Look to the Horizon

We're in the midst of full-on fall here in Arizona and the leaves are indeed a-changing. Nothing quite so lovely as Vermont sugar maples here on the homestead (but I can get my fix by running up to the West Fork of Oak Creek in Sedona anytime I get myself moving...). The mulberry trees that provide deep shade in high summer are dropping a tremendous amount of yellow leaves that turn brown before they hit the ground.

So when the Diva asked all the tangly people to use leaves for inspiration, I steered clear of the front of the house (and the thoughts of having to do all that raking!) and slipped out the back door to the citrus trees, which are evergreen. I used some leaves to create a stencil for some Eric Carle tissue paper and drew the veins in with my trusted Sharpie. The circles are meant to mimic the concrete walkway between the trees...and perhaps I'll color in the pebbles sometime soon.

That was just plain fun!

Then I used the same papers for the EIM. The word is "horizon." From our house, we don't see where the land meets the sky quite as we're surrounded on the east and west by 7000 foot mountains (that's over 2100 meters and we're at only about 2000 ft/610 m). Our view looks similar to the inchie on the left I made with tissue and the magazine cut-out on the right. The little artwork in the middle is meant to look like the ocean when the fog rolls in and you can't discern sky from the water, a view I miss from back East.

The word at the TwobyTwo this week is "quill." Originally, the thought came from porcupines and their nasty barbs.

Along my way through art challenges and such, I have met three fine quillers in the blogosphere: Zoe, Kia and Annette (and you should check out their work! I'll wait! Their work does a much better job of describing their craft than my words ever will).

Perhaps, I thought, I'd try my hand at that paper art. Let's just say I'll keep trying!

While researching for the TwobyTwo, I learned about quillwork, where quills are used to create functional art. I came up with an idea to kind of combine the two art forms--using paper strips instead of those barbs, which are in short supply around here. I don't know what to quite call this. "How to take 250 square inches of paper and reduce it to 4" probably doesn't sound very appealing. But, that's pretty much what I did.

Sunset with Wrapped Paper

All the same, I'd do it again. At least, I gained some insight into paper economy.

Be sure to check out the various art blog challenges and if the mood suits you, try your hand at the myriad techniques and ideas. There's still time to submit to any of these, particularly the TwobyTwo!
Thanks for stopping by and have a brilliant day!

No Fooling!

April Fool's Day may have been practiced since Chaucer wrote his "Canterbury Tales" (the first evidence of any such thing according to Wikipedia and you know that must be right), but I try to shy away from all that.
Alas, the day is yet young.
There is a fine intersection between Ms. Bruno's "It's a String Thing" and our very own "Two by Two by Tuesday" art blog challenges this week. She said, "Citrus" and we said, "Orange."
Could there be this strange coincidence?!
[NB: we posted our topics for the whole year way back in November]
Well, I went just crazy for Citrus, as you can see in my last post. What I hadn't done was my official IAST artwork, which I present here:

No,
It doesn't say, "Sunkist"

I drew Citrus as the string and SQUEEZED in: a triangle pattern, Paradox, Phroz, N'Zeppel, Shattuck that got Hypnotized and Printemps with a little Tippling (going clockwise from bottom left), all nested in a triangular grid. 

Remember the advertisement that asked, "If doesn't say 'Sunkist' you don't know what you're getting?"

That pretty much sums that up, doesn't it? 

Now to go back and work on some "oranges." I'm thinking on collage this time...

Aren't you glad we didn't say, "Banana?"

Does that joke even translate from English into other languages?

It's a Spring Thing

We know it's springtime in Arizona when the winds pick up. The desert palo verde tree blooms are sent every which way and the fine citizens of Phoenix are sent rushing for antihistamines.
Just about everything native to around here blooms bright yellow--the palo verdes, brittlebush, creosote--with an occasional pink thrown in for contrast.
The last thing to bloom will be the ancient ironwood trees with the palest of lavender flowers come May. They are my favorite as they signal the beginning of summer. And they're NOT yellow!
Our grapefruits are yellow with a pink blush as they are, in fact, PINK grapefruit. And our oranges are, well, ORANGE!

A Small Portion of Last Year's Crop

[Warning: this is blatant self-promotion!]
Which brings me to...the theme for this week's Two by Two challenge is: "ORANGE!"
I'm not going to cheese out and re-use an image, so this is just a tease! Please consider playing along!

Last week's IAST had an egg-shaped string in honor of Easter, but as I wrote to Adele Bruno, all I was seeing was LEMONS!

I drew [the] egg string diagonally and it turned out looking like a lemon. I put the Warped Egg in as I did and it all looked like an Angry Bird and I really had "lemon" on my mind. I still have several yet on my tree and it recently bloomed. So Mel Mel turned into a giant lemon blossom. When I started adding color pencil to it, the middle turned into a suggestion of a butterfly. I kept to a pastel palette as a nod to the Easter theme and added the yellow as I was really stuck on having a "lemon!"

IAST 137

Adele also came out with a new tangle she calls, "Citrus." Lemons, oranges and grapefruits...oh, MY! It continues the fruity theme which I used for the Diva Challenge this week. The objective from guest blogger Jane Reiter is to stack a bunch of borders around a central piece. I started with a Citrus zinchie and a whole bunch of art stuff. I was most pleased with the Sakura Glaze pen in clear drawn on black paper (the outermost border); it has great dimension but doesn't show up very well.

Citrus

Can you see the Border?

It was quite a project; the list of art stuff is long and varied and it took the better part of two days to complete. It was worth the effort and I'd do it again. The process kind of elevates the drawings to "real" artwork since it creates its own frame.

SOME of the Materials
Used in the Making of
Citrus

I took Adele's IAST for this week to good use for the twinchie challenge (and because I had a lot of my art stuff out. Still have to do the actual String Thing challenge!).

Orange you Glad?

While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I put this together for the Inchie Challenge. The EIM word of the week is "Peanuts."

That would be Charlie Brown's sweater, Lucy Van Pelt's sign, some dry roasted peanuts and Mr. Peanut going ice skating from a label for trail mix (caramels, raisins, peanuts, oh, my!).

Thanks for stopping by. I'm thrilled that you do and I'm honored for your time spent with me. I'm glad that my tutorial on composition was so well received last week--promises to become the most often read post I've written thus far! (My writing teachers would be so proud and I'm sure quite amazed).

And if you come to visit, you will most certainly leave with some citrus. It's a bumper crop of pinkies this year and plenty of oranges, too, still. Dew drop in!