but I don't think I've shared any of her work, here's a cute little dragon sculpture.

I'm heading into a crazy week as I get ready for the big show next weekend. Have stationery to package, new prints to mat/frame, and of course, all the packing and checking that go with doing shows. 

Anyone doing anything fun this weekend?

Horse Power - the old fashioned kind

A week ago, I went with my parents to the Olof Swensson farm between Montevideo and Granite Falls, MN. It was their "Horse Power" event, and all the antique farm equipment was being run with the old-fashioned kind of horse power - the kind with four hooves!

There were teams of draft horses everywhere! Most were Belgians:

But I drooled over this gorgeous pair of black Percherons all day long!

Meet Mike: 

His job for the day was grinding corn with this contraption:

His owner poured corn into the top, and Mike walked around and around in circles, providing power to the gears turning the grinder. I almost felt sorry for him since he had such a boring job, but he seemed pretty happy. 

Good job Mike!

Other horses, the Percherons, a team of light mules and a pair of Norwegian Fjords, had the job of transporting the spectators around the farm. Like Mike, they walked in endless circles, although their circles were much larger and more scenic.

Many Belgian teams and one team of draft mules worked in the fields.

Plowing:

Shocking corn:

And fluffing hay (this was a strange contraption that actually "fluffed" the hay, throwing it into the air, not raking like the common method today):

It was quite warm, and since these horses obviously don't work like this every day, most of them had another team that swapped out with them to give them a break.

I think these blonde beauties were my favorite of the Belgian teams.

There is an old house on the grounds as well. It was built at the turn of the century by Olof Swensson and his daughter, and its 22 rooms include a 38x38 foot chapel on the second floor!

If you've ever seen the movie "Sweet Land", the scene at the banker's house early in the movie was filmed in the dining room of this house.

A view into one of the 10 bedrooms.

And the kitchen. I heard someone say that the scenes in "Sweet Land" in Olaf and Inge's kitchen were filmed in this kitchen, but if that's true, it was changed enough for the movie that I didn't recognize it.

I will definitely be going to this event again. We arrived too late to watch the potato digging, and they loaded hay on the wagons while we were touring the house, and I'd love to see both.

Friday Favorites Sept. 16

Haven't done Friday Favorites in a while, but I've been browsing around Etsy a lot again lately, and I want to share some of the beautiful things I've found.

Equine photograph from thezencowgirl on Etsy

In love with this photo! Beautiful composition, love the braids and the lighting, and I'm such a sucker for unique angles.

Camera coozy from xcessrize on Etsy.

Such a great idea! A protective "coozy" for those times you don't want to carry your whole camera bag - your camera can still have some protection in your purse or other bag.

Arabic calligraphy print from EveritteBarbee on Etsy.

This is simply amazing. The entire "drawing" is actually a written out poem. Art made from words has always fascinated me!

Cowboy boot drawing from KimbersFineArt on Etsy.

As a pencil artist myself, I can definitely appreciate the work that went into this! It also reminds me of my own cowboy boot drawing.

Rim light horse photograph from HorsephotosPro on Etsy.

Stunning! I don't even have words for this one!

Where in the world is my art?

I've had this idea for a long time to keep a map of where I've sold artwork to, and this weekend, I finally got the things I needed to make it a reality - maps, corkboard, and pins.

I'm using black pins for stationery orders and white pins for prints. There is one original drawing sale and one photography sale that, for now, are marked in white, but eventually I'll get some more pin colors.

Here's my US sales:

And worldwide:

Two each to Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, and one to London!

I'm so excited about this. It's just so much fun to see where my artwork is going. This is, of course, only work sold online as I can't really ask every customer at a show where they're from and take time to mark it down, but I do know that I've sold originals at shows to England and Washington state among the more local customers.

Does anyone else do this? I'd love to see your maps!

Animal, vegetable... fruit?

This past weekend I went to Wisconsin for a cousin's wedding and got to visit my grandpa while I was there. One of my favorite parts of going there is seeing the horses, of course.

But there were also two adorable half-grown kittens following us around.

We also spent a lot of time in Grandpa's vegetable garden.

While everyone else dug potatoes, carrots and radishes, I took photos...

... harassed a bee or two...

.... and saw my first real life swiss chard!

Grandpa also has a grape vine.

Raspberry bushes.

And apple trees so full of apples that he had to prop boards under the branches to keep them from breaking off under the weight!

Oh, so many apples!

We also made plans to go back in October when it's time to squeeze the apples for cider. If you've never had fresh squeezed apple juice, it's unlike anything you could possibly imagine - I can't wait!

I was having a bit too much fun with Picnik today!

So there you go - animals, vegetables, no minerals, but fruit is more fun to photograph than minerals anyway!