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Oh Richard, this's beautiful!!!

nice colors!

gorgeous picture - i love that orange and greeny/blue together.

very nice!! Great colors!

Your garden is beautiful.

magical!

gorgeous! love it

I love the color, but I especially love the texture! Gardens are always chock full of different textures and I love the way you captured it! (I'm one of those people that have to keep their hands in their pockets at musuems to keep them from roaming across the canvas!)

Thank you all for your nice comments!

nothing dark about it! very cheery wallpaper!

What a gorgeous view to work by! Some clients sure are ding-y! This is just beautiful Val!!

a : )

I love it...so colourful and fun...you always make me smile with your work...

Lovely painting, Val.
Another bubble of joy!

Dark as in darkly themed or darkly coloured? I love it.

dark? with bright cheery cherries and bubbles. If you saw my illo, last week you'd see I'm partial to cherries (they were my towels from Crate N Barrel).

Funny, I would have snapped this up at the greeting card rack. What a shame.
Great take on the theme!

they should be wearing eyeglasses?

the bublles and the wall paper is so cool!

Pure joy!!!
... desire to go out and embrace all those meetings

seems like everyone who looked at this questioned in unison, "too dark?!" hardly! in my housekeeping world, this says it all, including the dear garden on the other side, waiting for me.

have a good weekend, val.

:)

Yo Val: Lets get back to the garden before they put up a parking lot. Love Bad Dog

I'm glad you got paid for it even though they chose not to use it - it's their loss. I love it, as I co all your work and look forward to seeing it every week!

What a fun, playful perspective! I really like this a lot!

Val, nice illo! :-)

...but the sink and refrigerator and even the bucket of water with mop all look so pretty. It would be a pleasure to stay indoors. I bet she has a nice living room and probably an even cozier study. What about the bathrooms. I would clean her bathroom.

I don't see it as dark; it's full of color and life and I love the bubbles and the tiny heart knobs!

Deemed to dark?? that is ridiculous!!.. I love it.. it is one of my favorite!!..

Too dark?? No way! The colors are juicy and playful. What a fun and fanciful, as are all of your works. I love it!

i love your perspective in this one! fun as always.

Too dark? Their loss, it would seem. I love the whimsy of this - that sinkful of suds looks so inviting - I could almost enjoy washing dishes in that!

i like it the way it is, vibrant and pretty :)

too dark? lol this is bright and cheery for me.. nonetheless its yet another wonderful art from you..

thanks for sharing..

val, this is a very happy and colorful piece. i can hear little birdies chirping from outside the window, and visualize a happy homemaker whistling as she works....

xoxox
teri

Great take on the theme. Love the colors.

Too DARK!!! If my sink looked like that, my kitchen would be a lot cleaner! Great card! Glad they had to pay you anyhow...

Excelente ilustración! es adorable el uso de colores.
cariños

Dark! It looks bright, light, and cheerful. It feels like everything is dancing!

I love this! It's hard to get into spring cleaning when there is so much snow here. But this card is wonderful and cheery!

The deemer of this darkness...by chance were they living in a cave?
I need to tack that note on my fridge and start cleaning my place...it IS like a cave in here! Nice with the time change that the light is out there longer, eh dood? Not so...dare I say it, DARK! ;o)

Lovely LIGHT and fun and colorful illo--!

xo
DOOD

wonderful and original composition...I love the colors used!

All your work is soooo beautiful! Your place is one of the most magical places to visit...

Annax

ack! i missed this one last week! dark? where? the MOP HANDLE grain? ohman...i just don't get clients sometimes....this piece is snow-white cheery! :)) love love the wallpaper! :)

hi, tnx for both your most recent comments...
this is very festive and colourful...your best illos always reminds me Alice in Wonderland, am I wrong?
:)

I missed this last week while on vacation. It's great! It's so cheery and fun. Your usual magical, positive, lighthearted stuff! What the heck are they talking about, dark? Perhaps the message was too original for them and not the usual bland, homogenized, pablum you typically see.

You rock.

nice pattern...and great colours...

Nicely done, the background garden is epecially effective.

Thanks everyone :)
Ronni, I did this painting about 5 months ago. I wanted to add some still lifes to my collection. This is really so much more vibrant in person! You'll just have to come to Studio Lolo to see it!

Hey Laurel,

This is so soothing and delicious! Thank you for stopping in periodically. I'm still working on my portfolio- troubleshooting browser issues, and spent a week on the east coast visiting my family last week before I make the plunge.

I hope you are healthy and happy and although, I'm not blogging I haven't forgotten you for a moment.

Be well ~Michelle

Peachy!! ;-)

Im enjoyiing the contrast.. and now going to the kitchen to look for fruit!

