Tag Archives: kit miracle

Fickle Spring

Posted on March 5, 2023 | 4 comments

I don’t know how the weather is where you are but this past week here in Southern Indiana, it’s been all over the place. A week ago the temperature was up to 82 per the weather app on my phone. In February! Yesterday, Saturday, it was a chilly 30 degrees with frost on the car windows. Friday we had four inches of rain resulting in the creek bursting out of its banks and over the driveway, storms, winds up to 60 mph, and a tornado warning sending us to the basement for a bit.

The creek flooding out of its banks and over the drive.

The reason we moved here 35 years ago (after ten years in Michigan) was that the winters here were relatively mild (jacket weather) and the summers were endurable. But the past couple of years have been hotter or wetter or just plain off schedule. I’ve counted the tree rings in old trees and could see the drought of the 30s (thinner rings). Maybe it’s climate change; maybe this is a normal cycle.

The tallest cedar. Son and grandson for scale.

Spring still seems to arrive on her own schedule. Last week we went for a walk in the woods to find the tallest cedar. We did. I also spotted this tiny orange fungi. And some odd-looking bumps on a sycamore tree. I have no idea what that is.

The purple crocuses seem to be the most hardy.

The crocuses are still pushing up, often in odd places where I know I didn’t plant them. Can they travel? The tulips are still emerging but seem to be on the wane, most likely due to deer and rabbits. Several types of daffodils are blooming despite what Mother Nature is throwing at them. The frost doesn’t seem to affect them at all. Even the pulmonaria is pushing up. The buds are swelling on bushes and trees. We seem to be about three weeks ahead of normal…and I’m not ready for spring yet.

Hardy daffodils. Also in a few types of lilies coming up. Limbs down from recent storm.

I was outside early yesterday morning to take photos of the golden frosty sunrise. In my robe and boots again. Thankfully we have no near neighbors as I’m sure I was an eyeful.

But I always look forward to spring’s promise no matter how fickle she is. Just no more tornado warnings, please.

Wisteria vine. Fallen wild cherry in back waiting to be turned into campfire wood. Always some benefit in the storm.

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Posted in country living

Tagged country living, crocuses, daffodils, gardening, golden sunrise, indiana, kit miracle, storms, tulips

Country living

Posted on February 26, 2023 | 6 comments

What do you think of when you hear the word country?

For some, it might refer to a nation but I’m thinking of a place a little closer. For many it means a state of mind, an attitude not a specific place.

For me the term refers to a rural place, a landscape. An escape from or to. Getting back to nature. A walk in the woods. A bench in the park, or even a geranium on the window sill.

Country is a feeling, an attitude, a breath of air. The first daffodil or garden tomato. Watching a tiny spider try to climb a blade of grass. Or the cute tree frog plastered to the window at night, staring back at me with his big eyes.

I live in the country, or what many people think of when they hear that term. With fields and woods, streams and private places. In a very very old house which still echoes with the laughter of children from long ago and more recently.

The walls are a foot thick and not one of them is exactly perpendicular. And that’s OK; neither am I these days.

The best compliment I’ve ever received was from my great Aunt Catherine who was visiting many years ago. She was sitting in an old wingback chair with some music playing softly in the background. The windows were flung open to catch the breeze and she remarked, This house is just so comfortable. And isn’t that what anybody wants their guests to feel? Comfortable?

Logs used in the front half of the house. Notice the adz marks on these hand-cut beauties.

No matter where we live now, most of us are only a generation or two from the country life. Fortunately we can still experience a taste of country with that pot of tomatoes on the deck or the geranium in the window. Take a walk in the park. Feed the birds. Just sit in the shade and tune into nature’s sounds.

Frequent visits to my grandparents as a child planted the seeds of my love for the country life. Collecting still-warm eggs from the chickens. Playing with cousins in the hayloft. Giving that mean old sow a wide berth. Living on that little farm in the county was always a dream of mine.

My husband and I realized this dream thirty-five years ago when we actually bought the farm at auction. That resulted in a lot of work to bring the old place up to date. We were much younger then and had watched way too much of This Old House. Ha ha. Not quite so easy. Add a twenty-five mile commute to work (and the grocery). But it’s been fun through the years with lots of rewards (and some trials).

I love the version of country that I’ve been living for the past couple of decades but I also realize that you may have a different version. Do you decorate with simple hand-made furniture and quilts? Or put your green thumb to work on those patio plants? Maybe you can walk down to the ocean shore or river to check out the wildlife? Or are you a birder, waiting in a swamp for the first rays of dawn in order to photograph those cranes that are passing through?

