obsessed with peonies

The gentle rain of early morning transformed into a thunder storm then returned to gentle rain. I picked three more peony stalks last night. The bouquet is lovely. I did a pencil sketch of it in the studio window (a la Pierre Bonnard).Here's a photo of the arrangement. I'm not the first person to fall in love with an arrangement of peonies - just google its images.
I wish I had more skill with watercolors, guess it's time to work on that. My summer plans include keeping a watercolor journal.

Work in my art journal has come to a halt - stuck on the immense horror of the oil spill and its destruction and long term consequences. Maybe it's too big a subject to tackle on such a small scale. All those animals and people whose lives are gone and torn apart.
I cried at the news last night when they showed the pelicans struggling to walk and then talked to some kids of the area. Too tragic for my poor skills.

I'm hanging on to the incredible beauty of the peony blossoms representing the beauty of the earth.

DAILY HAIKU 2009
Another day of rain depicted with a piece of purple tissue and white tissue painted purple. The word "rain" written with a Flair pen frames the vellum with writing on it. (I could write the same verse for June 4 of 2010)












June 4, 2009

This technique I saw in one of the many books on collaging. I used the paper from another sketchbook and highlighted the edge where it was in the binding. One piece is painted with a Crayola paint brush. The top piece is the oyster color. A piece of scrap tissue links the two together and provides a writing surface. I like the gold paper scraps.The long rays of the morning sun has a magical way of lighting up the forest with its new foliage.
quick walk through the woods
trees have big leaves, shaded path
into the unknown

peonies in the rain

I ran out in the rain as it was starting to photograph and pick some peonies. They don't survive heavy rains or winds. It looked like we would have both. I picked three branches to enjoy.
luscious white petals
gathered together,briefly
with subtle fragrance

teaching routine

It's a cool, overcast morning again. Perfect for dog walking and some gardening. My peonies are lovely. I'll post photos later.
I've been asking my art students to share a favorite piece of work from their portfolios. It's been great to see their work. I have to get into the discipline of photographing their work to complete a website.
It's mainly a matter of time - sharing takes about 20 minutes, they like a "studio" time to work and then they have to clean up. I'm thinking of stretching the routine I've used in the past. The pattern will be week 1 - short lesson and work time , week 2 studio(I'll take a status of what each is doing) , week 3 write ,share & photo. Wish I could change the school schedule so I would have hour long classes.

DAILY HAIKU 2009 As I post these photos, I am curious as to why they look unsettled. I do like the way they look together...
June 3

iris, columbine
clematis, sweet faced pansy
wild geranium
The background is stamped with a square pad on its edge, covered with green vellum and the tissue is colored purple with Crayola paintbrushes.




mixes of purples
flourish in the gardens and
punctate the greens
I'm not sure why it looks stormy.
I stamped a scrapbook paper and attached it to the card. I tore the card in half and taped it on the back. I'm not sure why... Maybe the movement is from the vitality of late spring gardens.

one month leads seamlessly to another

Today begins as a cool, overcast day. Rain is predicted, which is fine, we need it. I should water the house plants that are outside. I picked one of the peony blossoms because if it does rain, they get heavy. It is perfectly beautiful.
I'm off to school this afternoon - I have portfolios packed for kids to take home. Hopefully, each one will corral a family member to share the work. Pieces of portfolio work have corresponding sketches and writing in their sketchbooks.
Yesterday was overcast most of the morning. We had smoke from Canada in the air. The afternoon was sunny and lovely - warm in the sun, cool in the shade. We had several guests.
On my walk, I picked up trash. I can't do much about the oil spill, but I can respect and care for my little piece of this beautiful planet.I filled the bag in no time... sadly.
Why do people throw ice coffee cups and plastic bags out as they are driving?
DAILY HAIKU 2009

I printed an odd shape of ephemera to texture the background with green.Why did I use it? Where did it come from? I drew simple iris shapes, colored them purple and added leaves. The text fills the background with another green. The day and date are written out and enumerated along the bottom edge in purple.

MAY ends -----------------------
Why did I choose the icey blue wrapping paper to be May's background? It's sparkly, like May can sometimes be, but it seems wintery. It appealed to me at the time. The month is a clear sticker. I like color behind it, and kept the month's entries simple as each month ended.