Great colors. I like the pattern. This is making me hungry for peaches.

lovely pattern and so soft colors!

This is one of my favorites. It would look good in someone's dining room.

Wonderful idea! So delicate patern!

Wow. I love everything about this painting. The patterned faded cool colored cloth with warm fruit - a gorgeous contrast that pulls one in.

Lovely! I like patterns too.

I will spend more time in the garden if it ever stops snowing. What a nice pattern to remind us of spring.

perfect peach painting!! yummy!

very nice and poetic ..

Great work, terrific colors!!!

I really like the serene feeling your choice of colors gives this painting. Makes me want spring to hurry up and get here already. :)

I love patterns too. I like the colors in your illustration - the complimentary orange and blue is very nice.

I'm with Janice! You made me hungry for fruit!

i like the colors in this one. i totally agree about patterns :)

love love love this, lolo! beeeeuuutiful muted colors and a really striking composition, especially with the peaches and how vibrant they are. so we are moving onto peaches at studio lolo...hmmm...i must make a mental note of that. "put the pears aside and pick up some peaches."

hee, hee!

A beautiful patterns. :D gorgeous i must say.

I totally agree with you! I love pattern and surround myself in it at home, it cheers me up - the more colourful the better! This is beautiful :)

great idea! it'll be good to spend some time in the garden :)
love the pattern

Very Pretty!

Very beautiful, and the color choices are...delicious! This must be quite gorgeous in that large size!

i know i commented, but it's not here, silly me must have made a mess of posting it. i love patterns because they bring conformity and therefore consistency and regularity to all things, but i also like 'higgly-piggly' things with no pattern at all (that's the two sides of my aquarian personality). hugs and wfs.

I love floral prints. In high school, I probably looked like I was wearing my mothers curtains. I bet I had a shirt like your table cloth here, in blue like you've painted it. Nice job!

I like the light on the patterned cloth, nice effect!

Lovely - and your "butter-fly" joke totally cracked me up - thanks!

This is very lovely and the patterns are cool! I love that fruit!

www.indigeneartforms.blogspot.com

Hi Lolo!
It's lovely, congratulations!

Thanks to yours visits to my virtual home!

Marta

Very nice and original piece, congratulations ! And, the contrasts are excellent !

So often your pieces make me feel at peace. This is certainly one of them. I look at it and just go, aaaaaahhh!

I came by after your visit and very kind comment and I enjoy your work. This one especially. My wife says: "cant we buy it?"

Oh how lovely Kim! Spring is peeking out all over the place over here as well! OH, how wonderful it is after the cold bleak winter to see everything starting to green and bud and flower. It's a breath of fresh air to the body and to the soul! XXOO
Marie
http://journals.aol.co.uk/mariealicejoan/MariesMuses/

Gee your blossom looks like my whole yard- WHITE! lol Thanks for sharing your lovely photos. Reminds me that there IS grass and flowers out there under all that snow! Happy Monday!

Homer and Junior just made my day! I'm glad spring is coming because I always look forward to seeing pics of your beautiful garden.

oh i wish spring was that close here!
we still have dreary skies and snow on the ground in nyc.

Gorgeous.

You must live a litle further south than me! Your poem makes me look forward to the moment the snow melts, revealing hope and the promise of more in those tentative green beginnings.

Beautiful!

Wow--you took a cliche about faith moving mountains and made it totally fresh and gorgeous.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/21_02/lego212.shtmlthis is awesome

Wow jake that is a fascinating article! Those teachers took a really common play situation and made it into a dynamic, powerful learning experience. Those kids will never forget it.

Huzzah, huzzah!You took my breath away! "a twist of natures' deepest, strongest rope" and "spark of all life's knitted lace". Oh my. Glorious and true.

You have completely captured my feelings about this. When Laura's sonnet arrived, signaling my turn, I wanted to throw up. I'm still struggling to make it work.Your sonnet, my friend, is lovely. I know you'll be just fine!

You -- are SO my type of poet.I'm panicking, too, and my sonnet's not for another little while. If only my what-have-I-gotten-into could turn out as well as YOUR sonnet. It's beautiful!!!

What a perfectly beautiful sonnet! You captured nature's essence in those berries -- an old heart that answers yet a stronger need . . .Thanks for sharing your struggle to "birth" these creation.

Helllooo!Those last three lines?I am swooning. I'm serious.This is lovely and please please please don't make yourself sick over sonnets. Truly. New Year's Resolution: Staying sane and healthy in the face of sonnet writing. (Tricia, Tadmack... talkin' to you, too.) Although now I'm starting to freak a little myself. Sigh. Misery loves company...

