This is the season when galleries everywhere feature small, affordable art for the Christmas season. Not only is art a unique gift but it’s value cannot be googled and it is really easy to wrap! Win, win, win…. Two of these are just 5×5 with a painted 1.5″ cradle and the floral field is still accessible at 10 x 10
This little interpretation of a Florida salt marsh is 4th in line for its first coat of shiny resin. Temperatures in New England have been at record lows so I’m holding back on the finishing steps of my collage series until Mother Nature gets with the program. Resin likes a nice warm room in which to cure. Meanwhile I just got my first aookication for a spring show out in the mail so will keep plenty of work in the pipeline.
This piece measures just 4″ x 6″ Making small pieces is one way of keeping my work affordable but I’m always open to making a bigger version of any miniature.
Two young and still tightly formed stalks of Mexican feather grass appear to tower over a little forest of fern ‘trees’ and the whole scene might be glimpsed through a window bordered by stained glass.
Back to the drawing board for my next piece. No harvesting today — rain in Stonington.
This week I’m getting ready to show lots of my botanicals at the Providence Artisan’s Market which forms part of the larger Providence Farmer’s Market at Lippitt Park. If you haven’t been and live within driving distance, give it a try. It’s one of the best anywhere short of Union Square in Manhattan. I’ll have about 40 pieces on display including this simple arrangement of Fern, Fringed Bleeding Heart, Yellow Archangel, Maple, and a trio of Sweet Woodruff ‘stars’. I used just a blush of color in the background and divided the image with a crossed ribbon graphic.
While I pass the week making more botanicals and waiting for the weather to heat up I’ll tuck this into my Etsy shop.
A few posts ago, I showed the same graphic in different colors. That version was cropped and used dill as a filler to drape over the edges of the base. This time, I centered the full image, changed the color scheme and fashioned some minimalist “flowers” out of Roses, Sweet Woodruff, and Ivy. I have yet a third one in the works in some colors that will jump out of the frame. Can’t wait to design the contents of the vase.
This is the last, for a while, in my series of collages made with pressed rose petals. I substituted ivy for the sepal of my ersatz roses and placed each one in a pastel yellow oval. A cross between, floral art and deviled eggs? I still have some Mexican Feather Grass in my inventory. Maybe that will be next on my agenda for right-side brainstorming. Is there such a thing?
I loved making this vase which could have come straight out of a coloring book. It is simply constructed as a word document using overlapping ovals, squares and triangles with wide black borders. To erase the parts of the borders that needed to be invisible, I used more borderless circles and squares. In all, the simple little vase is probably constructed of about 10 or 12 superimposed shapes.
I filled my vase with dill and made the flower with dried petals from my Andromeda that I treated with floral preservative then dusted with shavings from blue pastel chalk. I think I’ll make another one in just black and white so the foliage will pop even more.
To see the whole collection, go to my Etsy shop.
As I said in my last post, I’m thinking of incorporating flowers into my botanical art for the first time. There’s so much beauty in foliage that I never saw the need, but I couldn’t resist using these roses this week.
So yesterday I went in one direction and today in another with a different look but an equally nostalgic result. Next we’ll go to a black background and see what feels different. Manwhile, my fallen but not uprooted Andromeda is in full bloom so I have some drupes of flowers in process. They should be ready soon.
I finally got a chance to create a graphic for the vibrant fern I found still growing in my Stonington Garden. I’ve lost count of the number of snowstorms we’ve had this year, but the fact that this was still plump and green in March — and with a double tip to boot — was quite a happy surprise. I kept it simple with a little miniature ivy ‘bow’ at the base and a faux mat fashioned with graphics alone. (The outer mat is real of course)
Just when I thought my supply of pressed ferns from last year’s garden was finally depleted, I was walking the perimeter of my little property and found these brave winter survivors hiding under a hydragea. They were thriving there and none the worse for wear despite all the snow that fell in Stonington this winter. I could hardly wait the two weeks it took to get them prepared for a botanical collage. I have more waiting in the wings so watch for more in the coming days. In order to enhance their visibility against the ‘night’ sky, I mounted three of them with the lighter back of the frond showing. To see more of this growing body of pressed botanical work, click here.
My Stonington Garden 
