bee creative

#23 bigger

There are crayon lines that I ended up ignoring.

And a digital version.

# 22 language

 

I don't have the words quite yet but there is something about working with the pigments that is a conversation.

Between me and the pigment, between me and whoever might look. About how it might be altered digitally as well.  I am not sure I would call it art, but I would call it story telling. Maybe because it is a word that is more comfortable.

It's about local, or location since not all the materials I am working with are local. (I would like it to be as local as possible.)

And about transformation and change, which is inevitable...mine and the materials.  How amazing is it that plant can become paint or ink?  That soil and rocks can be as well? How am I being changed as I learn what can be created?  How it might flow or not flow?

About what might be possible and curiosity.  Like many I am not sure about the word "sustainable" anymore, but how can we be more respectful?

And...thinking about languages we grow up with, the languages we learn to speak, the ones that we struggle with, the ones we might learn in the future? 

#16 a few things

It's not just mark making...I am sewing too.

One side of a quilt I am mending. There was a huge hole to be patched. 

I think it looks like a giant jelly bean.

Today's marks:

Taking some deep breathes.

And then altered. 

I keep noticing pools of light in the darkness.

#14 trees

Top two, ink.

Bottom one ink and then digital layers.

#12 darker, layers of marks

Part of the text hiding on this says, "I found a stencil with M, N, O and found it funny that N follows O and says NO."

Gibson says NO too.  I was trying to get a picture of his eyes.  He has a gooey eye and I am trying to track if the medicine is helping...

He really doesn't like eye drops.

blended and layered

Oh the things I want to do...

Grace sent me pine needles, they are much longer than what I have.

I want to try making a basket but haven't gotten there yet.

She also sent me the beginning of a square.  I have started adding to it.

A blanket can hold so much. 

Community can be far and near.

Thank you Grace.

Today I played some more with pigments. 

Doodling with ink.

And then some digital layers, another kind of doodling.

Blending the homemade and local with technology.

It's the world we live in.

just beginning

Sunrise one day this week:

Layers of light.

Sorting I stacked a paper star on top of a painting I had done.

Hmm...

So here it is another version (three layers, one filter).

Another way to be.

I've shared this before but for those who wonder, the text is:

Crepuscular midnight stands at the road,

Where the stars have spilled from its purse.

You cannot go over the road past the fence

Without trampling the universe. 

"Steppe," by Boris Pasternak

Last night, when I couldn't sleep, I listened to a conversation with Katy Payne (On Being).  The discussion was about listening to whales and elephants.  

As I lay in the dark listening, I imagined there were whales singing deep in the ocean, right then at that very moment.  Elephants rumbling at a pitch just below what humans can hear.  

Something to think about in the middle of the night when it is dark and quiet.

Speaking of whales singing, Payne says:

"And so what that has done for me is to make me feel that what lies ahead to be discovered is absolutely limitless. We are not at the pinnacle of human knowledge. We are just beginning."

 

 

there but not

I think a lot on cloudy days about what is behind the clouds, what we know (or think we know) to be there...sun, stars, moon, planets, birds, the mountains, planes, birds or something else?

  It becomes imagined or remembered at that point.

The full moon as I arrived at home last night.

Focus.

Zoomed in, moon out of focus, color altered some, filtered...

Field notes: Rain, 45 F (not supposed to get any warmer than that), winds from the south, 17 MPH, gust of 24 MPH possible.  Deciduous trees cleared of leaves for the most part.

and then

Still cold...

The quince I harvested were close to spoiling so I made quince paste today.  And applesauce bread and blueberry jam because I needed some space in the freezer.

And tested my baby vat of indigo. 

This is indigo that I grew.  I fermented it (for much longer than I needed to), strained it and composted the leaves, added Calcium hydroxide, then fructose, and then tossed in some cotton fabric. It worked!  Happy, happy, happy dance! I wasn't trying for an even dye, this will be used as the center square for my covid/log cabin quilt.

And then I played with some of my paint

(garden soil not well sifted)

and took photos and did some digital layering.

So much fun but now it's time to get back to some sewing and knitting too...

a tiny forest

Last week I planted tulips just before the ground froze. 

While digging I found a patch of clay, an interesting branch, and a bit of lichen.

It seemed like the beginning of a tiny forest...

One possibility.

(The green layer is watercolor paint I made with onion and indigo pigment.)