Holy katzenjammers. Wow. That was just about all she could say. Wow.So, so, so gorgeous. And the last 6 lines (and the last 3 in particular?) Completely breathtaking.And about panic. I go last. And I'm already starting to feel queasy.

Holy crap. (And I don't say that much.) This is powerful in its subject matter, and I agree with Mary Lee on her favorite lines. How I love that bit about knitted lace and the DNA references in the words "deepest, strongest rope." Your sonnet just gets more and more powerful as it unwinds, and leaves me feeling walloped. All your digging and delving and sweating the the poetry garden is bearing

What a great sonnet! And such a lovely photo - I love the pictures you include with your entries.

Gorgeous! I love reading your poetry and viewing your phenomenal photos. It's so inspiring. Marcie at World of Words

Oh, my word. And you're worried about writing the sonnet? This is simply stunning. Strong. Powerful. Hopeful. Beautiful.

Oh my friends you have warmed my heart and left me blushing. phew.

Your sonnet brought to this old heart "the twist of nature's deepest, strongest rope leading us along the trail of grace."

How beautiful for a first sonnet in 25 years. I'm sure if the berries could thank you for your homage, they would.

This is gorgeous! My favorite lines are 4-5 (love that raging hunger) and the final 4. What an exploration of the inextricable ties between hope and science.Wow.

That's one heckuva first attempt at a sonnet! I felt I didn't have the wherewithal at this time to contribute to the Crown of Sonnets. I am really impressed with your Red Berry Sonnet!!!Happy New Year!

Absolutely beautiful. Jules, 7-Imp

Oooooh, killer last line!

Yes, that is beautiful. Thanks for sharing your haiku with us in '07 and I hope you continue to in '08. Stopping by to say happy new year!Jules, 7-Imp

Gorgeous. You inspire me to try to write one almost everyday. I have always loved writing haiku but mine are nothing compared to yours. You should put together a book!

Loved it!Beautiful picture, too!

Oh, LOVELY. I think it is also a Gunilla Norris poem on the picture you gave as a prize for the 48 Hour Challenge -- I really cherish her way of putting peace and reflection into her poetry, and it matches so well with your beautiful garden. Thank you.

What a great way to start my morning. Thanks!

I loved the first stanza and can totally feel the meditative mood. The second stanza, I'm sorry to say, I find a little too sentimental. But that's just me and I'm certainly glad you enjoyed it!

Hey John, we all have our thing, right? I find it refreshing to think about the fruits of the harvest instead of the dying of the leaves this autumn.tadmack, I think that's my own words on the iris picture that was a prize in MoReader's 48 hour book challenge. But boy am I proud to be confused with Gunilla Norris!! :)

Lovely post. You take the most gorgeous photos, by the way!

Cloudscome,That sounds like my kind of book. Thanks for writing about it. I like the photograph you paired with the excerpt from the book.

"the joy of fruiting hums..." mmmmm. I like that so much.

Working with Soil, Attending to Soul. Love that title. Yesterday for me it was Cleaning Up Acorns, Attending to Soul.

Cloudscome,I love this haiku. It says so much with so few words.

Don't you love simplicity? This piece speaks so much about all the gentle virtues... thank you for sharing it.

How I love the smell of wet leaves. Why doesn't Yankee put that in a bottle? I need to take the time to tend to my container garden. I have lots of new space now where I may try and over winter a few plants. Here's to trying!

Wow, that begonia is doing really well still!

Your garden-neatening is making me feel really guilty. Our poor garden has been utterly neglected this summer. The grass needs mowing, a wildly overgrown hedge needs trimming, and on and on.

Unfortunately, by the time the interior of our house settles down, the garden will probably be covered in snow!

Ah, Jaimie, our yard is about 10 x 10 feet! Which means mowing the lawn took me 10 minutes and that's only because I was trying to make the letter "C" in the grass. Oh! And we're not doing a huge main floor renovation. Oh! and you work in an office full time...

But the front yard is a mess, so luckily we don't have neighbours hinting about our upkeep, because we don't really do much at all. To paint you a picture of our neighbourhood, our neighbours two doors over seem to be running a backyard junk shop/hair salon on the side.

p.s. thanks for all your comments, I love them.

There's nothing I like better than shopping for junk while getting my highlights done!

your haiku is as beautiful as your photo! very well done!

Gorgeous, both picture and words. Gave me a much needed quiet moment.

beautiful imagery for the weather of this time of year...

Lovely; I read your haiku more than once and enjoyed looking at the photo and bringing myself into the haiku by following your last line as an instruction.baronewww.wildvines.blogspot.com

Ah, very pretty flowers. :)

mmmm, I love rosemary. My split pea soup recipe calls for it, and it's very yummy.

