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