"The Botanist's Study"

A gardener...
     a tinkerer...
          an artist...
               a self-taught scientist...

working away in a shop/studio/shed 70 years ago...if you opened up a cabinet drawer, what you might find...








the story behind my latest art collage,
"The Botanist's Study"

It started with the old journal and the vintage botanical print...

and the story grew from there...pulling together found objects

and vintage touches...

...adding a wash of paint...and coffee grounds...with a measure of metal and rust...

"The Botanist's Study" will be part of my collection of collages for sale next weekend at
Fresh Paint, a Festival of Artists at Work...hope to see you there...

Wise words

A small sea urchin shell...
     a smooth white stone...
          and a page from a vintage volume - Selected Passages by Robert Louis Stevenson...
               perfect inspiration while I work...

Linking up to Texture Tuesday...photo edited with kk texture 1402magic and French Kiss glorious grunge

No place like home

Yesterday was one of those days to finally tackle that home "to-do" list...you know the one...to fix those nagging little problems...and the continual maintenance...all those "joys" of home ownership...

So the Southern Man and I started off in the morning...scraping peeling paint...then priming...and making sure we found the right can of paint...
then tackling the forsythia bush which is taking over a corner of the front yard...and then measuring boards to repair the back deck...

We didn't get it all done...but its a start...and makes me appreciate my wonderfully old house...it certainly has its quirks...but it also has personality.

As I was pruning the maple tree (which now has a little more room to breathe since the forsythia is cut down to size), I snagged one of the branches out of the pile...and then clipped a few hydrangea blooms...and a couple of stems of my bolted oregano...

 

I like to keep a vase of fresh flowers/greenery in the front hallway...its the last thing I see as I head up the stairs to bed at night and the first thing I see as I make my way to the kitchen in the morning

...just a little something to remind me...there's no place like home...

sharing my post over at Kim Klassen's Friday Finds...a weekly celebration of life's simple pleasures...
what simple pleasure did you discover this week?

Serendipitous

I've been working on a three part collage project...using the nail drawers I picked up at an estate sale last year...my first box, "precious life" was completed without a hitch...details on that project here...








My next box, "cre8" was nearing its completion...but it was missing something...I was focusing on numbers...and the ways that numbers can be good for measuring and qualifying/quantifying...but also jumbled and confusing and twisted...I was casting about for a quote to tie it all together...and the idea of "taking aim" stuck in my head...

Ok...I am a believer in karma...no sooner had I grabbed onto that thought of taking aim...and noodling how I would incorporate that into my box...Laura Tringali Holmes, an artist friend who I follow online, was offering up vintage targets for artistic pleasure...I could not believe how serendipitous it all was...I immediately responded that I had to have a target!

Earlier this week, the targets arrived...I cut one down to size and glued it into place...it was meant to be...

the finished box...

Each box in this project contains a Little Blue Book...I wanted to incorporate the book into the piece and yet have it be available for closer examination...thus the book hangs from a hook in the top cubbie...

the old metal caster wheel spins...repeating its message...




Laura organized an online group of the artists who received targets...where each of us can share our creations...while waiting for glue to dry...I grabbed another target...and using leftover scraps on my worktable, pieced together this version of "aim high"...

 

I have another target left...what to aim for now...?

Summer easy 1 - 2 - 3

One:
Take a dilapidated stool top that has long ago lost its legs...
scrub it down, sand the rough edges, add a little wax for shine...

Two:
Find 4 old casters...with great rusty patina...wash them up...add a little oil so the wheels roll...

Two & one-half:
Gather up 16 screws (4 screws for each caster)...granted they don't all need to match since they are on the bottom side of the stool top (holding the casters in place) and no one will see them...
Its actually short of a miracle that I could find 16 matching screws in the basement...but that's the joy of buying a house from someone who did the remodeling and left all his remaining materials in the basement...over 10 years later, I have yet to buy any screws...

Three:

Put it all together...and you have a charming pedestal to display/organize/highlight whatever you desire...
dessert on a buffet table, supplies in your office, discoveries from a nature walk...












or just a few daisies from the garden...

Joining the party over at Funky Junk Interiors and Knick of Time's Tuesday Vintage Style...
plenty of easy summer inspiration...check it out for yourself...

The wonder of nature

Sometimes I just have to stand in awe at the design expertise of Nature...beyond exquisite at times...

case in point...
lavender buds from the stems in my garden...miniature nuggets of pure sensory delight...

oxidation of metal...water working its magic on steel... that results in the patina know in other words as "rust"...

construction of a wasp nest...in a perfectly formed geometric configuration...

the colors, textures and shapes of nature are a constant source of inspiration in my work...

I will never be able to replicate...but I can appreciate...
and document...my adoration...

Joining Kim Klassen's Friday Finds...
a weekly online forum to share the simple pleasures of everyday occurrences...