House Arrest

Cyanotype, modified with Procreate

This one’s been attributed to lots of famous people, but I like Woody Allen’s version best, “If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

I had lots of those, and then my beloved dog blew out her knee. There’s surgery for that, which she had a little over three weeks ago.

Unfortunately, she requires 10-12 weeks to recover.  No running, jumping, stairs, or walking off leash. That’s a big challenge for an active, smart dog.

Cue the cancelling and postponing of my plans. I don’t want to leave her alone.

In between home physical therapy and ice, I’ve been looking for things to keep us both out of the looney bin.

When my husband is here to watch her, I’ve gotten out on a couple of day trips to photograph.

Sahuaro and blooming palo verde backlighted at sunrise, Near Congress AZ

The palo verde trees bloomed voraciously this year, covering the hillsides outside the town of Congress with yellow poofs of elation.  I caught that display at dawn with the drone camera, effectively clearing my head with a little photo-joy.

The magnificent seven, Chino Valley AZ

Later that week, I had a medical appointment near Chino Valley. I’m so grateful to Greg Murray, a wildlife biologist I met while working with the Central Arizona Wildlife Alliance (CAWA).  He had some helpful suggestions about where I might see Pronghorn in a nearby area.  There are several around Prescott and Prescott Valley which I know about, but those require more cojones than I possess, pulling over on busy roads which closely resemble highways. Wildlife photography is always hit-or miss.  After an hour or so I’d seen just one buck, who was far enough away and in dull enough light to not look so great, even with my long telephoto lens.  I was about to give up when these animals, which I’m calling the magnificent seven, appeared just twenty feet from the roadside in decent light. I’ll go back and try again first chance I get, but that kind of luck is usually not reproducible.  Incidentally, I’ve donated usage rights for this image to CAWA.

Then my husband went out of town, but I’d planned for this.

Fall Aspens modified in Procreate

My readers will recall that over the last eleven months or so, I’ve been working thought The Artist’s Way, a sort of self-paced coaching program for creativity.  Julia Cameron, its author, suggests (among many other things) a strategy for taming the demons of procrastination.  She advises devoting 20 minutes each day to the deferred project.  Easy does it, she says.  This technique gets me past the resistance to beginning. I committed to a week of 20-minute sessions with one of my current ventures, digital art with the Procreate app.

RBG Tribute cyanotype

Another undertaking I deemed suitable for the homebound is a second foray into cyanotype.  This simple technique leverages light -sensitive chemicals to create silhouettes of whatever I place on top of the treated paper.  It’s the same process used to make blueprints, when they were blue.

There were non-art projects as well; homemade limoncello, granola, and yogurt, and quiet times on the porch with my grounded fur-missile reading and streaming train wrecks like Netflix’s new FLDS documentary.

Eye contact; pronghorn near Chino Valley AZ

 I have at least six weeks to go.  Any suggestions?