Blue: Folio Book with Pockets & a Pamphlet Booklet

 

I promised myself & you, blog visitors, that I 

would glue up my painted Blue papers (previous post) 

into a folded folio.

The pages of the little tied up booklet 

have become ink swatches

of 5 favorite fountain pen inks in blue: 

Diamine Polar Glow, Noodler's Midnight, Sailor 940, 

Sailor Yonaga, & Noodler's Blue. 

The sentence in the lower right middle, on vellum says,

"Blue, réconforte-moi." Translated: "Blue, comfort me..."

"I Am Not a Quilter"...

I took out my old fabric scraps & sewing machine!

They'd been in a closet for 8 years.

A well meaning friend, who saw my frustration with

stitching, taking out stitches,

stitching, taking out stitches,

stitching, taking out stitches,

swear, swear, swear,

suggested, "Maybe you are just not a quilter."

I am also not a dancer.

 I am slower at learning moves

than other people. 

Quilting & Zumba dance have cognitive steps

that are hard for my type of brain.

But they also offer me a flow of movement

and joyful expression. I love them!

(I am also not a writer, 

it takes me a long time...

And yet, I love it too.)

A saying on my bulletin board:

"The harder you work for something,

The greater you'll feel when you achieve it."

So why am I sewing?

• I love going from chaos to order.

• I love spending hours with the fabrics, 

touching them, 

arranging & re-arranging them.

• Soaking in 

the colors, the colors, the colors!

• By experiencing the process,

I see & understand 

others' quilts with more depth.

I love the tools. 

Recently I even bought a few new ones 

at our local sewing/art shop, 

Fiddleheads, curbside.

I love the way sewing connects me with my dear mother,

who helped me to learn to sew.

And who loved sewing clothes for me.

And with my peer group women friends.

And with the memories of my jr. high girl friends 

when we were first learning to sew. 

It was a happy time of camaraderie in Home Arts classes.

Do schools still teach Home Arts?

I love that I can sew gifts for friends. 

The above "hot pad", 

with my first time using interfacing,

was a gift to a friend using colors I know she loves.

I have even made some masks for friends,

in "their colors".

This staying home time has given me

the gift of Home Arts.

And the gift of time to be as slow 

as I need to be.

Yellow Therapy

 I finished the final paste up on my yellow folio book.

The text is in French (I hope not incorrect French...) 

Le jaune. 

La couleur du bonheur, du soleil. 

Une couleur animée. Le jaune, lumineux, joyeux, positif.

Yellow, the color of happiness, of the sun.

A lively color. Bright, joyful, positive.

 

(The first draft, above, is in my Jan. 22 blog post, 

titled "What I've Been Up To".)

The accordion folio folds up neatly into a booklet.

From time to time I crave YELLOW.

Like a visual form of Vitamin C.

The yellow Dixon Ticonderoga pencils from the 50's

still make my heart skip a beat!

"...I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils

if I knew your name and address."

 ~You've Got Mail.

Autumn yellows against blue sky in a nearby state park.

Talk about lively!!

Muted yellows and ochres in Arles...

Love! Thank you, YELLOW!

Do you have a color that is uplifting or healing?

Exploring Rather Than Wandering

 

Sketchbook Wandering. 

I've done it here for almost 7 years!!!!!

Sketching & writing still bring me joy & comfort, 

as when I took a pause from last Saturday's winter festivities

at a café on Main St. I sat by a wall.

My sketchbook transformed the scene to interesting theater.

There are people who appreciate my sketches, 

& some have learned from my process.

But:

Change might be starting...

Expression, discovery, exploration, reflection, 

& who knows what else! 

I've been experimenting with making marks 

with a brush & "high flow" acrylic paints.

(Thanks, for introducing me, Beth. Go to Sew Sew Art.)

My marks turned to shapes & my shapes 

arranged themselves.

Aaaah, order...but maybe not too much...

More will be revealed...

In and Out of Lines

My tiny holiday Zumba Girls have changed to Winter Girls.

When I'm watercoloring their fashions, I'm reminded of

my hours of coloring in childhood. 

Later coloring books were shunned by everyone I knew

as being detrimental to creativity. 

Now they are tremendously popular with adults,

& are sold as meditative activities. 

Are coloring books good or bad or neither?

My Prismacolors have replaced Crayolas.

Making this chart also felt like childhood coloring days.

I've been thinking about staying in lines, or not,

sharp edges verses soft, tight verses loose. 

Punching out colored penciled stars from my swatches creates sharp, 

manufactured edges and shapes.

Is this good for creativity, or bad, or neither?

What are your thoughts?

Tis the Season for Color

 

I love playing with bright colors at this time of year.

I made a chain of 70 Origami birds for 

a friend's 70th birthday which she hung in her window.

