While I was taking my morning walk on the path this morning, smelling the cool fresh breeze, feeling the warmth of the bright but not-too-hot-yet sun, and trying to be mindful of the present moment, I found myself thinking of apples. This is going to be a bumper crop year for them, which means I'll be spending many hours picking, peeling, cutting, cooking, and canning them so I can replenish our pantry with apple sauce and apple butter. We have a small organic orchard, and one of the things I enjoy most living here, is watching the trees change. As I passed our *early* apple tree, a semi-dwarf loaded with 2" Yellow Transparent apples, I picked one and poked my finger nail into the skin to see if it was ready. A bite confirmed what I had suspected - the apples were ripe and ready for eating. And oh so delicious! Eating an apple outside in the fresh air is near the top of my list of life's simple delights; it has been for as long as I can remember. What a great start to the day.
I'm involved in the long-term project of digging out my studio. Sorting, purging, selling, cleaning, and rearranging. I am not one known for my long attention span, just the opposite, so after an hour of this activity, I magically found myself out in back of the house, paintbrush in hand, painting national geographic pages with citrosolve. Not that I need one more piece of this yummy paper, not at all. But I admit, I am addicted to the process, the mystery of the unexpected, never knowing what the results will each time I adventure in this process. Taking that a step further, I pulled out some objects to use as a *resist*, including leaves, mesh, and grass, and played with pulling out pages before I started and combining them with other pages based on color and pattern instead of the totally random effects I get if I used the pages in the order they are bound. This is a scan of one of the pages where I used leaves, I think it turned out very cool and I'm already longing to experiment more with it. Hmmmmm, I wonder what dilute bleach would do as a discharge agent when used with objects.....
6 comments:
Hi Katie; Found your blog through mmca... I love this technique with the Nat'l Geo. Think next time I visit my parents I will have to raid their old collection (from back in the 50's!). Gosh, I remember when that particular magazine used to be a "don't touch, don't tear" thing in my house. Oh baby, if they could only see what we're doing to it now!!
See you in Portland!
ps.. can I add you as a link to my blog?
a friend wrote up really good directions on her blog, here is the link:
www.sallyt.typepad.com/
have fun!
laughing about the attention span thing.
this is beautiful and so intriguing.
note to self : must try
Thank you for this inspiration !
Good luck with getting back to business there...
Oh Katie dear i can't say enough about how fantastic all your new art and dolls are and so glad you opened an etsy store and all!! love everything and the dolls are just enchanting!!!! they will sell like hot cakes at vendor nite!!! wish I were going!! maybe some day when I win the lotto!!!! hehehe!! thanks dear enjoyed the eye candy immensely!!
hugs Linda
Your description of apples to me back to the orchards of my childhood. I remember going to the orchard and opicking and eating sweet crispy apples right off the tree until I was sick to my stomach!
Living in the desert, it's a rare treat to have a fabulous apple. Usually they have been chilled from a previous season of getting old from transportation. Last season I bought a few outstanding apples at the gourmet grocery store, but they were $3.99/lb.
I'm so jealous!!!!
love...
Lovely!
Jennifer
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