My Vegetable Garden

Because of the move to the new place I wasn't able to do my usual vegetable garden in the backyard, so this summer on Jimmy's patio I've got several different lettuces growing, along with a few tomato and pepper plants. But I really wanted to show you my crazy lettuce stalks. They went wild, and grew higher than any I've ever planted before. And now the tallest one has gone to seed. You can see the flowers on the tip. My son Zach and I picked this pot up at our favorite nursery, Roger's Gardens, in Newport Beach, which has some of the most healthy and gorgeous plants around. Well this has been one super duper batch of lettuce this year. Everyday since June I've been harvesting from the 5 different varieties and using them in our salads and sandwiches. Delicious!

The Rockits and Highlites - Concert on the Green

This last Saturday, late afternoon and early evening, Jimmy's band performed in Cypress, Ca. for their annual summer concert series. There must have been over a thousand people there, young, old and really old LOL, and a lot of puppies too.

Speaking of the pups, here are a few of them dancing with their owners. It was too cute!

This was just one section of the crowd that I was able to fit into the shot. And below, the aisle was lined with dancers of all ages. We had a blast!

The group will be performing at Java Joes in Yorba Linda on August 28 from 8 till 11. Come join us.

Recycled Blanket - My Work

Those of you who have been following my blog may remember this pillow (above) that I posted last Sept. It was such a fun project, I got to use up a lot of my scrap yarns, and it knit up real fast in a log cabin style. Well I still had so much extra yarn left over after this pillow that I thought I'd make a throw to use on the couch to go with it. So whenever I had a chance to do a bit of knitting this last year, I'd make random squares and rectangles to be sewed together at a later date (below).

But recently I felt a need to start sewing them together to see how many more I needed to make (a lot) before it was lap size. So below is a shot of the first couple that I put together. The mitered squares were swatches that came from another project. They were the rejects and I've been saving them forever, so I threw them into the mix. Bette, do you recognize the ones I made when I was in Florida? They are the 3 darkest ones in the pix above.

When I finish this up I'll post the result. Probably in another year or so. LOL

Dexter

Just wanted you all to see the sweet boy that lives across the alleyway from Jim's. His name is Dexter and he's just about a year old now. He's just the cutest boxer ever, never barks and watches us as we go about our business. Sometimes when his owner is away for long periods of time I toss him up a doggie treat cuz he just looks so sad. Wish he was mine.

Golfing with My Girl

Jim took Dan and I golfing at Birch Hills in Brea for a round of 9 last Saturday afternoon. This is the first time Dani has seen me on a course (I've been practicing up for this moment), and I could tell she was expecting me to be horrible, but I think I surprised her by paring a couple of the holes. Hee Hee The best part was getting the grilled hot dog with all the toppings at the end of the round. Yummy!

More Planters - My Work

Thought I'd show you the 2 planters I made this year as demo. pieces. You saw my students planters on yesterday's post. I try to keep my demos between 15 and 20 minutes, otherwise I oftentimes loose half the class's attention. So this top one took about 15 mins. to assemble and then after the kids left for lunch I added a few applied decorative roses and vines. And the bottom one I made the next day in about 10 minutes for a few of the kids who were absent the previous day. These pieces were so fun and easy, also really spontaneous. They are one of my favorite assignments that I do with my beginners. The top one blew up when I was bisque firing them, but I was able to save it by making a new back piece and then using glaze to glue the 2 pieces together during the second firing. Phew-shuu.

Instead of glaze I finished them off with a stain of red iron oxide and cobalt carbonate. Jim confiscated them for his home and he bought some beautiful ferns to put inside. He thinks I should market them. We'll see. LOL

Clay Planters - Student Art

For my Ceramics I students, this planter was their final exam for the year, the glazing and the planting. They were to use a thump and drag technique to produce their slabs that they had learned on a previous assignment. The piece had to have a highly textured background, be a certain size so the seedlings would fit in on the day of the final, and also have some kind of a nature theme going on thru applied decoration, stamping or incising. As an end of the year gift for all their hard work, I bought each student 2 plants to put in their planters. They were able to choose between sun and shade plants. I might have even given them a horticulture lesson so they wouldn't kill the poor things. LOL These were the results. The top 2 belong to junior Typhena Liu and senior Anthony Nguyen. The bottom 2 were created by junior Tiffany Wang and senior Chris Shishido.

