photographs

I took quite a few photographs of my granddaughter on Saturday. She vogued and directed, telling me how I should be taking the picture. She went through a variety of fashion-type poses, and then moved on to a mini-movie, complete with script for both of us. She is four. It was hilarious. None of the shots are great and worth sharing, but it was clear that she has a strong drive to create that hopefully won't get squashed before she grows up.


Here is one of her and her little sister.

Chypre kit

It ws my sister's birthday in June, and I decided to put together a little perfume making kit in her favorite fragrance. Of course, that meant that I had to research the history of chypre and decide on the most representative combination of essential oils that would smell like the one she remembered. I ordered them online, and of course one of the key ingredients was back-ordered. When it finally came, I decided I couldn't just send them out in the same ugly bubble-wrap that they came in, so I created this bit of packaging to make it into a whole kit. I started with a wooden purse box form from Michaels.

This is the inside without anything in it. It is painted a flat black with gesso and there is a small turquoise scarab fixed to the top.
This is the inside when it is filled with the kit contents. I didn't have any way of packaging the contents so it would fit with the theme of an antique kit I was going for, so I used raw wool roving as padding.

This is the outside of the box. Hopefully she will understand why it took so long.

Update

I haven't posted for quite a while, but mostly because the creative activities have been writing and not visual arts.

I have wanted to take pictures of my granddaughter and my dog illustrating the Red Riding Hood story for a while now, because Gwen would make a perfectly sweet Red. However, the story is gross and doesn't make any sense. It finally hit me a couple of weeks ago that I could retell the story from a different point of view. It was clear, once I came to that realization, that the story everyone knows was told by the 'hero', the woodcutter. But what if he was actually the villain in the story, and lied to his buddies to cover up his involvement? Doesn't that explain a lot?

And maybe the same could be said of other fairy tales - maybe Hansel and Gretel were spoiled and greedy teenagers who ran away from home and imposed their snotty selves on a kindly widow living in the woods.

Anyway, I wrote the first story, and it turned out quite well. At least, I think so! I think I will try to do a few more, and I am hoping to take the pictures later this summer. I will post the images when I do.

Create with yellow

I spent an hour or so in the garden taking pictures yesterday. I thought this one would be a nice inspiration for days when there is no sun.

Encaustic painting

I have been entertaining for the last week, so I haven't had much time for art, but I did get the opportunity to teach a private lesson in encaustics, and this is the result:

I think she did a great job! I also had the opportunity to give some watercolor lessons to my eight year old neice. I bought her a set of watercolor paints and a book with good quality paper, and she had so much fun painting that she wanted to paint every minute. It made for a great week of art, even if it was other people doing the art.

Rain

It is amazing how a bit of rain can turn the most routine activity into a wonderful inspiring event. I usually don't take the dogs for a walk in the rain because neither of them like the rain and they always prefer to be inside when it rains. But this morning, it started to rain just as I was putting on their leashes, and once that promise is made, there is no going back.

We followed the same route we always take - a mile trek down the closest range road to the highway and back. Usually the walk is boring and smells of cow dung, and I spend the time thinking about work and ignoring the drab scenery. But I love walking in the rain, and it makes everything look so magical. It poured for the first couple of minutes, and then it softened to a gentle drizzle. It created a soft mist on the distant trees, and washed the flowers in the fields so the pink and purple, yellow and white stood out on the lush green backdrop of the fields.

As we walked, we were chaperoned by a little wren, who flew from fence post to fence post, watching us and trying to determine whether we were safe or not. A whole family of swifts were perched on the wires, and a heron was hunting for fish in the pond that ordinarily seems bereft of life. All the wildlife that normally hides from human predators or finds shelter from the heat of the day under trees that make them invisible to me were out in the rain, taking advantage of the brief relief from the heat of the sun.

Most people seem to avoid the rain, as though the water is poisonous. People think that if they get wet, they will catch a cold or get sick somehow. They dress up in cumbersome gear and run from shelter to shelter, to avoid getting touched by the rain.

I love the rain. When I was young I decided that I could either hate the rain and hide indoors like most people, or I could embrace the rain, and experience a world that most people miss out on. I chose the latter. I forget sometimes, and get too focused on day to day drudgery to stop and smell the rain, but when I lift my head and take a deep breath - oh how glorious it is! The rain brings out the smells of poplar and pine, and creates a heady frangrance that makes one stop and just smell.

Take a moment to walk in the rain. Look at how the rain washes away the dust and grime and leaves everything sparkling and fresh. The colors of the leaves and grass and flowers are different when it is raining. Visibility is affected, and the corners are softened so that the world is a comforting place full of life and joy. Rainbows are only the period at the end of the sentence - it is the rain that forms the important part of the story.

Art and Turnovers

I have been working on a few art projects, but I have not been feeling a lot of that special kind of excitment that comes with a truly creative challenge. I think that my decision to work on more commercial forms of art may have been a bit of a mistake. I have been challenged while learning watercolors, but not really excited in the same way that I feel when working on assemblage and abstract art.


Rather than force myself to work on something I wasn't totally excited about, I decided to make raspberry turnovers instead. I made a few individual serving size turnovers, and all the filling kept oozing out the ends. I thought that it would work better to make them as one long turnover, and then cut them into servings, but they opened up while cooking and spilled all over the baking sheet. I do like the way that the two long turnovers formed this sensuous, sinuous line on the pan, and I thought it was worth a picture.