Friday, October 17, 2014

Poetry notebook visitors

This is one of the hazards of keeping a poetry notebook in an artist's sketchbook, I suppose.






I think I just can't resist picking up a paintbrush. Even when I am writing, I still see things in a concrete way. The wooly bear caterpillar I saw the other day inspired this flight of fancy.

I won't show the whole page because the poem is not going well. This is the only pretty thing on the page, flying and crawling under a pile of scratchouts.

Maybe that's really why it's there.

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Happy Monday!

Every now and then, I like to surprise my family with a Happy Monday gift on the kitchen table on a Monday morning. I think the most memorable was an origami koala climbing a pencil tree, after we heard a story on NPR about a koala who escaped a zoo in California, climbed a tree, and promptly fell asleep.

This Happy Monday gift is an origami penguin. We have been enjoying watching the penguins and puffins at our local zoo. He is sitting on a paper ice floe. I love how three-dimensional he is!







I worked from a pattern in the book, Origami Treasure Chest.  I added an eye with a Sakura white pen, and used ordinary origami paper.

It would have been better to post this yesterday, but... have a wonderful Tuesday! 




Thursday, July 10, 2014

Regina Caeli book

Here is an artist's book I made a few years ago. At the time, I was grappling with the concept of home. I had watched my family go through Katrina, and I had moved away from homes that I had loved. I came to the conclusion that it really is true that our home is in Heaven. Everything else is temporary.

This is a joyful book, though. The realization that we have a home that will not be lost or changed is a joyful one. The prayer is for the time of the year after Easter, and so it reflects that deep joy. The book form is one I learned in Alisa Golden's Painted Paper. She mentions other artists who sent her books with this form, and calls it a Woven Accordion Book. I thought the prayer fit beautifully into the form.

The ties are iridescent and silver ribbons, and the background is painted with interference and pearl acrylics. These types of specialty paints just don't seem to photograph well. Their effects are striking, especially with a subject matter like this. I painted it on Arches watercolor paper, so it is a very solid form. I tried to alternate lighter pages with darker ones for contrast.

It is one of my favorite books.


It is funny how I can look at artwork I've created, and remember exactly what I was thinking at the time.