Cartoons, Design

Happy Birthday Lisa

A birthday card

You have to feel a little sorry for people with birthdays around Christmas. Their birthdays are often forgotten, and when remembered they are told their one Christmas gift is for their birthday too.

Lisa is one such person. I thought I would use this constant annoyance as the start of her birthday card.

Since this all revolves around dates, it seemed reasonable to start with a calendar. A mock-serious scroll at the start of the month asks for our understanding. A giant Christmas tree literally and figuratively casts its shadow over the month. Lisa, in mock-super hero fashion (“The Lavender Crusader”?), pushes a branch out of the way of “her day” and strides out of the frame, aggressively reminding us not to forget her birthday.

Architecture, Design, Garden/Furniture

Wisteria Trellis: Part 3

One reason the construction drawings could be so simple is we knew that Jack Murphy would be building the trellis (he also built the two story deck). He can figure things out and doesn’t need a lot of hand holding. Again, he did a great job.

The blue shades were added later. See previous Garden Shades postings.

Photos of the finished trellis.

1st: Standing on the driveway, looking out to the street on the right, towards the house in the middle and looking back towards the two story deck on the left.

Our yard is small, and that makes things hard to photograph. There is no place to stand back and get an overall view of the trellis. The driveway is full of plants and the trellis is buried in green. I use composite photos a lot, because they give you the sense of being in, and surrounded by, the garden. This montage may be pushing the limits of this kind of photo, but I still think it conveys the feeling best.

2nd: Looking back at the left and center pieces of the trellis.

3rd: Looking towards the center and right pieces.

4th: Detail of the left end piece and the kitchen window. We painted the window frame the deep purple of the wisteria flowers

5th: detail of the center piece

 

Cartoons, Design

Merry Christmas

A quiet card

Lisa  suggested the topic of Christmas in San Diego, and how different Christmas in Southern California is from the cold white Christmases of her youth in Ohio.

Lisa also suggested I try color on my cards. I am partial to black and white comics, but had lots of fun in Photoshop with this one.

I wanted to evoke the feeling of our Christmases, which are quiet days spent in the garden.

In this card, we are up on our deck (see previous 2 Story Deck postings) watching the sun set on a wonderful day.

Merry Christmas to all my readers