Late Night....

 ...watercoloring.

Late last night I was compelled to watercolor using a stencil again.  This time I chose this handwriting mask where the negative space would be filled in. It might look like white handwriting on a watercolor background.....with a little desired bleeding for interest.

The room was dark....with just the light on my work table. It kind of felt like I was doing something secret....and special.

This is how it looked when I finished painting....hmmmm. You never know how it's going to turn out until you pull up the mask. Sometimes it bleeds too much...and sometimes you get lucky.

The suspense was killing me.

I think I got lucky this time! Maybe I ought to try this late at night more often....I've been mostly unlucky during the day recently.

It kind of makes my heart sing!

Cool Things

As I was going through my scrapbooks I came across some dried flowers from various events in 1976.....wabi-sabi before I knew it was cool!  For those of you new to the concept of wabi-sabi....it's the "Japanese art of imperfect beauty.  Accepting the natural cycle of growth and decay in which everything has beauty."

The flowers had been pressed and folded into saran wrap and taped in the book. After carefully removing them from the plastic...I was totally amazed how lovely and intact they still were.  There was only one flower that had fallen apart.

The orange daisy still had vibrant color after 45 years... 

....and I was quite taken with the texture and detail in the petals of this white one.

 

And while I'm on the subject of really cool things I wanted to share this wasps nest Paul found on Margie's patio. It's from last year....and I'm keeping it outside until I'm sure there's no activity. 

It's an absolute work of art and so fragile. There's a part of me that wants to take it all apart so I can see inside....but it's too beautiful as is.

And it got me thinking about s little wasp nest I found last summer that I wrote about here.   

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/06/zen-things.html

It was good to read the list of "Zen Things" in that post....just the reminder I needed today.

Regrets

Thank you to those of you who shared how you're dealing with "your stuff." I've taken it all to heart....and am starting to let things go.

Going through this large box of memorabilia I mentioned a few days ago has been tedious....and isn't the most practical thing to be tackling right now. I'm still stepping over things in the studio.....I can barely get into the guest room....and the dining room table is covered with things in transition.  But this very large box of memories has been sitting in the dining room since our move and has become a bit of an obsession priority.  I knew if it went into a closet...or over the garage in our storage room it would sit for another 10...or 20 + years.

So I sat for a good chunk of the day continuing to go through more of it....reading letters and birthday cards...and every page of this autograph book from elementary school.

I went through all of my school years with Kim....starting from day one. She lived just up the road and if I remember correctly she also was from a big family.  As I read her entry in this silly autograph book today it made me sad because I don't remember ever being much of a friend to her...even though she thought of of me as one of her "most dearest friends."

Kim was there in my kindergarten class....

....and she was there in my first grade class and every class after that. I don't have a lot of regrets from my growing up days....but today I'm regretting not being a better friend to Kim.

Success

Many of the mornings I walk with Paul we pass by a yard with a big patch of tiny purply blue starflowers scattered all through the grass.

Paul has been patient while I stop every time and take a few close-up photos....I posted one a few days ago. It's easy from the top....I can see what I'm photographing and easily zoom in and focus. But it was also a low side view I've been working on....without much luck. Mostly the photos have been blurry because I couldn't get low enough to see the viewfinder well so the camera focused on some random thing in the background.

But today I had some success....           

....and this was my favorite! I love this ground level perspective with those skinny little buds you just don't see well from the top.  Success!

This is the wide view of the yard....and chances are next time we walk by I'll stop and take another photo. I just can't help myself....it's such a joy documenting spring!

And every morning our walk starts with a loop around the pond.....and the reflection of the sunrise on the water was maybe more beautiful than it was in the sky.

Let It Go?

I've started going through some boxes of memorabilia that have been closed up and stored for years and years. Does it makes sense to keep saving and storing it...or just some of it? Or if I look through it now...should I just let most it go?

I did come across this photo of Becky and me.  We were best friends growing up...and our friendship has endured.  This is a keeper.

There are yearbooks and diplomas, an autograph book from elementary school, papers I wrote from grade school all the way through college, report cards, scrapbooks filled with birthday cards, tickets and flyers from places I've visited, our wedding guestbook and on and on and on.

I'm leaning towards looking though it...having a moment....then letting most of it go. And maybe using some of it for collaging or gelli plate printing.  Seriously....what do you do with this kind of stuff?  I really want to know!

This comment on my second grade report card made me chuckle....some things never change.

Daisy Mask

A stencil blocks out the background leaving the focal image exposed for paint or whatever.  A mask blocks out the image leaving the background exposed.  I really have to think about the difference when I'm printing on the gelli plate. 

For my round eleven 4 x 6 card exchange I used this daisy mask as my inspiration. I wanted something simple this round because I'd been focusing on my class....and my first experiment took about 5 minutes. I traced the negative space around the daisies on a book page and filled them in with colored pencil.  It didn't look like ANYTHING at first....maybe bats flying around in the air.