What does your country look like? Is it comfortable?

Beams in the kitchen. Each plate is a family memory.

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Posted in country living, garden, old house, opinion

Tagged country living, gardening, indiana, kit miracle

Foggy Morning, East Field – a painting how-to

Posted on February 12, 2023 | 8 comments

Initial sketch and color notes. Notice that I trimmed back my initial sketch to eliminate some of the trees on the left.

Recently I posted some photos that I took of a very foggy morning out here on the farm. The atmosphere of the scene has been nagging at me so I’ve been wrestling with some ideas. I’ve done several sketches, including some color sketches in both watercolor and acrylic. It seems the most challenging part to me is to tone back the color as I like to use bright colors so much. Fog is basically various shades of grey. I’ve cut back the color in the foreground and added more grey tones.

One of several preliminary paintings testing the color scheme of Foggy Morning.

First I prepared the canvas which was already gessoed. In this case, I sanded it, added another coat of gesso which I texturized with a soft cloth. After this dried, I gave it a wash of a very pale but slightly warm tone. This would be my underpainting. Then I drew the image on the canvas.

I don’t usually use a wide variety of paint colors as you can see in the image above. I rarely use a commercial green, instead preferring to mix my own shades of green from the limited palette. There are only seven colors plus white. I also use an acrylic modeling paste which adds more texture. A matt medium cut with water is my mixing medium.

First I mixed several shades of grey and started with the trees, then worked my way down through the field, adding more color as I reached the foreground. I really had to keep reminding myself to focus on the foggy grey tones and not add too much color. Then I added some more notes in the tree line. The sky was painted with a very pale grey leaving some of the warm undertone showing through. The hint of the rising sun through the fog was actually an accident but I liked it so I left it in.

Toned canvas with first layers of paint.

Then it was just a matter of adding the trees, darker in front, lighter in the distance. Not too many details but enough.

I’m not sure if I’m done yet so I think I’ll let the painting rest for awhile. I’m working on a companion piece so we’ll see how well that one comes out and if I’ll need to make adjustments.

Foggy Morning, East Field 18 x 24, acrylic on canvas. Kit Miracle

I guess the lesson here is to learn restraint. For me it’s with color, also perhaps too much detail which can be a hazard for many artists. I’ll probably do some more tweaking before I call this finished. I’m always interested in feedback so let me know what you think.

8 Comments

Posted in art, contemporary impressionism, impressionism, landscape, painting instruction, Uncategorized

Tagged contemporary impressionist, foggy landscape, kit miracle, painting fog, painting instruction

Early signs of spring

Posted on January 22, 2023 | 5 comments

I always eagerly anticipate the first signs of spring. This year, I was surprised to see a dandelion in bloom on January 4^th. That is amazing to me. Now I’ve eagerly started looking for signs.

So far, I’ve also spotted several bushes in bud. Rhododendron, azalea, magnolia. Sometimes I’ll catch a mixed up forsythia in bloom already but then, they often bloom in autumn, too. However, they are easy to force if you just cut some branches and bring them inside. (Put them in water, of course.)

I have a lot of naturalized daffodils in the yard. They are already coming up in several places. Sometimes they’re too early. One year I painted a group of daffodils blooming in the snow so it’s not inconceivable that I might see some soon.

One day last week, I saw three robins in a row in the front field. Sometimes I’ve seen large flocks of them in early spring. Only the males.

And I caught this rabbit in my headlights as I was coming up the drive a few days ago. The little devil was looking for something yummy in the garden but there’s nothing there yet except garlic. A motion-detector solar-powered light is good to chase away night critters.

With the winds, I saw several of last season’s nests which have been blown down. My kids used to bring them to me and I still love the engineering.

These little sketches were done with some very old Osmiroid ink in sepia. (It’s a collector’s item now.) I haven’t worked with ink for awhile so it was fun to get back to an old friend. I used a #4 quill which is also hard to come by these days. There are a number of fine quality pens and inks made in Japan of which I would like to try more. Stay tuned.

5 Comments

Posted in country living, Uncategorized

Tagged daffodils, early signs of spring, kit miracle, nest, rabbits, rhododendron, robins, spring

Fog

Posted on January 8, 2023 | 2 comments

The east field. Frequently we see deer crossing here.

I am glad that I live in a climate that exhibits mercurial moods. The past month has been some wild ride. Record-setting heat for winter, up to the 70s. And a blizzard which scrubbed the land with high winds, followed by bone-chilling freezes. No two days were the same, it seemed. I think I would get bored if every day was sunny and warm, say like Florida or Arizona. But ask me about that next month towards the end of February.

