MMSA swap - trees

Just trees, in any way, shape or form. I instantly thought of blown ink cause I think I saw some recently that made me think of trees.

Anyway, while cleaning up the studio yesterday, I came across a partial sheet of watercolor paper. I cut it into two postcard size pcs, then sprayed them with turquoise and blue dyelusions ink. That stuff sure is vibrant. They were laying on the work table when I decided to work on trees, so I got out some sepia acrylic ink, dribbled some along the bottom edge and blew with a straw. I helped it get started by dragging the pointy shaft end of a feather here and there.

What? You've never heard of the special feather technique???

(I only used a feather because it was laying on the table from when I picked it up in the back yard a couple days ago. A toothpick would have done the trick but I didn't have one handy.)

When that was dry, I went back and added more ink along the bottom to make grass bushes undergrowth.

The 3rd one started life as a gelli print with some misc papers and dress pattern tissue collaged onto it. I used Liquitex acrylic ink in turquoise first, then went over some of it with Dr. Ph. Martin's Bombay Black India ink.

Lettered "trees" onto each card and I'm done. Trying to get a few swaps ahead so that I'm not always mailing on the last possible day. Karen is in Massachusetts, clear across the blasted country, and I suspect she's had to wait for me a time or two. (Sorry, Karen. Today I mailed off purple and Currie's collage cards.)

If you haven't yet joined in any MMSA swaps, you really should give it a go. I pretty much always get good cards back, and, as I've mentioned before, the weekly nature of her swaps keeps me constantly making art.

Christmas Eve

We're off work and home until Tuesday morning. YAY! I love it when Christmas falls on a work day.

 I didn't do a whole lot of decorating, but I did do some. Here's a look around the house. Most of the Santas were made by Moneka and gifted to me over the years. One I earned by stuffing arms and legs during one of her especially busy years.  

The whole time I was a kid, we always had multi-colored lights on our tree and rolled our eyes at the people who had those teeny all-white ones. That's not Christmas-y - Christmas needs colors! But of course somewhere along the way, I discovered the allure of little white lights and that's all I've used for years. 

 




I have a precious box of old ornaments from my mother. Hand blown balls that she made and painted. Fragile glass birds with tails that pull out from their body that clip to the branches of the tree. An old white plastic reindeer that she always hid in the tree for me to find. I didn't unpack them at all this year, just wasn't in the mood.



                                                                       I also didn't unpack the box of handmade but unbreakable ornaments I've acquired over a lifetime of crafting and knowing crafters. Moneka figures heavily into this box with probably half of it coming from her craft room over the years.



This year I did buy a real tree - a 4 foot pine tree from the lot behind the mall that I pass driving home every day. It smells good and all I put on it are little white lights and several strands of silver and pearl garlands. It's very simple and I just love it. I have it on a timer so that it's on when I get home and it's so nice to walk in and see it shining there by the fireplace.




We're far from family and friends, so we're staying home tomorrow with lots of good food, our books, and our computers, and enjoying a quiet day to ourselves. I hope you're all doing whatever it is that makes it a good day for you. Merry Christmas!

two roads

two roads diverged in a yellow wood

and sorry I could not travel both 

and be one traveler, long I stood 

and looked down one as far as I could

to where it bent in the undergrowth

...Robert Frost

There's more and it's one of the first poems I ever memorized, mostly because my mother loved it and passed that love along to me. I suppose most people look back on their lives at various points and think about those roads not taken. It does make you wonder, doesn't it?

She also loved autumn, as do I, and every year around this time, I get nostalgic for the autumns of my childhood. Long hikes in the woods with my cousin and a dog or two, hot chocolate made with milk and Hershey's cocoa, kicking leaves in the gutter walking home from school.

I saw the background picture of the autumn woods when looking thru a magazine for a turkey. An hour later, the turkey was long forgotten and this was finished. Tough to get a good pic with the reflection from the glass. On the left is another woods image, sideways so that the trunks echo the horizontal lines of the words, layered over a thin strip of brown polka dot paper. 

On the right, I used the packing tape transfer method for the words - works like a charm, who knew? Beneath them is several torn layers of the Starbucks bag that my scone came in a couple weeks ago. I crumpled it, lightly rubbed a brown ink pad over it, then darkened the edges a bit.

the road not taken