Archives for category: mixed media

015_crop

IMG_1330_crop

As winter sets in, I’m going back and forth between creating new graphics for my sizeable harvest of ivy, ginkgo, and dozens of other plants, and using those same leaves as inspiration for a new series of acrylic paintings that mirrors my pressed botanical compositions. I love the freedom of choosing color schemes and degree of detail in the paintngs. I’ll bring about ten of them to the Velvet Mill in Stonington on December 28 and January 4th. Hope to see some familiar faces there. Others will pop up on Etsy soon or on request.

139_crop

137_crop

This is the first of a series of small works that will highlight tiny foliage. I started with miniature ivy but plan to move on to raspberry, scented geranium shoots and other shapely miniatures. This will be a month-long project since most of these have yet to be harvested. I look forward to see them hung in a tight grouping of nine.

Meanwhile I’ll work on some graphics to highlight some large, dramatic and graceful sensitive ferns I have waiting in the hopper.

IMG_0998_crop

IMG_0994_crop

IMG_0995_crop

“I believe that a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.” I have used this quote before and you will see it again if you follow my posts. It is what this work is about. When I walk through my garden to collect plants for these pieces, I look as closely at the weeds as I do to the other plants I selected so carefully for their unusual foliage. All of it, including the twisted leaves or beetle-nibbled would-be star of the garden has a place.

IMG_0879_crop
IMG_0878_crop

My friends in and around Stonington can see some of my pieces at Frills Gallery in Watch Hill. (It’s the white building with a front porch as you first enter town) This is a companion piece to one I made recently. The colors have changed and I’ve used different plants — fringed Bleeding Heart for the ‘tall trees’ and ferns and a Foam Flower leaf for the underbrush. A crazy little Bellflower hugs the beach.

IMG_0871_crop

I love what these undulating lines do to the look of the foliage I use. In previous versions of this basic design I’ve used feathery ferns and, in one case nothing but very tiny individual fronds. While this piece uses some ordinary ferns to balance the composition, the real stars of the show are the bold Sensitive Fern at the bottom center and individual leaf clusters from my Fringed Bleeding Heart.

IMG_0869_crop

IMG_0867_crop

After making the larger version of this seafaring image, I changed a few details and then re-cropped it for a smaller mat. For the smaller piece I also used smaller-scale foliage and added a touch of pastel on the Yellow Archangel at the bottom of the image while leaving the same foliage in its natural state above. Swapping out the standard Bleeding Heart leaf for a smaller Fringed Bleeding Heart worked well.

Both of these are now listed in my Etsy shop.

IMG_0854_crop

This simple composition consists of three leaves — scented geranium, ivy, and sweet potato vine — surrounded by a faux double mat. Sometimes simple is best.

BoatDaytime032_crop

BoatDaytimecrop

BoatNight028_crop

I owe the idea for these two scenes to a lovely woman I met at the Artisan’s Market in Providence two weeks ago. She asked me if I agreed that ferns could be used to suggest sails in a nautically themed piece.

Once I put the graphic together I experimented with foliage and found that rose leaves worked well so I used them in the night-time vignette.

For daytime I kept the plant life in the foreground.

IMG_0810_crop

IMG_0810_crop_crop

IMG_0812_crop

IMG_0811_crop

IMG_0815_crop

IMG_0814_crop

For this series of three small pieces, I reversed and alternated pairs of undulating colors to provide interest and contrast for some lovely ferns and well-shaped small leaves. I keep searching for new ways to use color as well as color shading and juxtaposition to enhance my plants. Some experiments work and some don’t. These three survived the cut and landed in my Etsy shop. Weather permitting they’ll be with me in Providence on Saturday.

IMG_0804_crop

IMG_0802_crop

The single exquisite sweet potato leaf at the center of this composition seems to swirl in a vortex created by the plants around it. They include three varieties of fern — the dagger-like ones are Sensitive Fern — Sweet Woodruff, Ivy, Yellow Archangel and Andromeda. Although I usually design a graphic background for my work, I thought in this case, simple was best.