Ruffled petticoates

He noticed me looking intently at my new creation. I was trying to figure out what it was about the ruffled multi toned paper hanging over the edge of the crusty wood round that made me smile. There was something about the way the light grabbed each ruffled edge. I pondered and drifted away in thought. It sort of looked like a little girl's petticoat, formerly crisp white and full of bounce but now aged and discolored from years of being in an old box in the attic. Waiting for the child to come back, whispered a familiar voice in my head, yes, there in the back of the closet in the black dress box...

I was snapped back into the present when 'he' said it looked like a hamburger. Oh, my word... why do I even try to discuss these things with him? I looked again at my new creation, well, it does kind of look like a hamburger with the lettuce hanging out - if you had been marooned on an island with no hope of rescue!  Just like him to always be thinking of food, but then again... he had just come home and expected dinner to be ready. My bad... it was not.

I doubt if I can even photograph the details of which I am so desperately trying to describe. I am sure it is 'just a me' sort of thing, but that is okay.

Maybe it is shelf fungus sticking out from the tree, maybe that is what I see?

A Time for Everything

Fifteen minutes here, 15 minutes there... this is normally how my life goes. I crave for long intense periods of creative time to "do my thing." Sometimes I wake in the night just to get it. Last night was one of those nights. It is so hard to be quiet while others sleep - I mean, I had drilling to do, wax to melt, and a book to create!

The 22 page book was made with the left over paper towels from my rust experiments. I couldn't throw them away - the rust and black colors were so yummy. The fibers soaked up the richness and when I added wax they intensified even more. Since I never think things all the way through (before hand) the process is always fraught with challenge. A quote from A Time for Everything by the popular Norwegian author, Karl Ove Knausgard fills the soft, waxed pages. For me seeing the rough paper edges of natural colors sticking out of the maple rounds makes me smile. There are those who just don't understand, so for them I quote the Pickles cartoon from this week.  Pearl said "I am an artist, so it must be art!"  I thought her dusty bunny sculpture was really clever. Maybe I could make one too? Lord knows I have enough dust buns around.
Hope your week is arty!

Celebrating Spring!

The wind chimes are clanging, the wind whistling, the cats are plastered against the wood stove. Hail has fallen in sparadic bursts landing like pop-its on the green grass. What a strange way to begin the new cycle. I have hurriedly finished up a couple of projects, just in case... something warm and spring-like happens and the out of doors beckons.
These are the projects on the worktable. I thought it was funny that all my projects had that warm rusty brown color. I wondered if I would come back to these colors after attending my weekend workshop?

I took a great bookmaking workshop from Shawn Sheehy on Moveable Structures (wheels and pull tabs). OMG - I felt like a kindergartener on the first day of school - so excited and yet worried if I could listen and measure at the same time, or cut, fold, and glue properly! The best part about the whole thing is we walked away with our very own BOOK with 16 different structures!

This page used a string pulley to move the leaf up and down.

This funny character made from scraps is like a jack in the box.

 He kind of pops open. When the page is closed he is flat.

This pop-up piggy wasn't demonstrated in our class but

 the pattern is on Shawn's website.

 I came home and added pages to my book to see if I could use

 what I learned to create my own pull tab creations.

Here's my design for a moveable arm to move the cloud and

 flying crow up the page.  

And because I am still new at the process my violets slide up.

Matching the right illustration with the right mechanism

may take more time to learn.

But I am happy because the mechanism works!  

With luck, I may move on to first grade!

 Now that is something to celebrate since spring is slow in coming.

I speak for the trees

This branch speaks for the trees:
" The oaks and the pines, and their brethren of the wood, have seen so many suns rise and set, so many seasons come and go, and so many generations pass into silence, that we may wonder what " the story of the trees" would be to us if they had the tongues to tell it, or we ears fine enough to understand.
                                         - Author unknown, quoted in  Quotations for Special Occasions by Maud van Buren,  1938


Does he need a little nose?

It is all still delightful play - the whole thing could change

 and new characters take center stage.

I do love branch's cat tail,

very Avatar like.

If the trees could talk

My latest project...
I matched my desire to memorialize some of our many trees which had to be cut down or limbed as a result of this past winter's ice storm and my need to make more books. These are blank books made with handmade paper (recycled old tax and household records - no doubt wood fiber.) This collection would be perfect for a display as I want a stick figure (also a branch) to tell a bit of the story.