One thing that I’ve noticed is that my own mood perks up on sunny days. Thus, I seem to prefer painting outdoor scenes depicting sunshine. So when I woke to a heavy fog a couple of weeks ago, I marched outside (yes, in my robe and rubber boots) to take some photos of the fog. The air was soft and the neighborhood was very quiet. It seemed shrouded in mystery if that isn’t too much of a cliché. One could almost imagine some settlers emerging from the heavy air or some knights on horseback in days of old. Yeah, too much reading with my granddaughter.

The front yard. I saw some deer go across the end earlier.

But as I was reviewing my photos, I got inspired to try some new subjects. The misty landscapes will probably appear sometime in the next few months. Just imagine the peace and soft footfalls.

The north field. The fog is beginning to lift but it’s just above the tree tops.

Oh, by the way, happy new year. Or at least a better one if the past has been difficult for you. Find a still place to reflect, maybe enjoy the peace of some foggy weather.

A big maple in the side yard. The fog is already beginning to lift.

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Posted in country living, Uncategorized

Tagged country living, fog, indiana, kit miracle, southern indiana, weather, winter

The Big Chill – Christmas

Posted on December 25, 2022 | Comments Off

Blue sky and blue shadows. Beautiful but chilly.

Unless you were vacationing in some tropical paradise this past week, you probably are aware of the big arctic event that blasted through the center of the country this past week. After a relatively balmy fall season leading up to the holidays, this is what my little corner of the Midwest experienced this week.

A country welcome. Nothing fancy but a little festive.

The weather forecasters were urgently warning much of the nation to pay attention and take appropriate action. Which we did. The cellar was loaded with firewood in anticipation of the deep freeze. The fridge was full of the usual supplies. Our son and his girlfriend were rushed to Louisville on Thursday in anticipation of their very early flight back to the west coast on Friday. (Fortunately, they experienced only a small delay.) We made it home by early afternoon before the big blast and battened down the hatches in preparation.

My father carved a series of holiday figures and gifted them to us children over the years. I cherish every one.

By early evening, the temperatures began to drop, the misty rain turned to driving snow, and the wind cranked up the volume. It didn’t stop until today. The high here yesterday was zero. I didn’t even step foot outside the house until today when I went for a walk and to catch up on outdoor chores.

Burrrrr. A beautiful but chilly sunrise.

The sun was out and everything was sparkly. The bird feeder has been popular. We’ve gone through forty pounds of sunflower seeds in the past two weeks. I saw plenty of tracks here and there, especially around the mulch pile. I was looking for another visitor, too. I spotted a mink skulking about last week which was the first that I’ve seen around here. Haven’t seen any deer or turkeys but I’m sure they’re holed up somewhere. Leo the cat has been taking marathon naps and very quick trips to check the weather. The dog doesn’t care and is always ready to play with anyone who ventures outdoors.

Anti-chill. No farmhouse backdoor would be complete without an assortment of hats and coats during a winter storm.

We haven’t had a big freeze like this for many years so it’s been an adventure.

Anyway, I hope that wherever you are spending Christmas day that you’re warm and cozy and safe. Enjoy your families if you’re near, or your friends if you’re not. Or better yet, make your friends into a new family.

Let the warmth of your hearts extend to those in need. Stay safe.

Best wishes for the season.

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Posted in country living, garden, old house

Tagged Christmas, country living, gardening, indiana, kit miracle, Midwest Living, winter storm

And then the cavalry arrived

Posted on October 30, 2022 | 4 comments

As I have mentioned previously, we rely on wood heat to keep our house warm in the winter. Yes, we have a gas furnace but that has a price. The wood heat is free….mostly. Oh, there’s your labor involved and the wood requires a lot of handling. A lot.

The guys were experienced and jumped right into work.

Southern Indiana is hilly with plenty of hardwood forests. People often selectively timber their property. That is when individual trees are cut. The logger only takes the primary eight foot log (sometimes more than one per tree). He leaves the limbs and tops for the landowner. This is where our firewood mostly comes from. Saturday mornings are spent in the woods, cutting, dragging, chopping, splitting, moving the wood from one place to another. A lot of handling.

Last winter my husband bought some “sticks” from the neighboring logger. The wood was good but maybe it was twisted, the wrong type, whatever. They delivered it and it’s been sitting there awaiting attention. Unfortunately, as mentioned in an earlier blog, he had a serious health issue this year and can’t handle the wood as he was used to. Which led to plenty of fretting on his part.

