The Foundling

In a secret valley ringed by grassy hills the little people found a baby. She was bundled up in a colorful patchwork quilt. They looked all around, even climbing one of the small thorny trees for a better view. There was no sign of another large human: no buildings, no smoke, no tracks in the grass.

"We will have to take care of her until her people return."

to be continued

Back to the Drawing Board

This past week I combined several of my creative streams in these drawings. First I was playing around with drawing one of my cloth dolls.



This is Lily. She has a handspun angora rabbit yarn wig.



















I drew Lily and added some of my doodled flowers.

















I enjoyed this drawing so much that I wanted to do a watercolor version and this is the result.






I usually strive for realism when I draw people. And I am not always pleased with the results! But since I was drawing a simple, stylized doll the resulting simplification, a sort of symbolic child resulted. It is fun! It reminds me of some of the paper dolls I drew as a child.

Waldorf Dolls
and Brazilian Verbena

One of my dear sons, with his much nicer, more expensive camera, used his considerable skill to take pictures of my newest Waldorf dolls.

I decided to try get that "bokeh" look early this morning on some flowers in the front yard, "bokeh" being the out of focus points of light in the photo of the pirate.




This is the Brazilian verbena, Verbena bonariensis.




The Brazilian verbena is the only plant that has actually thrived this drought year, leading me to do some research to see if it might be invasive. And it gets mixed reviews. Most people think it worth the risk because of its beauty. But when you decide to pull it you will probably want to wear gloves because of the hispid stems. Hispid was yesterday's new word for me! It means, "covered with rough hairs; bristly." I came across the term several times while researching the verbena. Of course hispid is from Latin.

What am I doing this beautiful day?

Laundry, dishes, sorting mail...the never ending stuff!

Spending way too much time at the computor

Drinking iced Jasmin Tea

Doors and windows are opened for the coolish breeze

Listening to the birds and Finding Neverland Soundtrack - the best thing about this movie was the music!

I have made several new ACEOs, Art Cards Editions and Originalsthat I am listing for auction on Ebay. I love the format of tiny art quilts.

I find them a challenge and a pleasure. I have had the pleasure of trading cardswith some of my flickr friends but at the moment I need to make some sales.

I still plan to sell some books on Etsy as soon as I iron out the wrinkles in my new store. I also need to research the new postal rates.

Almost done with this one! Photographing it outside changed the colors somewhat; the previous view was scanned this morning before the sun came up. The sketchy black free motion quilting also gave it a different look! Sort of brought it to life! I also added some silk roving for highlights.

I perhaps owe having become a painter to flowers.

Claude Monet

I love flowers! And when I paint them I tend toward botanical accuracy, a look I love. But at times I desire to break away more into abstraction or interpretation of the flower. That has taken place at times when I am painting with children using tempera paint, a "throwaway medium."

Then two years ago I painted purple petunias with a decidedly stylized look. It is one of my favorites, the flower and the painting! Now I am trying to interpret the painting with cloth and fiber using needle felting and sewing. I am using bits of cloth, yarn, and wisps of dyed unspun wool to paint the picture.