October Magic

This was one of those perfect October days....with a nod back to summer in the sun and splashes of fall in the trees.  We hit 70 degrees....and I took advantage of it and washed almost all of my windows and screens.

Paul and I enjoyed all the trees on our morning walk....there are so many that are at or near their peak!  

"My favorite color is October!"

The blazing red tree is on the way into our condo complex....

and it was spectacular in the morning sun.

I've been doing little bit of leaf printing the last couple of days...but I will admit that I'm absolutely loving the grass prints even more.  These are a tall grasses I found by the pond....I think the prints are so delicate

And these are some short scrappy grasses that were growing in the cracks in the pavement.  I was especially fond of this salmony pink color.

This grass is a nuisance during the season....but who would have thought that the seed heads would make such beautiful and delicate prints. 

When I make a print.....I'm left with the paint that was trapped under the grass....which you can also pull up on a print.....they are called ghost prints. I printed the salmon ghost prints onto this golden print....and I love the subtle hint of pink and the texture it gives. It's all trial and error....and sometimes you get October magic.

It's a messy process...and I have to work fairly quickly...so it's hard to take photos while I'm working....but here are a few photos of the process.

The first photo is after I rolled the paint onto my gelli plate...layed down the grasses and pressed the deli  paper all around the grass.  The next photo is the print when I pulled up the paper.

These are terrible photos....but the first photo is the grass still on the gelli plate...and the second photo is the paint that was trapped underneath that I printed onto another sheet.  No photo of that. The gelli plate is transparent...and the white lines you see are on the green oilcloth underneath....I know they're distracting.

I do love leaf prints....but you really need multiple layers to get good texture and interesting prints.  This one is OK....but it may need one more layer.

And this one is just getting started.  

But I need to take advantage of these beautiful days to enjoy the outdoors....and get some chores done. There will be plenty cooler days to play with paints again.

October is just getting started....lots of magic ahead!

Wool Leaves

This first photo accomplishes two things: 

1. It shows the progress on the puzzle as of this morning. I'm working on the neon yellow circles which allowed me to connect some big pieces....and I celebrate things like that.

2.  The photo also features my new fall coaster/mug rug from Jody, my neighbor and friend.

When I was out in the neighborhood yesterday collecting grasses and leaves for gel printing and I struck up a conversation with Jody....who....in a roundabout way is responsible for us moving to this condo complex.  It's a long story....and I'm thrilled to be her neighbor.  She ended up inviting me in and I was BLOWN AWAY by her handmade fall runners, placemats and coasters....all made from wool  They just gorgeous.  

Jody gave me this one.....and it's perfect for my puzzle table....the embroidery on the wool leaves is incredible. 

Jody is one of those people who just needs to sew....and her collection is amazing! I'm going to have to go back to take a closer look...and I'm hoping for a lesson.  

This one was striking....I especially loved the free hand embroidery bittersweet in the middle.

  She nailed it!

I was especially fond of all the circles....with all the of layers, patterns, and stitches.  

Some were coasters...and others sewn together for runners....all fabulous.  This one had fabric mixed in....just what I want to do.

Some were like quilty....and some were buggy.

And just this evening after dinner....I found the one piece.....

....that completed a path from the top border to the bottom. 

I love moments like this!

Magic In the Mud

"One can speak poetry just by arranging colors well." Vincent van Gogh

This is either the coolest...or the strangest thing I've seen this fall.  I'm going with cool....totally cool!  Are they little insects?  But they look like tiny little acorns embedded in the leaf.  

I've never really had the confidence to mix my own paint colors.  I tend to buy a lot of different colors....then just tweak them a bit for my printing.  But following along with the first lesson in Fodder School 2 by Rebecca Sower (yes, the same artist I just took the "Winter Tree" class from) I jumped right in mixing colors.  And....this was the first time I actually used my pallet knife...which I've had for a long time.  

I used just three colors and a black and a white to make all these solids. (and there's more)  I needed something from the primary family...red, yellow, and blue. These were not the typical choices...but it's what I had in the more heavy bodied paints.