So, as I was reading the paper a couple of weeks ago, I saw an article about the local seminary who was looking for families who heat with wood for their annual Project Warm. This is where the seminarians acquire wood from people who donate it off their property, maybe previously timbered, chop and deliver it to families in need. So I suggested to my husband that he give them a call and explain the situation. That he had the wood but just needed some help processing it.

After a few phone calls, they agreed that this would be a relatively easy project for them and came out this week. Wow, what a beehive of activity!

The crew. Such a wonderful bunch of guys and so hard working. (Husband is the guy in blue in the middle.)

Since the guys were experienced in the process, they were able to go right to work. We have a log splitter and all the logs were staged in one area. They just had to saw the logs into the right stove lengths, then split them. Some used the splitter but most of the young men chopped the wood by hand with mauls. It was like a well-oiled machine. Some were sawyers cutting the wood, some were splitting the wood with mauls and one operated the machine splitter. It is easy to spot someone who has been swinging a maul for years as there is a certain rhythm to it. It’s not a chopping motion. And this was hard wood, almost all hickory, one of the heaviest and densest woods, but which provides the most warmth. At least two of the young men grew up on farms in New England where they were accustomed to handling wood for home heating.

The final results. A whole lot of firewood to heat the house this winter.

The guys turned those logs into piles of wood ready to keep us toasty this winter.

Taking a well-deserved break after a couple of hours of real hard work

Of course, we fed them as is our custom in this part of the world. Trays of homemade Italian pizza, pumpkin spice muffins, fruit, snacks and drinks. It was a pleasant afternoon for us as I hope it was for them. We so enjoyed visiting with these young men and learning more about their backgrounds and fellowship. What a wonderful day. The guys are from St. Meinrad Seminary, right down the road from us. Project Warm has been one of their community missions for over forty years. Although we just learned of the program this year, I can’t tell you how much we appreciated the help.

Our son came by the following morning to move the wood into piles. This makes it easy to tarp the piles, keeping it dry before it is moved into the house.

Learn more about Project Warm here. https://www.saintmeinrad.org/news?story=13467

4 Comments

Posted in country living, Uncategorized

Tagged country living, indiana, kit miracle, st meinrad, wood heat

Hunter’s moon

Posted on October 9, 2022 | 2 comments

Last night I sat outside with the chill falling, enjoying the flames in the firepit. I think we had a frost but it doesn’t seem to have made much of a difference.

Tonight I stood outside for awhile to wait for the rise of the Hunter’s moon over the ridge. As dusk was falling and the dog and I were waiting, a soft shadow drifted into the bean field. A deer. One of many nearby. The dog, of course, took off. Just the love of the chase, I expect. I don’t know what he would do if he caught one but there’s really no danger of that. The deer glided across the field in leaping arcs. He’ll be back.

Plein air painting with a friend down by the river earlier this week. It was so peaceful.

I’ve painted this scene several times, in many seasons. The tall maples and reddish dogwood set off the white house and the clear blue sky. So brilliant.

The dogwood backlit by the afternoon sun. My granddaughter says it looks like stained glass.

I try to get outdoors as much as I can this time of year. Took the grandkids to paint pumpkins at the local art fair yesterday. Went plein air painting down at the river with a friend earlier this week. But even a walk through the woods with the dog are pure pleasure. The squirrels sure aren’t leaving many hickory nuts and the walnut harvest is paltry compared to last year. Never mind. Plenty for all.

Purple ironweed looks brilliant and healthy this late in the season. It contrasts nicely with the beanfield in the background. It was actually covered with straggler butterflies a week ago.

Surrounded by fall colors which seem to have changed overnight, at least the past two weeks.

We had a bit of a drought earlier this summer but with some rain. Crops around here are abundant. The farmers are scurrying to get it all in before the next big rain but I think they’ll be alright. None predicted for awhile.

Anyway, I hope you can get outdoors to enjoy the crispy fall air. I’ve painted nearly everything in the area throughout the seasons, particularly autumn. But I guess that you’ll see more seasonal work as the months go by. It never bores me. I find the rhythms of the seasons comforting. I hope that you are able to enjoy some natural beauty in your area, too.

A beautiful sunrise over Lake Patoka. Photo courtesy of my friend Joan M. who lives nearby.

