J is for Jaunt

There's a train station in Wilson, NC, about 2 1/2 hours from us, that I visit on occasion with my sister.  Lynn has a friend who comes down once a year from Arlington, VA, by Amtrak train.  There's a beautiful 10' x 16' mural on a wall in the train depot, and that's where I took this photograph.  This is just a small part of the mural, and if you'd like to see the whole mural, check it out here.  There are two pictures near the bottom of the article.

The zentangle for my letter J.

I didn't find a quote I liked with the word "jaunt" so I decided to use a definition instead.  "Jaunt: to ramble here and there; to stroll; to make an excursion."  Can you go for a jaunt on a train?  Sure, why not!  And the mother and son took a jaunt to the railroad tracks to watch the train go by.

Here's my page spread.  The butterfly is a sticker and "journey" and the arrows are from my stamp collection.  I thought the bicycle fit in well too.  It's another member of the Webdings font, as I described in this earlier post.  Typing the small "b" on the keyboard gives you this bicycle.  How cool is that?  Not this big, of course - I enlarged it in Photoshop.  Happy jaunting!

I is for Image

My maiden name was Marchesseault.  The "Marchesseault Bros." listed on the awning in the picture included my paternal grandfather, Edmund, and my great uncle, Arthur.  That's Arthur standing in the middle of the steps.  The store was located in Moosup, Connecticut, and this photo was probably taken in the early 1900's.

This is a later version of their business, built in 1925.  It's the building I remember from my childhood in the fifties.  The left half of the store was groceries and the right half was dry goods, like fabrics and threads.  As a young man, my father delivered groceries for the store.  During my childhood years, Grandpa ran the grocery side, Uncle Lionel was the butcher, Aunt Rachel (spinster aunt) ran the dry goods side, and great Uncle Arthur was the bookkeeper for the business.  Next door to this building was the store owned by my other grandfather.  (Did I mention that this was a small town?)

The letter I, done as a zentangle.

The quote I used:  Every man builds his world in his own image.  He has the power to choose, but no power to escape the necessity of choice.  (Ayn Rand)

Here's the page spread.  I used stamps, stickers and markers to decorate the upper left part of the page.

H is for House

This is a picture of my first home, in Moosup, Connecticut, where we lived with my grandparents. That's the actual house, but I've set it into a painting of a winter scene. I used Photoshop to perform this magic.  I offer this as one of my notecards in my Paper Press Etsy shop, and in one of my ACEO's, in my other Etsy shop.

The letter H, zentangled.

The quote I used:  A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.  (Benjamin Franklin)

I had wanted to use "home" instead of "house" for my H word, but one of my original parameters was to only use 5-letter words.  That got me thinking about other H words that represent home, and I made a list, each word being one letter longer than the previous word.  Yes, I'm OCD, but it's one of my favorite personality traits!  Here's the list:
hut
hive
haven
harbor
hideout
highrise
homestead
habitation
So, to include this list on my H page, I "drew" another house in Photoshop, and placed my word list on the roof of the house.

My final page spread.  H is also for Happy.  :o)

G is for Grace

This photograph was taken at The Old Burying Ground in Beaufort, North Carolina.  I found the following interesting information on their website:
The Old Burying Ground has dozens of graves with interesting stories. One grave, according to legend, contains an English sailor who was buried upright so that he could eternally salute his king. Another grave marker bears this inscription:

The form that fills this silent grave,
once tossed on ocean's rolling wave,
but in a port securely fast
he's dropped his anchor here at last.

I liked that bit about "dropping your anchor."

This is another view of the statue to show what it looked like before I Photoshopped it.

My Zentangle of the letter G.

The quote I used:  Grace isn't a little prayer you chant before receiving a meal.  It's a way to live.  (Jacqueline Winspear)



And, lastly, the page spread.

Amazing Azaleas

The azaleas in our yard were eager to pose for pictures, so I obliged.

Their loveliness blew me away!

In typical fashion (for me), I got carried away.  Between the azaleas, bouganvillia, and dogwood, in our yard and the neighbors, I took about 150 pictures before I came back in the house. 

