Bienvenue

Last Saturday morning I went to Granby High School in Norfolk with some of my small linocuts. I was invited to participate as a vendor during a student French competition, the 26th Annual Concours de Francais. I recently took some French lessons with the Alliance Francaise (so fun!) and my teacher asked me if I would like to come. I did not compete, of course, but my artwork was for sale! I enjoyed it but the students were surely nervous.

This display board we made the day before worked great!

The local Alliance Francaise was there. A nice group to help you learn French, if you want.



Welcome! A little print I made.



Owl Linocut

2 1/2" x 3 3/4"

"Work on me more or leave me alone?" wonders the owl.

The Norfolk Circle or Carolina Loop

Last weekend we had a very pleasant three day boat excursion along the Carolina Loop, part of the Intercoastal Waterway, which runs along the eastern coast of the US. We started in Chesapeake, Virginia, close to our hometown of Virginia Beach and went south. I haven't traveled this many waterways in so short a time!

Deep Creek, Chesapeake =>

The Great Dismal Swamp Canal =>

Pasquatank River => then north to

Albemarle Sound =>

North River =>

North Landing River =>

A&C Canal =>

Home!

A Loop! Or circle!

Here are a few photos from our trip:

Deep Creek Lock and Bridge at the beginning of The Great Dismal Swamp.
No need to leave the boat! The lockmaster catches the ropes and ties you up.

The Great Dismal Swamp, near the visitor's center. The canal was built in the 1790's as a trade route from Virginia to North Carolina. Nearby Lake Drummond feeds the canal and controls its depth. The canal is 22 miles long and isn't really so dismal! Although it has a colorful history! It's really called The Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife Refuge and is one of the largest natural areas on the East Coast.

The Great Dismal Swamp.
Nope, that's not our boat!

I was lucky to see many butterflies during the journey along the canal but never had a good chance to take a photo. But I saw this at the visitor center. I saw several of these butterflies!



Nope, not my boat!
Yachts are starting to return north from visiting the south for the winter.
We call the people who own them "snowbirds"!
These were at the dock in Coinjock, North Carolina.



Sign on Coinjock, North Carolina dock.



Sunrise in Tull Bay.
We anchored in this bay the second night. It was so quiet until morning when the birds were really singing.
 It was a real treat!

The light changed quickly in Tull Bay!



There are osprey nests with young ones on almost all of the channel markers. They have been encouraged to build their nests on the markers and they certainly do it! Without a telephoto lens, I couldn't get a closer photo.



Pipevine Swallowtails (Battus philenor)

This is a gouache painting that I recently finished, painted from some photographs that I took while on a summer vacation in the western part of Virginia. These colorful butterflies are found in North and Central America.

Rabbit Bench

It looks like a good place to sit and draw rabbits!

Goldfinch Drawings

Apparently goldfinches are very common in the area where I live but I hadn't seen many until I put a thistle feeder in a tree on my patio. Can't see the birds for the trees! :) I've tried several times over the years to put a feeder in various places around my yard but the flying squirrels seem to find them and then find cozy nesting places in the attic. Finally I think all of the necessary patching of places where they can sneak in are fixed! (I wonder if flying squirrels like thistle. I have to admit that they are cute. At least the trapper I found to remove them from the attic releases them in his woods when he goes home. Apparently a few of ours got loose in his house and his wife wasn't too happy with him. Yikes!)

Here are a few drawings of the goldfinches that visit the feeder. The males are turning bright yellow for mating season. I included a photo I took from the window.



hmm..