The Light of the Moon and the Stars

LK Ludwig's photo prompt for today is the light of the moon and the stars. I scanned a 1926 illustration of H. Willebeek Le Mair from my children's copy of A Child's Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson. The illustration goes with the poem Escape at Bedtime:

The lights from the parlor and kitchen shone out

Through the blinds and the windows and bars;

And high overhead and all moving about,

There were thousands and millions of stars.

There ne'er were such thousands of leaves on a tree,

Nor of people in church or the park,

As the crowds of the stars that look down upon me,

And that glittered and winked in the dark.

The Dog, and the Plough, and the Hunter, and all

And the Star of the Sailor and Mars,

These shone in the sky, and the pail by the wall

Would be half full of water and stars.

They saw me at last, and they chased me with cries,

And they soon had me packed into bed;

But the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes,

And the stars going round in my head.

The Light of the Ordinary and the Everyday

LK Ludwig's photo prompt for today is THE LIGHT OR THE ORDINARY AND THE EVERYDAY. This is sunrise at my house on an ordinary day. Same scene everyday, but oh so beautiful. An ordinary day--extraordinarily beautiful.

The Light of Winter (L.K.Ludwig's photo prompt)

L.K. Ludwig is hosting a photo prompt, titled the Light of Winter, on her blog, The Poetic Eye. Here's the link: http://gryphonsfeather.typepad.com/the_poetic_eye/2009/121-the-light-of-winter.html It started yesterday, which I missed, but today's prompt is "The Miracle of Light".

Below is my photo. It is a photo of Green Mountain Falls, Colorado. GMF is a tiny town nestled underneath the mountains which rise high around it on 3 sides. Winter here can be terribly dark especially now when we are so close to the solstice. Sunlight on the pond at the center of town lasts from about 10:00a.m. to 2p.m. Being in GMF during these brief hours of sun makes the sun seem like a miracle. It is truly a sight to behold.

Cabin Fever

Finally the sun has come out and this is the view out my back window. Those rocks in the distance are the Garden of the Gods. To tell the truth, I really love gray, snowy days. I love the change in light. Living in Colorado we have so many days of sunshine and it is bright bright sun--no filtering by clouds or humidity. So when we get cloudy days I just enjoy the change. But after shovelling a foot of snow and the bitter cold temperatures even I was glad to see the sun. Here's what I have been working on while snow bound.

VISUAL TEXTURE EXERCISE PART 3

In this third and final exercise you were to find a variety of different fabrics in neutral, white or beige and with as much visual texture as possible, looking for fabrics from rough burlap to silky satin. Next step was to create a composition and then analyze how the textures work together. In the first photo you can see the different fabrics I chose and how they play off of one another. In the closeup photo, you'll notice how the quilting changes the visual texture of the piece. The quilting actually knocks back the texture of the fabric itself so that it is barely visible and the quilting is what gives the piece it's predominant texture.

The whitest of the fabrics actually has a pattern to it but you can't see it because of the quilting. The creamy fabric to the right is very textural in appearance but you don't notice it as much with the quilting on top. And the patterned fabric stands out bold with or without the quilting.

Vistual Texture Exercise Part 2

For part 2 the instructions said to find 5 fabrics each with a different visual texture or pattern. After making black and white photocopies of them, you were to cut them into different shapes and arrange them in a pleasing composition. Here are my two examples. In the first one, the background fabrics are more dominant than the circles. If I had used a stronger fabric for the circles, the background would recede more. There also is not a strong contrast in value.

In the second example, the circles are very dominant and the background fades away. Strong contrast in value. Part 3 in my next post.

VISUAL TEXTURE EXERCISE

I came across an exercise on visual texture in the latest issue of Quilting Arts magazine. It is an excerpt from a book by Lyric Kincaid. Looked pretty interesting so I decided to give it a try. The following photos are for the first step. She said to go outside and take photos of different textures noticing the textures from close-up and far away and then make some notations about what you noticed. This first photo is of rust inside an iron pot. I love how you can really see the bumpy surface and the variations in color. Love the play of the dried leaves against the ice crystals from a recent snow. Also the sunlight on the leaves adds visual interest.

This next one is pine tree bark with a pruned section and two different vines winding their way up the tree. The white on the pruned area is some waxy substance. I like the texture it adds and also the smoothness of the vines against the rough bark.

This is dried yarrow. Love, Love, Love the texture and the change from light to dark.

Part 2 in my next post. If anybody wants to join me in this exercise, just post a comment and we can discuss our findings.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Happy Halloween from my blue hubbard squash.

Mini Mixed Media Collages

I have been playing with leaves again all this week. I have had some mini wrapped canvases for quite a while now and have been looking for something to do with them. So I decided to use my tiny leaves in some collages. With paint, ink, vintage papers, hand painted papers, stamping, gold dust, and fibers they are very textural even with a finishing coat of beeswax. These were great fun to make and I hope to make some more. These are for sale in my etsy shop: http://pdlugos.etsy.com

Autumn life, Autumn art

Been away from the keyboard trying to spend more time creating and less time twittering, etsying, e-mailing, etc., etc. Autumn has arrived in Colorado and I have been reveling in it. I feel a burst in creativity that doesn’t occur any other time of year. One of my favorite Fall pastimes is to collect as many colorful leaves as I can find. I press them and use them to decorate my home. I also like to find ways to use them in my art. Here are some leaves I collected yesterday. I love their visual texture.

Here is the project I have been working on. It is a vintage book (1930’s) altered with matte medium, acrylic paint, tea-dyed fabrics , vintage lace and buttons, an Aspen twig and some beautiful pressed leaves. I included a sweet poem about Autumn leaves. I love the words and the rather childlike quality of it. I am so pleased with how it turned out because I was able to take these fallen leaves, which would have soon faded to nothing, and give them a second life.

More pressed lead art in my next post.

Morning Glories

In my last post, I had two images of morning glories that recently bloomed in my garden. It took them until September to bloom. We have had such a cool wet summer that I didn't think I would ever get a blossom. I planted a huge amount of seeds and most of them sprouted and took root, produced some nice plants and some scrawny sorry looking ones that I thought would just die off. The sorriest looking plant is the one that blossomed.

These days I feel a lot like that sorry plant. All shrivelled up and weak, putting everything I have into reaching toward the sky, but feeling like my days of blossoming are over. That morning glory has given me the courage to keep trying. Today is the first day in over a month that I have had the urge to be creative. Ideas are pouring into my head. In my next post I hope to show you what I'll be working on in the next few days and weeks.

Choosing to Blossom

And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight in the bud

was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.

Anais Nin