New Designs

Well, I have been dabbling in the world of digital painting, and have come up with some pop-art style designs that will now be available as prints on my imagekind website. Also included on this site are prints from some of my traditional artwork and prints of my photography.

Please feel free to browse the site, there are many different pieces there, sure to suit all sorts of tastes.

http://juliesillustration.imagekind.com

Another walk in the woods today, sans camera (images are from a previous visit), got me and the little dog turned around and upside down. Not sure how I managed to veer off left, when I needed to veer right, but coming up to another intersection with the handy dandy posted trail map, I realized that I goofed.

I stood there pondering, looking rather stupid, eying the map for about 5 minutes, not a sole in sight (thank goodness), and no encouragement from Brandy. In fact, when I decided to double back, she was completely sure that I was a nut, and wasn't going to follow the idiot that got her "lost".

I'm pretty sure that not many people wind up "lost" in the wilds at Crawford Lake. It's really not that difficult, trails are pretty clearly marked, but in my defence, everything looks, well, different when the leaves are in their full summer glory. Plus, I suppose I can admit when I haven't been paying attention, and this weekend has been full of non-paying-attention moments for me.

I had an idea of my dense move when I passed a bench that I'd never before seen on my hikes. Commenting on this to the little dog, who also looked at the bench, perplexed, I continued on, bringing myself to the point of turned around and up-side down. The moral of the story is, next time I encounter an unfamiliar landmark, stop, drop and roll, back the way I came. Especially if I seem to be moving further into dense bush and darker trails.

And to top it all off, before becoming "lost", on an off trail, we were being followed. Brandy noticed before I did, and when I get the low growl directed somewhere off in the woods from her, I admit, I panic a little.

I stopped, which you all know is a stupid thing to do, you see it in the horror movies all the time. People stop when they think they're being followed (idiots) and go back to investigate who's following them (major idiots). So I was just an idiot.

I stopped, looked back into the ground cover, and witnessed it being moved in a wave like motion towards us, without the wind blowing. I really only stopped for a second, because when I saw the wave in the vegetation, I started to speed walk away perhaps even jogging a little.

Brandy, being the terrier that she is, kept an eye behind me, growling the whole time, which just made me even more tense because all I had as a weapon was my cellphone (a good battering ram it does not make), and a 12 pound Jack Russell, whom I have no doubt would have gone toe-to-toe with whatever was trailing us, but she is only 12 pounds. My guess, it was probably only an angry squirrel, a large rampaging chipmunk, a boisterous raccoon or a rabid pack of wild chickens, but I don't take chances in the woods by myself, so I got the heck out of there.

On the bonus we get a lot of comments on the little blue backpack. Perhaps not comments, more like remarks, at first they're playful and funny, but then they just get to be laughing behind our back remarks. So, perhaps it's not a bonus. Has no one ever seen a dog with a backpack on? Seriously?