The 2 above were made by seniors Bryant Min and Justin Currlin, and the last 2 were produced by seniors Ester Lee and Janet Hurtado. I hope your plants survived the summer. Gosh, I miss you guys. Hope you all are having a great summer.

Fractured Frontal Portraits - Student Work

My 2nd year 2-d students were required to find an interesting frontal shot from a magazine or picture they had taken. They were then to fracture the face in some creative way, enlarge it and execute it in oil or waterbased pastel, and then to mount it in an interesting format. These were some of the results. The top piece belongs to the talented senior Brandon Liao. Brandon's piece was so very beautiful, I'm pretty sure that he sold it at Open House to one of our teachers. And the bottom one was done by superstar senior Ashley Chang.

I took a couple of close ups so you could see her attention to detail in the stitching that she brought into this work, and the decorative holes she cut in the mat, as well as her beautiful use of the pastels.

This next one belongs to the exceptional senior Ann Lee. I shot it from the side as well so you can see the various levels that she glued the pieces down and makes it look a bit 3-d.

And this last one was done by the very gifted senior Anne Guu. Again, love the text these kids are bringing into their works. It makes the piece even that much more interesting. Look at how she didn't glue the pieces flat but rather in a wavy sort of way. I love how how much thought and effort went into each of these works. You guys are amazing!!

Monoprints - Student Work

It's been a while since I've posted any of my students art, so I'm going to be getting back on track here a bit before next years bunch of kids shows up in Sept. These monoprints were done by my 3rd year 2-d students. They learned several techniques within the monoprint medium and were required to do an example of each. These first 2 belong to junior Jason Kwon, I especially liked his little car.

The kids learned the traced, along with reductive and additive techniques. They also did some silhouette work, and were required to mix several of the techniques. Monoprints can be very spontaneous, which I feel helps loosen them up. Love senior Hannah Parks house above and that she added text into her work.

These last 3 beauties belong to senior Jullian Kho. If you are interested in seeing more monoprints, there are several artists in the Laguna Art Festival that are working in this medium; their work is amazing and very complex. My upcoming 2nd & 3rd year 2-d students, get yourselves over to Laguna, there is so much there for you to enjoy plus it's worth 10 extra credit points to you. Read about it a couple of posts back for more details.

The Men in my Life

This is for you Bette and Vinny, thought you'd get a good laugh. I don't think Zach and Jim wanted their pix taken LOL, oh well. The boys are waiting on me to get their dinner served. They had been my slaves all day moving furniture into my new condo. So much left to do in this photo. This was about a month ago. But I'm almost there now, ready to show off my before and after pix of the new place. So hang in there with me. :)

Summer Blooming Orchids

Last winter break when my son and I went on a road trip to San Diego, I bought him this unusual orchid. It's mounted on a piece of bark and very difficult to keep wet. I keep it at my place because my son was off at school and couldn't care for it, plus I have the perfect light for it. Anyways, I've been babying it along and the other day I looked at it more closely then usual, and I saw the forming of a stalk of orchids. I couldn't believe it and within two more days they began to open. They started off very pale yellow, but another two days had them turning bright yellow. They were so sweet and delicate. But the blossoms only lasted a week and a half then poof they were gone.

This is the enormous orchid my cousin Michelle gave me when she left for Texas this last May. It was blooming when I got it, and I remember posting it back then. After about a month the blossoms dropped off and I thought for sure it wouldn't bloom again till next year. But look at it go. It just sent out these new stalks and has been blooming again for all of July and now into August. Wow, what a beauty she left me with.