I can't share too much about the process....because this was a paid class...but I can say that I would never have guessed that the magic was in the mud.  Mud is what you get when you mix all the colors together....and a little mud it is what unified all my mixed colors together.   

Mud...is also how you get lighter and darker neutrals...which I need to make more of next time. I was having too much fun with the colors.

The next step is to add some texture and patterns to these papers.....

...but first....I'm going to make some leaf and grass prints! I've been wanting to do this for months!

Resorting

 I don't know what I love more....

...this rainbow garden stake that Becky made....or the wild and colorful garden in the background.  

Becky took a fused glass class while on a getaway with friends....and this was the outcome. I wonder if she would notice if I snuck it home to Maine next time I visit. I absolutely love it!  There is just something about glass....especially in rainbow order.

I almost gave up on this latest puzzle....I just wasn't making any progress. There was no joy in that.  But after a little resorting....I think there's hope. I need to apply that in other areas of my life. 

I sorted out all the pieces that had the light blue background....and the pieces that have the neon green circles into their own boxes.  

So far...this has made a big difference...narrowing down where I have to look for a piece. Now....if I sort each box by shape....that should help even more.

I hated the thought about giving up.....but I don't think I need to go there yet. This may look not look like much....but based on how slow going it was...this nearly finished corner is huge progress. There's joy in that!

"Winter Tree"

Remember the limited pallett of papers that I talked about a week or so ago?  

http://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2022/09/limited-pallette.html

Following along with a class by Rebecca Sower, I made my own "Winter Tree" collage using this limited pallett.

https://www.rebeccasowerart.com/ 

https://www.instagram.com/rebeccasower/ 

This is one of Rebecca's hand drawn birds she made available for the class.  

She also made a tree image available...but I used my own.

The winter tree I used was the large ginkgo tree that was in our yard in Lexington. I loved that tree....and I loved "ginkgo day"....when all the leaves fell in one day. Although the photo was very neutral when I started....I did print it with a filter that had some of the blue tones that bled into the image when I adhered it to the panel. I did use Rebecca's sealing technique....but it wasn't enough. This blue tone around the tree was not what I was going for....but it is what it is. Since there other tones of blue in the piece....I'm making peace with it.  It's also looks better person.

This is the original photo.

In all its glory!

What the yard looked like after the leaves fell.

Did I mention I loved ginkgo day?

All the sides have pieces of the painted papers. I enjoy Rebecca's teaching style...and her short easy to understand lessons gave me all kinds of tips for painting papers and collage. I'm excited to use more of these papers in my art....and of course I'm going to make more!

Shared Art Postcards

Happy October!  My favorite month!

Here are all of my mastersheet shared art postcards. I haven't heard if anyone has received theirs yet....so they may be getting a little preview. The lower right one is mine....and it wasn't quite finished when I took this photo but I wanted to get the others in the mail earlier this week.  I posted my finished postcard yesterday. 

This is the one I sent to Becky.  She and I share a little history with Geninne Zlatkis, the artist who painted this bird.  And the little tiny colored circles are actually from one of Becky's coloring pages she gave me when I was visiting a few years ago.  

Becky's coloring sheet.

This is Tracie's.  I probably took the "robin" theme a little too literally....the sheet music was Irving Berlin's "When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bobbin Along." And I had to get a pop of purple in there....it's the color most celebrated in Tracie's household. The "definitely not perfect" on the left is her handwriting from a note she sent me with one of her art pieces and the brown scallops are from  Hallmark bag.  Yes, I save everything!

And this is Brenda's.  I ended up being quite fond of the geometrics of this one.  Most of the orange cutouts are from a calendar by an artist I admire...Susan Black. Brenda's got a little bird too....one of the black and white ones from Connie's calendar. 

Since I turned them into postcards....I was wondering how I would deal with the back. Rather than add another layer of paper....I painted a layer of gesso on the back and created large labels.  We'll see how they do in the mail. 

I can't wait to see what everyone else came up with....I'm expecting them all sometime next week. So stay tuned....and I wonder what's next!