Shadow Stories

In between my tulip celebrations this past week I was quietly collecting and studying shadows. I submitted my last homework project for the Conscious Creativity course yesterday....and if you are interested you can view it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/C7KNaazxhl6/ 

Shadows are fascinating. The obvious ones in the bright sunshine come and go and sometimes dance and frolic in the light. But others are always there in the nooks and crannies even on a cloudy day or at night. They give things depth and create mood and ambiance... and they're always magical.

I visited Winslow farm to pick up my hummingbird garden plants early last week and Sarah caught me taking photos under the counters in her shop. There were interesting boxes and crates stacked up and the earthy colors and shadows were quite lovely. She and I had a wonderful conversation about shadows.

As I was checking out there was a plant on the counter that was casting a shadow on a flyer so of course I snapped a photo. Then I picked up the flyer and the shadow on the counter was more pronounced and so beautiful! I thought it made an interesting abstract shadow duo.

Shadow week took me on early morning walk around downtown Portland and along the working waterfront. It's always a magical place filled with patterns, colors and textures. I was absolutely smitten with the shadows in these blue barrels. 

Once of my shadow experiments was using my gelli plate stencils in the sunshine on the patio.  The blue daisy you see here is a stencil shadow on the blue folder I carried it outdoors in.  

At first I thought I was going to do a whole montage of stencil shadows...but it felt a little much. In the end I just added a few here and there.  Stencils may come back out in the sunshine again...I think it's a thing. I'm going to call it shadow painting.

Here's another one in this montage of circles and dots.

This is the stencil montage I didn't use.

And this is another one paired with another shadow image.

OK....you have to admit that this is kind of fun. It's all about finding the right background to cast paint the shadow stencil onto! I'm not sure the yellow folder is right...

but the stencil looks pretty interesting on the cushion! The world is  just a big playground!