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Posted in country living, garden, plein air painting, Uncategorized

Tagged autumn, country living, fall moon, hunter moon, indiana, ironweed, kit miracle, Lake Patoka

Water themes as a painting subject

Posted on September 18, 2022 | Comments Off

Waterlilies at the Spillway, acrylic, 12 x 12

Many lists of the most popular painting subjects include landscapes and seascapes. I must admit that I’ve painted quite a few pieces with these subjects. Although I live in the Midwest, many of my landscapes include some water feature – streams, rivers, ponds, lakes. And my travels have taken me to the ocean in various places. There is something very primal and soothing about hearing ocean waves…most of the time.

Fishing at Patoka Lake, acrylic, 12 x 16

Recently I painted a couple of paintings based on the very large lake nearby. Lake Patoka is 8,800 acres and is a major water and recreation source for the area.

Leaving the Cove, Cape Breton, NS, acrylic, 9 x 12

But I also cruised through old photos of places we have visited, particularly Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and New England. Such beautiful scenery that it was difficult to choose. Many more subjects for future paintings.

White Wharf, Rockport, MA, acrylic, 12 x 16

Fishing Shack (or Motif #1), Rockport, MA, acrylic, 8 x 10

And, of course, I did an entire series of beach paintings but those are mostly about people and children with the ocean being a common denominator for each painting.

Beach Readers, Intimate Spaces series, acrylic on linen, 24 x 30, Kit Miracle The whole attraction of this subject with the irony of the two young women who are reading and totally ignoring the beautiful day at the beach. I also love the way the red beach chairs draw the viewer’s eye into the scene.

Wet Reflections, acrylic, acrylic, 24 x 30

This is not to say that painting water features is the only subject that I tackle, but it is one of my favorites. So many opportunities if I take my time to look for them.

What are your favorite subjects to paint?

See more paintings at my Etsy shop KitMiracleArt or my main website ContemporaryImpressionism

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Posted in contemporary impressionism, painting instruction, plein air, travel

Tagged kit miracle, lakes, ocean, painting instruction, painting water, ponds, rivers, subject matter, water

A month of art

Posted on August 30, 2022 | Comments Off

August has been scorching here this summer. Too hot for outdoor work. So I spent much of the month in the studio just being an artist. This was a great respite from all the other chaos of the summer.

However, we did have a couple of days of lovely cool temperatures, in the low 80s. Fling open the windows! I took advantage of the cooler weather to clean out my studio. This meant dragging nearly everything outdoors, rewrapping and packing many of the paintings, vacuuming, debris clean out. Just making an inviting space to work again.

Our garden was in name only this summer. And I only gave cursory attention to the weeds and flowerbeds. This meant that I had plenty of time to devote to creating some art.

I began with building up some inventory, especially of sunflowers, some of my favorites. Although I usually grow several different varieties from the mammoth giants to the multi-stemmed, to all the colors that are available, this year I only had a few to work with. I planted them but they just didn’t want to make an appearance. So I used some of the many photographs that I’ve taken over the years.

I did several sheets of minis. I can get four 4 x 6 on a quarter sheet of watercolor paper. Although I often repeat a theme, they never turn out the same. I buy mats and backs in bulk so it’s pretty easy to prepare them for display or shipping.

Four mini sunflower paintings on quarter sheet of watercolor paper. Although the top two are the same subject, they’re not exactly alike.

Then I did a few larger ones. After that, I created duplicates of two local scenes. These are not standard sizes so I have to cut the mats to size for framing. More time and money involved.

Two paintings of the Thyen-Clark Cultural Center on quarter sheet of watercolor paper

Finally, the last half of the month, I was really missing our usual vacation. This was probably prompted by selling some previous western scenes so I dove into that subject. These paintings were larger and more complex, the smallest being 9 x 12 and up to 12 x 16. I have some pretty extensive photo files from some of our western vacations so plenty of subject matter to choose from. The most difficult part with these paintings is canvas prep. And trying to come up with new titles. Grand Canyon Vista #1, Grand Canyon Vista #2, etc. But it’s so satisfying to just put on some music or recorded books and zone out. Due to the many years of plein air painting, I can generally produce a painting a day, maybe two. But I did discover that I had duplicated two scenes from previous years. They came out similar but not exactly the same.

Overall production for the month of August was twenty-five. Not all are shown in the multi-image above as several were duplicates. And I didn’t work every day. It’s very rewarding to spend time alone with my thoughts and just create. To build inventory for online shops, the holidays, or local and regional shops.

Most of these paintings will be up on my Etsy shops soon. https://www.etsy.com/shop/KitMiracleArt?ref=l2-shop-info-name or https://www.etsy.com/shop/My90Acres