Friday, May 31, 2013

Something Fishy


I had some wacky fish birthday napkins which I just couldn't throw out...  Decided to cut off their party hats (boo) and collage the fish onto food-coloring-stained coffee filters.  Then I covered them with sparkly netting, which didn't stay put.  Today was the first time I had ever run cardboard through my sewing machine.  I stitched the edges down, using a heavy duty needle.  And it worked!  The googly eyes are my favorite embellishment because they roll around as you jiggle them.

Orange You Glad...

I saw an opportunity for an ORANGE swap on Mail Me Some Art, and so decided to put some orange images together.  This was my glowing result. 

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

Collage Envelopes

 
After I dried my dyed tags between the pages of a book, I took a look at the pages.  Not wanting to waste the ink, I incorporated parts of the colored pages into collage on post cards and envelopes.  Wheeeeeeee!

Taglets?

These are some tiny tags I decided to dye with rubber stamp ink, then embellish with dyed papers, rubber stamps, ribbons and fancy yarns, and stickers. Lots of fun!

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

More Spring Blossoms


The blue garden is looking lovely!
 

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Tag, You're It!

Making ART projects for some Mail Me Some Art exchanges is so invigorating!  When I began dipping tags and book pages into cups of diluted rubber stamp ink, I was thrilled with the color combinations.  But not with my fingertips.  It looked like I had been blackberry picking.


 
 

Move Over, Rorschach

Recent post card creation took the form of "ink-blot" tests, only I used acrylic paint.

What do you see?  Aliens?  X-rays?  Auras?

Cairn

While hiking along the Apalachian Trail in 1980, my traveling companions and I noted the white blazes painted on an occasional tree trunk to keep us on the right path.  Sometimes in the middle of a field there was a marked fencepost, or a rock on the ground with a white blaze.  But high up on the bare, rocky mountain tops, piles of stones would sometimes show the way.  This was especially true on Mount Katahdin in the northernmost part of Maine.


I gathered these five small flat stones from a creek near where I used to live four moves ago while waiting to meet a friend for an adventure.  They now sit atop my dresser and prompt memories of hiking, and of adventures, and of friendship.

Fooling Mother Nature???

Since the robins' offspring either flew the coop before I expected, or the nest was raided- I decided to experiment a little bit.
 These are the eggs of a clay pigeon.  No, not really.  They are marvelously smooth marbles from an old brick factory in Georgia.  I wish I had picked up a bag full, but were they ever expensive in that little gift shop.  Don't you think that the sun-lit marble looks like a lightbulb?


These colorful "eggs" will hatch into glass birds.  You know, the knick-knack type.  I also purchased them in the lovely South.

I was dismayed to find the nest completely dislodged later on, as if a bear's paw swatted it from its perch.  Was it a cat, a raccoon, or in fact a bear that destroyed this avian architecture?

Sunday, May 12, 2013

One-Of-A-Kind


 
 
My recent projects include one-of-a-kind postcards with some serendipity.   

In The Pink

Besides admiring the bright green of new spring leaves, I find the vibrant pink of crabapple buds and blossoms such a cheery sight.  This gnarly old tree is robed in beauty, despite losing a major branch last spring in a heavy, late snowfall.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Robin the Nest...


A funny business, this nesting proposition.  A robin built a nest on the window ledge in the garage.  Concerned that the bird might either get caught outside for the night or be trapped inside (and make a mess on the car), I thought it would be wise to remove the nest.  No problem. Several days later, I found two little blue eggs in the remaining dry grasses on the ledge in the garage.  I donned leather gloves, carefully lifted the tiny, but heavy, bright blue eggs and carried them to an active robin's nest in a rhododendron bush by my kitchen window.  I wanted to photograph the eggs in the nest, but didn't want to disturb the parents who had returned. 

One afternoon I observed a male robin sneaking closer and closer to the tree.  He would skitter a bit, stop, wait, look around, then continue his stealthy approach.  He hopped into the lower branches, then fluttered up to the nest.  By the time I checked the nest again, there were baby birds in it.  I'm wondering if the remaining blue egg is one of the transplants from the other nest.
Here are the baby birds in further development...  I did not know it would be the last viewing.

Here's the empty nest which caught me by surprise:
 

Friday, May 3, 2013

Woodland Delights

Leaf Popping
Patiently wait the wintering trees,
Then buds burst open, leaves unfurl:
Joyful extensions of delicate green,
Hope-filled reminders of Spring's new life.
moi

 

It was a lovely day for a walk in the woods.  Two yellow Trout Lilies (or Dog-Toothed Violets) posed nicely by a fallen log, and the deep burgundy of Purple Trillium was a happy find.  I love the new leaf-green on tree branches, to which this fungus on a rotting tree is quite a contrast.  Being downhill from the back-lit ferns made a shining set-up.  I think when I grow up I want to be a photographer.

the voiceless Fern

After reading a book Flowers and Ferns and Their Haunts  (published 1901) my grandmother purchased from the author Mable Osgood Wright, and then seeing on Karen Hatzigeorgiou's website (karenswhimsy.com) how she excerpts parts of a book's text to make "found poetry," I was inspired to create these postcards using real ferns and some found poetry from the book.


Karen H. makes collage, relinquiries, book-sculptures, shrines, and altered books.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

To Go Climb A Tree

My next batch of postcards for exchange involved images printed on Vellum, and I found it very difficult to work with.  Guess they turned out okay.  I really like the shape of trees, especially in the fall and winter.  Now, there's a pink or green haze across the country hills before the popping open of the leaves.  There's no green like new-leaf-green!