Garage Sale Mania

Oh my God!! I'm hooked. For the past 3 Saturdays, Jim and I have hit every garage sale in Anaheim Hills and Yorba Linda in the hopes of finding buried treasures, and last Saturday we hit the lotto! People are practically giving their things away. We got so many great deals. But boy oh boy, after 3 or 4 hours and a car full of stuff, I was really pooped!

The good news is my new home is almost done, can't wait to show before and after pix. So stay tuned!

Laguna Art Festival

This last Monday my son Zach and I made our yearly pilgrimage to the Main Art Festival in Laguna Beach. It did not disappoint. Outstanding ceramics, gorgeous paintings, crazy amazing metal sculpture, and the most beautifully designed jewelry were to be found. Granted, the prices are a bit high, cuz this is a juried show of the very best of the Laguna artists. If you want to spend a bit less, then go across the street to the Sawdust Festival, and if you really want a deal the The Art-A-Fair next to the Sawdust is the place to be.

This year I purchased 2 pieces by Laguna artist Bridget Hoff. I love her work and plan on using her pieces to teach with this coming year. She is a mixed media artist and collects plant life, twigs and rocks on her daily walk in San Juan Capistrano. Then she comes back to her studio in Laguna and paints, collages, resins and stitches thru the plant material. Then she layers all her finds until she has a pleasing composition.

What I really love about her work is how she combines found objects from nature with man-made found objects. I also love the layering but most of all the threads and stitching that seem to pull her pieces together.

The piece above was Zach's favorite so I bought it for him for when he has his first home. I'll take good care of it till then. LOL

For 10 points of EXTRA CREDIT to start the new school year off with, bring me your ticket stub from any of these 3 Art Festivals when you walk into my room on the first day of school.

Sunset August 3, 2010

This was last night's sunset as I was walking between Jimmy's home and mine. I just happened to be carrying my camera on me so I was able to get these shots. The top one is right outside Jim's home and the bottom one is right next to my front walkway. Incredible! We are so blessed to see this sight right outside our homes, and to live in this gorgeous community.

Bogie and Lily Agrums

Yep, it's Lily now instead of Birdie, I have a funny feeling the kitty's name will change a few more times before Dani makes up her mind. While Dan and I were watching the Bachelorette Finale last night the two young ones were trying to get along and nestle between us. This is how they started off, above, kind of eye balling each other and us,

then Lily relaxed enough to fall asleep. Bogie still has his eyes open just a tad. (above)

Finally Bogie settles and falls asleep, and Lily snuggles closer.

And this is how I left them, way too cute! I think Bogie and Lily will end up being the best of friends. At least that's what I'm hoping for. LOL I've got my fingers crossed.

Dani's new baby

Want to introduce you to the newest member of the Agrums clan, this is Dan's new kitty, she's 7 weeks old, and I think she has named her Birdie. So the dog is Bogie and the cat is Birdie. Can you tell we are a golfing family? Speaking of golfing, Dan is now outshooting both her dad and brother and will be starting on the varsity team this fall. We are so proud of her hard work and effort. She's at the driving range or golfing almost everyday, especially now that she can drive herself there.

Dan picked out the kitty yesterday, and she is sooo cute and inquisitive. She's also kinda shy and likes to play hide and seek. And she has beautiful markings too. We were worried how Bogie was going to behave around her, but he's actually been a sweet boy. He licks her and plays with her and doesn't seem to be too jealous. So so far so good!

The Rockits and The Highlites - July 2010

We had a lighter crowd last night due to a lot of folks on vacation, but the band was HOT! Had such a great time. Bette and Vinny, so wish you could join us and listen to your boy play his heart out. Maybe one of these days. I wish!

It was so funny, Jimmy was asking people to come up and sing with him, and this cute little lady ran up and held on tight to the back of Jimmy's suspenders and just rocked out. She was covered in glitter and sparkly things from head to toe. Adorable.

They will be back next month at Java Joes plus they will be also playing at the Marketplace in Long Beach. I'll post dates and times soon. Hope you can join us.