Transitions....

...and timely tokens.

June is one of my favorite months...and this particular June has been a delight. We had just enough rain and cool weather at the beginning to keep spring springing....and some beneficial rain recently to give the lawns and gardens a hearty early summer drink. I'm grateful for the gift of June.

The yellow daylilies were prolific this year...and I loved every minute. But I thought it was very interesting that today...of all days...the very last bloom rounded the corner into wabi-sabi wonderfulness. 

I am heading out of town tomorrow...and today was a flurry of business as I finished packing and doing chores around the house and yard. This timely token of June is now on my window sill...and I'll be curious what it will look like when I get back.

As I have mentioned before transitions can be challenging for me. Not necessarily in a bad way...but I get preoccupied with all the details about what I'm leaving behind while I'm also anticipating about what I'm going towards.  

The end of June also marks a transition in the gardens.....so good timing for a trip. A change of scenery will be a welcomed pause. I've been thinking a lot about things: my art...my home...and my blog. What's important to me? Where do I go from here? How do I reinvent and re-energize my creative daily practices. Right now...I'm just asking the questions.

Here's a photo from exactly a week ago.....paired with one of Margie's coloring pages and a beautiful poppy.

I'm working on several of these pairings with Margie's coloring....maybe I'll finish them up at the airport.  

First stop tomorrow is Minneapolis for a sister gathering....I'm so excited!

I may not be here every day....and I may be posting just little nuggets at odd times....because I want to be fully present and engaged wherever I am.

Shapes and Blobs

"Here's to finding peace in the act of redefining success.Here's to finding true, fulfilling joy in simply being present to what is good and beautiful in this life." Morgan Harper Nichols

Last evening I sat at my table in front of my big window and painted as rain and thunder was rumbling outside. We've gotten quite a bit of much needed rain so it was a welcome sound....and I do love a good thunderstorm.

It was a good reminder of how relaxing watercoloring can be.  Just simple shapes and blobs with no particular plan in mind other than winding down my day. Just what I needed.

And today I played with circles for ICAD #24.  

The background was done on the gelli plate and the connecting circles were cut from painted papers. 

Just Because

The Voice 
by Shel Silverstein

There is a voice inside of you
That whispers all day long,
"I feel that this is right for me,
I know that this is wrong."
No teacher, preacher, parent, friend
Or wise man can decide
What's right for you - just listen to
The voice that speaks inside.

My inner voices are whispering about this and that right now. I'm hearing more questions than answers...but I'm listening.

I found a vintage book at a thrift store that had fabulous cursive writing and nice thick pages....and I recently discovered that it took watercolor really well.  I used a swatch of it yesterday on my card....and decided I would cut some strips today for a simple weaving.  

I set up the warp on a piece of foam core as wide as my index card using straight pins....and weaved in plain word pages.      

After gluing it onto the card I added a few stitched X's....just because.  

ICAD #23...soft and simple. 

Begin

I have been savoring the end of this color spectrum puzzle. Even though it's all solid colors....it's surprisingly doable. I've worked from top to bottom and have just two rows left.  

I'll take my time to finish this one before I head out of town. Then when I get back I'll get to begin another one! 

As I look at this photo I'm kind of chuckling because I still haven't put something in the fabulous frame Clarke gave me. 

I started this card yesterday...but didn't finish. I wasn't sure I liked it....I thought I might abandon it and start over. It started with a green gelli print background...where I added circles cut from one of Melodee's napkins. I added more paint and marks that just didn't seem to be working yesterday....and I didn't even take a photo.

But this morning I decided to just go with it and make it work. I scribbled around the napkin circles....whitewashed some of the negative space and added a butterfly focal point.  Now it's ICAD #21.

And today....I took another one of the chunks from my fern prints...and made a simple quilty collage with some unexpected accent colors.

Just begin. Then finish it up and move on. 

I got this!

I popped in to say hello to Janice today....it's always fun to see what she's got going on. How beautiful is this massive goat's beard around this fabulously fun birdhouse!

And I've always been quite fond of honeysuckle buds.

Janice was in the middle of making favors for a party....I was so impressed with these handmade little treasure bowls.  She used air dry clay...and imprinted plants from her yard.  She had a specific vision....so I mostly just cheered her on.

I think they're just a delight. Well done Janice!

She's got a little ways to go...

but she's got this!

I don't think I shared this honeysuckle I saw on a walk. 

They have such whimsy.

And this pretty much sums up the rest of my day...

the heat and humidity lifted...and it felt good to be back on the patio. 

I've got this!

Circle Play

Today is the first official day of summer....and boy did it feel like. It got up to 93 degrees today...and the dew point was a soupy 74. Paul and I stayed tucked inside most of the day....even for happy hour. 

But rain lilies love the heat and humidity....lots of new buds coming!

I pick this wispy little bouquet every year...goat's beard and coralbell.  

They bloom at the same time and make such a whimsical and pretty combination.  

This little garden at the end of the rock wall is kind of wild.  It transitions into the woods...so I don't want it to be as manicured as the rest....and it's where the goat's beard lives. 

That round piece of driftwood is on of my favorite found objects...that story is here: https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2018/11/found-object.html 

Dotty posted an art piece that she did while on vacation that was inspired by the watercolor circles I painted for ICAD day 7.....and that tickles me.  In her next post...Dotty referred to this "backdoor art"...when you use an idea from another artist as inspiration and make it your own. We all do it....and Dotty have batted ideas back and forth a few times.

