No image tonight...just some mental ramblings. It is after 10:00 pm and I just returned from a chorus rehearsal. This is a group of over 100 people between the ages of 15 and somewhere around 80. Every Monday, I grumble about going as it is a late night and I am tired, but then I spend the evening singing, and I am energized. We are preparing Rutter's Mass of the Children and his Magnificat for a concert in May. It is glorious, lovely music and it fills me. How, I wonder, do people exist without the arts? And why are the arts the first things to go when budgets get tight?

My daughter has been keeping a daily calendar of sketches. After a visit with her, I decided to try it myself. I am finding it is difficult to keep up with such a daily practice and that the quality of my work varies a lot. Yet, I think I will keep on....

My most recent collages have been centered around natural elements. This one is a weed I found on a New Years walk on the beach following a labarinth walk. The bird house is part of a photo I took at the Mass Horticultural Society farm this past summer.

It was a very snowy day. The figure in this sketch is a metal piece sent to me from Colorado and made by a Colorado artist. I was pleased by the way I was able to deal with the snow.....one of my better sketching/watercolor days.

A bit of a branch I gathered on that same day and combined with some herbs and dried flowers.