It was hard to even make out that there were daisies....like one of those illusions you have to squint to see the hidden image. That's the funny things about a mask....and negative space.

 

But once I outlined the edges of the daisies...it all became clear. This was just a quick practice run several weeks ago....but I circled back to it and finished it up as my keeper card this week.  It's not all that bad.

Brenda's only took a few minutes too and she got hers the first week. Just the daisy mask and some colored pencil on a page from one of my manuscript books....which by the way....was the best score ever at the Lexington Library sale: https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2020/03/a-good-score.html

For Becky's card I used the same technique.....the mask and colored pencil.  For hers I collaged a background using punched squares of different text and music giving it a little more interest. I think it creates a great effect and I'm quite pleased with this one.

Here are the cards I received from round 11.  Becky used distress oxides on watercolor paper.....and I can't even really tell you what that is. She has a wide variety of media and is experimenting with it all!  

And...she added her signature dimensional component. 

I love the texture of this flower on the back.  Nice job Becky!

Brenda was inspired by graphic designs on dinnerware....and used copic markers and posca pens. It's very effective!  Round 11 is a wrap!  Time to start thinking about round 12.

Pass It On

Our internet was down most of the evening.  So it's a simple post with a few shots from our morning walk....

...and the finished project group puzzle. Now I can pass it on to Margie to do.

Sentimental Journey

To those of you who celebrate it....Happy Easter!

Iphoto tells me I snapped this first photo at 5:58 this morning.  You can just barely see Paul walking down the dock with the also barely visible half moon high in the sky....and there was a magical pre dawn glow. Paul and I got up early to catch the Easter sunrise at Town Landing in Falmouth, ME.  We used to live just a mile down the road....and this was a regular hangout for us. We all loved exploring the beach and the boys enjoyed catching crabs. Town Landing Market, at the corner, was a great spot to pick up sandwiches, fresh lobster, or treats of any kind.  And this was the very spot where Paul's first church held Easter sunrise services.....so it was most certainly a sentimental journey. 

We had a couple of visitors watching with us.

"Sometimes I need stand wherever I am to be blessed."  Mary Oliver

We couldn't help but drive through the parking lot of Foreside Community Church....where Paul's career began.

And it was quite a treat on the way home to see this little herd of deer in a neighborhood near the condo.  One of them was white with brown spots....I'd never seen anything like it before.  

The Color Purple

Just because I haven't posted about found objects in a while doesn't mean there hasn't been any.  More days than not Paul comes home with a little treasure in his hand....and I find them too....so I'm catching you up.  They're funny little things....and like all the other found objects that fill my jar...they all have a story that we'll never know about.

The jeep at the top is in two parts....Paul found the first part...and I found the second...on different days.  That made us chuckle.  I told him a while back when I posted my wreath image that I needed more purple.....so he picks up every bit of purple he finds...and today it was the purple pipe cleaner already shaped like a heart. I would really love to know that story. And purple has added significance today because it's the last day of lent....and purple is the liturgical color for lent. 

But the best purple came when Paul was walking in the rain a few weeks ago found this piece of purple chalk....and it was soaking wet. Being a loyal participant in this project that he is....he carried it home despite the fact that his hand ended up covered in wet purple chalk.  It took more than a week for it to dry out....and today I left him message on our patio.

Today I'm celebrating purple....and my partner in finding funny little objects.

Fitting

It's Good Friday in the Christian tradition so it was pretty fitting that I put together these particular puzzle pieces of the cross in the cathedral quilt the project group made for Hancock Church.  

You can read about that project here in this post: http://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-cathedral-window-cross.html

I found myself at the puzzle table several times today....and I made good progress.  I've really enjoyed this one....and I'm grateful to the project group for having it made for me. It's the right puzzle at the right time. 

So many of my project group friends are on my mind....for all kinds of reasons.  

And this happened....my second vaccine.  Two more weeks and I can let my guard down just a bit. Paul and I are still going to be very careful....but our circle can widen and it's time to play cards with our vaccinated friends! 

My testing site was Scarborough Downs....a local racetrack.  As people leave they have left notes on the wall....it was heartwarming. Talk about a splash of color!

In the Woods

I raked some of the leaves away along the rock wall in the woods looking for some of my early spring woodland flowers and I found some some of the snowdrops I moved from Lexington. Needless to say I was pretty excited! Being forgetful so I can surprise myself is one of the advantages of getting older.  

Our homework today was to anchor all our pieces with stitching....in a somewhat decorative kind of way. Tansy showed us several different ways to use machine and hand stitching to connect the pieces and create cohesion.  I spent quite a bit of time at the sewing machine today...and will do a little hand stitching this evening.  This has certainly been an interesting journey....I think there's just one lesson left.

I'm not sure this is the best one on top....but it's the one with the little image of the snowdrop there in the middle.  You might have to zoom in to see it. Kind of fitting that I found this new patch just today....right there in the woods.