Beautiful! Just beautiful!

You got a neat picture of the hawk. From trying to photograph our chickens, I know that catching birds digitally is hard!

We have a hawk around here on occasion, as well as many others like robins, goldfinches, sparrows, mockingbirds, catbirds, and occasionally some monk parakeets. They're bright green and very noisy; usually they stay down by the beach.

I took my first birding class in NYC when I lived there. Central Park gets so many birds landing there as a pitstop on Atlantic Flyway. It's amazing in the spring to find the warblers. Before the class, I had not even noticed them!

My family are big bird watchers. I went on many bird walks and bird counts as a kid. My uncle is a bird guide, of all things, and people from all over the world hire him to help them find particular types of birds! One of my cousins just finished his PhD in some area of ornithology. My dad always has several bird guides and his binoculars on his porch.

I thought we were all just bird geeks! So you're a birder, too, huh?

Yes Susan I never used to notice what birds were all around me either. Warblers especially - they seem to blend into the background unless you know what to listen for.. now I can't help but hear them and know who is there even when I can't see them.

I didn't know you had monk parakeets where you live!

Amanda! How interesting that your family is all birders! There are a lot of us hidden around... LOL. It's not something I talk about unless I know the others in the room are birders too. :)

Ever since we moved into a house that had two birdfeeders (plus a suet feeder) set up within a couple yards of the house, our family has become amateur birders as well. We recently were given a nice set of lightweight binoculars, and now that we are homeschooling (and about to start a scheduled unit on birds, no less!), I'm feeling the need to get one of these books.

We have all the standard sparrows and other small brown birds I can't identify, as well as robins, cardinals (I love watching the pairs!), blue jays, and I was thrilled to see my first bright yellow finch in the wild, which, silly me, I previously thought were only in pet stores!

I could have used your recommendations last month when I was looking to purchase a 'good' field guide - as it is, I ended up buying the National Audubon Society Field Guide to Birds of the Eastern N. American Region; I like it, and it helped me to identify a marsh wren this week, so I'm happy!

Wow, those cookies look great! I have a friend whose fig tree is overflowing right now, so I'll forward this to him...thanks!

These look fantastic. I love figs. And I am a gluten free girl.

I came here looking for your photo retrospective, but this was a nice bonus. :)

I am so impressed - These look incredible. I will definitely include these in the next Gluten-Free Recipe Roundup! Keep up the good work.

Yum!
Thanks for the pictures.
I think it would be amazing to grow figs in my own yard?
I will have to see what we can come up with for my northern climate.
gf is wonderful, I will try and post my gf cinnamon bunnies to my blog today with pictures.

I know nothing about figs, so I am not much help. The cookies look delcious though, and I love the picture in your header!

I am so glad you all like my fig post. I'd love to hear if anyone else makes fig cookies, or what recipes you use with figs. I have a feeling I'll be doing a lot with them. And I am thrilled to be in the Gluten-Free Recipe roundup.

Ampersand I didn't know you were gf too! I am finding more and more bloggers that are.

Oh, that looks delicious! My favorite thing to do with figs is to top fig halves with goat cheese and then stick them under the broiler until the cheese melts. Though they're pretty darn good just on their own, too!

Ya know, I let the birds have all my figs, cause I really had no idea what to *do* with them...now, I do! I'll sasve this recipe for next season and give them a go...thanks for posting it!

"they droop with sweetness..." nice image!

A great poem to complement that lovely photo.

Wow, I've never seen a fig on the plant before.

Nice descriptive poem.

i agree with roswila - 'droop with sweetness' is great!

Yep, I agree that droop with sweetness is great.

very juicy indeed!

Mmmm. We made zucchini bread recently, too, but I've never thought of spreading cream cheese on it. Yum.

Wish I had a favorite recipe. Your z-bread looks YUMMY!

mmm...the bread looks delicious, and with fresh-from-the-garden ingredients, I bet it tasted even better!

Proving yet again that life's not over 'til it's over...

I probably would have looked at this initially and remarked about the futility of the situation. I like your perspective much better.

So true! Love it! These are August's flowers for sure.

I never water anything, but luckily, this time of year, the black-eyed susans just take over, and they always look so bright and cheerful.

August is tough because I just want to nap, not work. I never really water anything and everything seems to grow just fine (unless it's in the blazing sun).

I am waiting for my sunflowers to bloom. They may not get any higher than my waist, but that's okay. Sunflowers in the fog seems like a miracle. I am also waiting for the fall when the rain comes to plant more. I love your photos of the black-eyed susans.