Talking It Through

Right next to October....June is one of my very favorite months and I'm going to celebrate it all month long. But I guess that's mostly what I do the other 11 months....so I'll just carry on.

What I love about June...and some of what I'll be celebrating:

It's Pride month! So there will be plenty of rainbows. Image was found on Story People's Facebook Page.

The gardens are nearly in their full glory.

Purple shines in the June gardens.

There can be days that feel like summer...but chilly spring days are still possible. I actually like that! 

The new leaves on the trees still have that spring green glow.

The start of long stretches on the patio watching the birds and celebrating the season. 

Kelly came over yesterday to talk through some ideas for a cyanotype lesson for her students. They are talking about shadows and how our feelings and thoughts are sometimes suppressed...and in the shadows. She knew she wanted to incorporate cyanotype because of the need for light...but wanted a way to tie the process in even more. 

I suggested incorporating in some writing....actual  handwriting or asemic writing that stood for thoughts and feelings but not readable. So we gave it a try.

Kelly wrote down some her thoughts on a piece of acetate with a black sharpie. We placed a pressed meadow rue leaf down first...than after about 10 seconds of processing we placed the writing down and topped it off with a piece of plexiglass to hold it all down tightly. 

It worked well. Students could find their own plants or use some other shape as a focal point that has some meaning to them. 

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Just to see if it would work....we tried it again with words layered on words. The thinking is that negative thoughts could be overshadowed by the positive thoughts.  We liked the way you can see through most of the letters...giving it a nice effect....and some interesting symbolism. 

I'm already thinking about how I can apply this to my own cyanotype art.

I gave Kelly a UV lamp for her birthday and she played around with it a bit more when she got home trying out different pens. It was so good to talk it through with each other...and will set us both in motion.