Many were quickly deleted, but I still had trouble picking my favorites from those that were left.

Hope you enjoy them!

F is for Faith

This is a picture of a weeping willow I took during a morning walk on our neighboring golf course. 

My zentangle of the letter F. 

The quote I used:  Faith is a knowledge within the heart, beyond the reach of proof.  (Kahlil Gibran)

Here's the page spread.  The image in the upper left is a family of ducks.  It was from a page in a magazine that I had clipped.

Bee Still, My Heart

I was taking pictures of some of the azaleas in our yard yesterday.  There are lots of bees hanging around the white azaleas by our front door.  These bees seem a wee bit formidable, diving bombing around the flowers and the front door.  Even though I've been stung by bees in the past, I look on them with fondness rather than fear. 

My mom was named Beatrice, and was always called Bea.  When I see the bees, I think of my mom, and send her a greeting.

I was pleased that this bee seemed willing to hang around for my pictures.  Not that he wasn't busy doing his pollen thing. 

I managed one of him buzzing by the green leaves, but only one of his wings show up in the picture.

Bee Gone....  And so am I.

E is for Earth

A few months ago we went hiking at the Croatan National Forest, and this is one of the photos I took that day.  Actually, if you go to the link and look at the banner on the top of their page, at the right you'll see the fence in my photograph.

The letter E, tangled.

The quote I used:  "Those who dwell among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life."  (Rachel Carson)

Here's the page spread.  The butterflies, clouds and flowers in the upper left are stickers.

D is for Dream

This is my husband, when he was 4 or 5 years old, running the electric train set his father had built for him.  Don't you love the hat?

The letter D, tangled.  If you enlarge the image, you'll see that I wrote my name into this zentangle.  Wonder if that counts as signing my work??


The quote I used didn't talk about dreams, but did concern trains:  "The introduction of so powerful an agent as steam to a carriage on wheels will make a great change in the situation of man."  (Thomas Jefferson - 1802)

Here's the page spread.  I made a fun discovery in Photoshop - a font called Webdings.  You type a normal letter, and a symbol shows up instead.  The design at the top left of the page spread is a collage of a couple Webding letters.

The train is a small "t" and the railroad tracks are a capital "R."  I typed out the whole keyboard in this font so that I'd know what symbols were available.

Back in the mid-1970s, Ed got into model railroading with N-guage trains - really little guys.  He had a setup in our basement.  When we sold our home and most of our possessions, to live on a sailboat, the small trains and track went into storage.  They've just made a reappearance in our lives, and Ed is building a model railroad in our garage.  Ed's uncle recently had his 95th birthday, and I took pictures of Ed to send to Uncle George. 

Note the engineer's cap.  After I found the picture of Ed as a kid with that kind of cap, there was no way he was going to have another model railroad without the appropriate head gear!!

C is for Cloud

I've been continuing to work on my zentangle alphabet book, and have several pages finished.  This image is another one of my photos taken at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina.

The letter C, tangled.

The quote I used:  Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky.  (Rabindranath Tagore)

Here's the page spread.  The woman and the word "Become" were cut out from a magazine and glued on.  I am loving doing this!!

Still At the Zoo

"Hey, you guys wanna play?  Huh?  Come on over!  Huh??"

"Bet you can't twist your neck like this!"

"Sigh.... I'll never find that contact."

"Whoops!  Sorry about that!  Didn't see you down there...."

"What???"

At the Zoo

On Monday we were at the North Carolina Zoological Park in Asheboro, NC. for the afternoon.  Here are a few of the photos I took, complete with "animal comments."  Above:  "Doing laps is such a bore."

"Don't know why they had to put the bathroom so far out of the way."

"I'm imitating a lawn ornament."

"That's it!  No more peanut butter - my trunk is stuck AGAIN."

"Zzzzzzzzzzz."

B is for Bliss

What could be more blissful than the beach?  Besides, B is also for Beach.  :o)  This is a photo I took at Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. 

My letter B, tangled.

The quote I used:  Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls.  (Joseph Campbell) 

Here's the page spread.  I added a poster of the Ile de France (more bliss?), and an anchor, to help fill the empty space.