Raj Mahal

I finished my fanciful Russian (or Indian) domed building. I wish the picture could show how sparkly and beautiful it is. I submitted it to the Artists of Step One group here in Santa Barbara, and it will be hanging in Gallery Ten-Twenty-Nine for First Thursday festivities. First Thursday, June 2nd, is an award winning program highlighting Santa Barbara downtown arts, culture and entertainment on the first Thursday of every month.

Click here to read about First Thursday 
 

GALLERY TEN-TWENTY-NINE 1029 State Street (805) 866-0192 Taste of Summer: a feast of paintings, collage and photography incorporating varied media to "kick it up a notch!" Featuring the artists of Step One, a local artists group with a mission to advocate, innovate and educate. Come and join us for an artist reception where the artists will be present to talk about their work and answer questions.

Gary's Crows

My dear friend Gary is celebrating his birthday this week, and we had a surprise birthday party for him at his house last evening! His blog is http://birdcamoncheltenham.blogspot.com/ where he posts pictures of all the birds and wildlife that venture in front of his live camera.

Last week he posted this picture of a crow that had been eating (too much) bird seed at his platform feeder. So I made him a birthday rock with a crow in his favorite colors; blue and green. A black crow mosaic would have been pretty boring.

Check out his blog of really great pictures of birds, rabbits, coyotes, skunks and much more.

Meruliporia incrassata (commonly known as poria) in the Cottage

Poria Incrassata blooms

This is what the "House Eating Fungus" Meruliporia Incrassata looks like. This is the bloom, and it is quite beautiful. It happens in November and then I know I'm in trouble. So my wonderful carpenter Jim came and replaced the roof and half the front and side walls of the cottage. The fungus had eaten all the wood into a pulpy mass.

http://www.poriaincrassata.com/ .

Jim tearing out wall 

Tearing the potting bench off the back wall

Bee man cutting hole to find bee hive

Hole cut in wood and small comb uncovered

Bee episode

And this is the same back wall that Jim replaced back in November. The bees found a little hole next to a pipe and decided to move in to make their hive.

Here is a picture of the wall after Todd the Bee Man cut out the 15" hole. And Jim returned yesterday and patched up the holes and repainted. I couldn't even tell anything had been done when he showed it to me. I'll go out later and take a picture of the perfectly redone wall.

Cock-a-doodle Do is grouted

And he looks pretty good.  The colors of the tiles all match his plumes, and he's ready to sit in the garden.

Ready to grout

Well, I finished gluing two more pieces, and they are ready to grout. The first is the shiny Russian building with lots of mirror and glitter tile. The second is the gingham table. I seem to be keeping up with my goal of at least one mosaic a week.

The Bee Man cometh!

Todd Bebb, the Bee Man, came yesterday to collect and save my swarm of bees. He fired up his smoker first and then blew smoke into the hole to make the bees hungry and more docile. Check out the plumes of smoke in the picture near the top.

Then he used his bee vac to vacuum them into the box. Although they came flying into the box, no one seemed to be hurt, and they were all soon buzzing around. Finally he put on his bee suit and cut out a large hole to expose the hive. Fortunately, there was only a small comb. Then he searched in the box to find the queen but never could locate her. He said she may have been eaten by a bird while doing her mating ritual high in the sky. That might also explain why the swarm wasn't larger. Todd took them home to add them to the one hive he has.

Bees being vacuumed into the box

Cutting out a large piece of the wall to locate the hive

The hive - not what I imagined but good that there is no honey

 yet to drip into the walls.

If you need to remove bees safely and humanely from your home or yard, I highly recommend Todd. If the bees have been there long enough, you might even score some honey! Todd's website is

http://santabarbarabees.com/Santa_Barbara_Bees/Welcome.html

Spring has arrived

Spring has arrived in Santa Barbara. This is a picture of my front yard. I now have my mosaics to add to the mix.

And today the bee man is coming to vacuum the bees from the cottage.  He's coming early so the bees will still be asleep. I wonder if he wears a bee suit. He needs to cut a hole in the wall to find the hive. It should be very interesting to watch...from a safe distance.

Sigh...

Perhaps a few years down the road I'll have all the possible faux pas out of the way and can do something right the first time. The center of this mosaic is made with tempered glass, and my intention was to color it with varied colors to move from the red to gold in the rest of the piece.

However, the red I chose was way too red, and the blue was too pale, and, and... I'm going to try repainting the red but I think once this type of "paint" is on, it's too late.

But this is how I learn, and it's still a pretty piece. Sometimes I find that someone will absolutely love a mosaic piece I've made although I see flaws everywhere. Thank goodness we all like something different!