My new "Art Bin" box.

I bought it at a local art shop 

It has replaced my old broken paintbox.

I transferred my half pans & made a new color chart. 

See what it can do. More painted collages.

Some are for gifts, some for a new show.

And then, there is the contrast of the winter outdoors.

Cold, dark & muted colors.

It is soft & beautiful & restful.

An advent calendar with over-the-top glitter!!

I bought it at a local bookstore.

Merry & bright, somber & dark. 
They are opposed, but they complement each other nicely. 

The Tiny Bucket & My Obsession with Aqua

 A friend gave me one of her hand dyed & sewn 

Tiny Buckets. She's selling them & LOTS of other

Beautiful items. Click here to see them!

Beth's Tiny Buckets are adorable inside & out.

She knew just what colors I love.

Sea greens. 

Sometimes our Maine ocean shows them beautifully.

(Other times there are all kinds of 

turquoise blues, grays, even violets...)

I have a lot of teals/aquas/turquoises.

The first item in my collection was a gift from my parents.

 Clothes, accessories, bags, pouches, 

gloves, earrings, scarves, my painted designs~~ 

& even fountain pens...

 

...and fountain pen ink!!

The Goulet Pen Company has tons & tons of pens 

in all colors, & a good share of the blue-greens.

They have over 600 inks with swatches galore!

You don't even have to buy whole bottles,

they sell samples in Tiny Bottles! 

Do you have a favorite Color that you collect or 

perhaps are obsessed with?

Meditative Color Play, Continued...

Still playing with watercolor with attention & focus...

(previous post). A form of prayer & meditation. 

"L'attention, à son plus haut degré, est la même chose que la prière."  ~Simon Weil 

      

 "But what are you going to DO with them?"

"Well, I could cut them out & make cards..."

 "...and handmade books..."

"And then I could let them go..."

More Watercolor Wandering

 I continue to explore my new watercolor tubes. 

I focus on not judging what I see happening 

but on watching closely how the water & paints react.

It's like watching raindrops on the windshield,

slow, careful observation of a drop as it morphs & changes.

I ponder: 

What is the difference between being influenced by 

& learning from an artist~ & copying them?

Artist Mattina Blue, in a brief workshop, had a big influence 

on my waterpaint experimenting. 

To see her work, click HERE.

 I loved her designs & motifs, 

but I knew I didn't want to copy them.  

What I got from her was a spirit of allowing the water 

to carry the paint,

of allowing the colors to respond to one another.

(Fun when working on a slanted surface.)

Mattina told me to work in series, 

each painting leading to the next.

What will be discovered along the way?

I think it is enjoying the evolution, 

rather than just a brief dabble of something new.

A spirit of "More will be revealed."

Motifs & designs emerge by themselves. 

All of us have our own.

One of mine: Light peeking from behind darker lines, 

In this season I see it in sun on thinning colored leaves,

behind dark branches & twigs.

These "plaids" have other meanings for me too,

which come to me after I'm done painting. 

They are grids, they are boxes, 

& even when I don't know what they mean,

they are pleasing to draw.

While painting (I try) to think of nothing 

but what I'm observing,

& this meditative focus calms me, fills me with serenity.

Back to Acadia, Autumn, 2018

Excursion to Acadia with an art friend. 

I got to add another panel to my Moleskine accordion book.

The 1st panel created in June, 2016 

The one before yesterday's: Last May.

To see some past posts re. Acadia, click HERE. And here.

From the path down to the (large) Pond, 

from the Jordan Pond House,

where lunches, popovers & views are divine. 

The left shore. Some years ago I hiked the trail 

around the entire lake.

The shore nearby, the carmines & corals 

are waving, Look at us!

Rather than hike we walked gently along carriage paths.

 

Design, color, dancing lights & shadows, 

translucence, luminescence, 

sparkling, shimmering, glittering leaves!

In the woods a stream that flows into into Jordan Pond...

...My friend, who takes gorgeous photos, 

captured my physical surroundings: a dark shady pocket 

in the midst of sunny, brilliant color.

What she didn't know is that she had also captured a mood.

I was remembering happy times spent with a childhood friend 

with whom I used to play in our woods by the creek.

I was grieving, because

I learned of my childhood friend's death last week.

Eagle Lake, how different 

from our explorations around Jordan Pond.

Places, flora, time of day, weather, mountains, bodies of water, 

changing light, so many varied images... 

I said to my friend, 

"Sometimes the beauty seems unbearable in its immensity."

A National Park like this, open to the public, 

is one of America's treasures.

It's an enchanting glimpse of Mother Earth 

for us town & city folks.

  On the way home, a Maine Blueberry field, at sunset...

That was yesterday...

Autumn is passing through Coastal Maine.