I absolutely LOVE Dotty's watercolor circle play! 

The colorful circles are loose and playful...and the wonky outlines paired with the touches of print are just the right touch. They almost have a childlike cartoon quality to them...which is something that is hard for me to do.

They kind of remind me of my watercolor cranberry thank you note where I added text and snippets from a catalog.

It's one of my favorite cards that I've made....so I think it's pretty clear that I need to do more circle play! And..work on being a little more loose.

Dotty's circles inspired me to go right through the backdoor and revisit my ICAD #7.

I outlined the circles and added some text. It probably could use more text...but already it's SO much better!  Thanks Dotty!

ICAD #20 is a little patchwork quilt of cutouts from recent gelli prints. In hindsight...I wish I would have stitched in black for interest. It's just so so.

But it was a few minutes of cutting and stitching....and that's a good thing.

Fusing With a Friend

Paul and I had a couple of special guests today. Barbara and Eliza stopped by for a few hours on their way to a Maine overnight camp drop-off.  

For those of you who don't know...Eliza is the daughter of Paul's former church colleague Barbara who is now the Senior Minister at Hancock Church in Lexington. Eliza and I have become art buddies and we've traded several things over the years.....and whenever we get together we do a little project.

Today we played with fused fabrics and markers.

I helped Eliza fuse fabric circles onto cardstock and she turned them into flowers.

 

I had pre-cut some parts for rainbows...

and Eliza constructed some wonderful abstract rainbow art! She made at least five cards.

Eliza and I had a lot of fun while her mom and Paul talked shop.

I got in the action too...and fused a funky rainbow for my ICAD #19 .

It was fun fusing with a friend! 

Until next time Eliza!  Have fun at camp!

Patience

With just a day and a half of pressing....the other two ferns I collected at the pond were stiff enough and dry enough to play with on the gelli plate. I wish I would have had that third one to add to the mix...but I had fun with these two little guys today.

I used the "go to" blue/green color palette and made a whole row of prints. And this isn't even all of them.

My favorite print came from one of my favorite tried and true techniques. I rolled a subtle ombre of greens and blues....and with the paper taped to the table at the top....carefully lifted the paper and pulled the ferns off...then put the paper right back down to fill in the white spaces with the ghost print. 

It's not the best composition...but I intend to cut it up.

....and the pieces and parts are excellent!

I love that I was able to get some definition of the insect holes and negative spaces. It's amazing what you can get when you're patient...paint in the light of day...wear your glasses...and use a reasonable amount of paint!

This one was just using up paint...and I added the circles in the corners just to fill in the spaces. I used a junk sheet to start with...so there's a lot of yummy texture. A junk sheet is a piece of paper I use over and over to clean off the plate between prints.

And I thought the scheme of this one was pretty....and again...LOVE those holes.

   

I had intended to make a card using cutouts from the prints...but that will be another day. 

It was an afterthought to print another index card....and this time I outlined the print with a fine line black marker to become ICAD #18.

Practice patience! 

Now these ferns are covered in acrylic paint...

so I'll be able to use them again and again.

And just to come full circle...this is the ghost print on deli paper from the late night printing mess.  Dotty asked if the branch like veining on my card was actually the imprint of the texture in the fern.  It wasn't.

A ghost print is the paint trapped under the stencil or fern in this case.  You can see the shape of the fern...and all the excess paint around it with the veining. So it's just magic of the gelli plate along with the excess paint and the slick surface of the card! 

Pieces and Parts

Some wabi-sabi up ferns along the pond caught my eye on my after dinner walk last evening. I was quite smitten with insect holes and the patterns in the negative spaces.

It would have been so easy to just walk by...but that's not what I do.

I brought a few home and pressed them in a catalog to dry out a bit. But late last evening (never a good idea) I pulled one out and took it to the gelli plate. I had a pre-painted green index card and thought I would pull a print with dark blue paint.

I faced a number of problems: the fern wasn't dry enough and really too limp and fragile to work with...I didn't have my glasses on...and I used to much paint...so I assumed it was a flop. I would be more patient and wait for the others to dry out a bit and try it again another day.

But in the light of day...I took a second look.  It's not what I was hoping for...but it also had some interesting pieces and parts....so it became perfectly imperfect ICAD #17.

If this were a print on paper it would make fabulous collage fodder all cut up....some of the pieces and parts are pretty wonderful. 

Just look at that feathery veining on the right....it looks like tiny tree branches.  That's the magic of gelli plate.

Purple Pride

I was inspired by this adorable photo Patty sent me....

her Proud Purple Pig was her caption.

And here's a little purple a the pond.

So in honor of the Purple Pride Pig...I painted purple between my squiggle lines....

...and colored in my day 16 ICAD (I painted the acrylic swirl last evening) while enjoying a beautiful afternoon on the patio. 

A while back Christine had asked why I sometimes use gesso on my index cards. It's works as primer for the surface so certain media will stick better. Today I tried to watercolor on right on the manilla card ...and it just beaded up. That's why I use gesso. So I switched to markers and colored pencils.

ICAD # 16...celebrating purple pride! ✔

I've mentioned several times that another creative daily practice for me is trading photographs with my sister-in-law Alyson every evening. It's a great way for us to connect and celebrate the beauty of the seasons.

Just a few days ago she commented on my Instagram posts where I used the Unfold App....so I hooked her up. So now we're creating Unfold montages for each other that capture our moments of the day...often including a little video. 

It's such a simple app...and we're both having a good time with is.

Here's a montage for today celebrating purple pride!