This consists of some scraps from prior work and an ad. The writing asks the question that led me to do some daily art - where does each day, each month each year go? Now I have 2009 captured in art.
The date has become more a part of the image.

how many ways can rain be depicted ??

It's a cool morning. I'll be taking the dog for a walk and cutting some little trees in the back of my shade garden (#2). My thumb joints are killing me and that work won't help, but I've got to keep working.

Pine pollen gives a yellow-green cast to every surface. The peonies are opening. The lupine looks good also. I thought I only had one spike, but several are opening.

A little garter snake was sleeping in my garden in the sun. For people where the snakes are poisonous, this may sound totally creepy, but for NE residents, they're great pest controllers. I'm honored when one of these creatures chooses my garden to inhabit. I haven't seen any toads yet.

Yesterday, I finished moving house plants from the studio window sill to the sun porch. Then I washed the windows and rearranged the trinkets that adorn my studio. The room has such an open feeling with all the plants gone. My book 365 DAILY HAIKU 2009 has a place of honor on a square, white platter with various treasures around it.


I'm mentally working through some ideas for my oil spill art. I've got several components in my head, and will have to play with them to get the "correct" placement. I stamped a spiral on the inside of an envelope and am cutting those to be the poisonous tendrils of oil and greed that are choking the Gulf. As I write this, the news is that the "top kill" didn't work.

DAILY HAIKU 2009
May is usually such a pretty month. In 2009, however, rain was the primary visual. The weather affects and effects me, so I depicted each day that the rain predominated. It proved to be a summer of rain. I'd purchased several grey stamp pads by this point. I used them directly for the ellipse "puddle" shape and the straight lines. The text took on a sameness -written with a calligraphy pen on tracing paper and glued midway on the cards; I even repeated some phrases. I used scraps of text vertically on each of these.



Puddles saturate
the earth and stretch beyond their
springtime boundaries.



torrential downpours
interrupted by drizzle
cabin fever strikes



rain, sloshy, green grass
bleeding hearts have gone to seed
irises need sun

good ideas in art class

Today is a perfect day. It's sunny, in the 70's and clear. Deezel and I walked 4 miles this morning. I moved more house plants to their summer spots - begonias into the shade garden- , cleaned out some weeds from the back of that garden. I have some rosebud impatients cuttings ready to plant.

Yesterday, the 5th graders helped the Kindergarten class prepare their sketchbooks for their 1st grade year. This has proven to be one of those ideas that sounded really good and is really good.

The first year I taught art, I looked at the class - this year's fifth -saw strangers looking back at me and I thought, "How am I going to get 15 children to listen to and follow all the steps for putting their names in and starting their sketchbooks???

Now, I have help. And listening to the older class describe the use of a sketchbook and portfolio to them yesterday, I thanked them profusely and gave myself a quiet pat on the back. I encourage them to sketch in each others' books to have a momento of the year.
In the afternoon, the 4th grade discussed and made art about their sadness for the loss of life due to the oil spill.
DAILY HAIKU 2009
May 27 a more-typical-of-the-2009-season-day













The text says it all:
torrential downpours
interrupted by drizzle
fade the glow of spring

The five syllables of the two words is very effective.
I used a charcoal Cat's Eye, text written vertically, tracing paper in strips and colored with pencil for the rain effect. The scrap of tracing paper for the writing is edged with the grey and the text written with a Flair pen. It covers the gold/yellow spiral of sun.

May 26
This was a lovely spring day, easy to depict in art.
this entry consists of straight stamping with a Cat's Eye pad and the edge of a square, "Versa color" green. I made the grass with both the positive and negative barcode/ grass stamps. To write the text with a pen, without problems from the ink, it's on tracing paper.

bald eagle sighting

Sunday afternoon, I spotted an eagle flying over us, two times. The second time I actually had time to grab the binoculars and see it well. I'm assuming they're nesting on Durham Point or Adams Point.What a thrill.
I'm sure I have many more iris blossoms this year than last. They are definitely earlier.
Our walk this morning was hot, even though we left around 7:00. When we got home, I went into the pool a couple times to get really cooled off before school.

DAILY HAIKU 2009

May 25 Memorial Day
The strips are from a postcard I'd used on the 21st. I wove these just because I felt like it and wrote the verse to go with it.