River Garden Studio

yellow

Yellow... the color of the my world right now in Oregon and most of North America. The color of our great sun... fields of grain and wild grass... The color of courage... strength... healing...

 

I can feel the strength, the love... the glow...

 

open the glass door to the October morning...

 

yellow is in the details... a part of red... a part of green.

 

the color of warmth...

 

And on this yellow day new projects begin...

 

I make a new arrangement on my desk honoring the season...

 

and work on painting that I began a long time ago...

 

Yellow is the heavy head of a sunflower ...filled with it's wooden seeds... bent and golden.

And yellow is in my traveling paint box... my colored pencils and my rice papers... I am not sure what I will do with the background...

 

and I'm not sure what this week will bring... but I hope it will be filled with wonder and energy and warmth... and the power to live my life with grace.

October winds

The winds today are gentle... but strong enough the whoosh through the trees and stong enough to send yellow leaf after leaf swirling around my house and through my mind.  

They land in a sheltered spot and rest... and my thoughts rest....and I think of other times... 

I remember being a serious little girl... standing bundled up next to the large black stroller with my brother inside, wrapped in a blanket... I was watching over him, with my one hand inside the stroller keeping warm on his chest, feeling his warmth. I remember leaves floating on water, parks with fountains in the autumn... New York or Germany or London?  

And always moving in the fall, finding new homes... making my own special place... on front steps or under a tree, at a desk under a window, drawing and painting even then. 

Walking across pale gold fields in countryside of England, the wild grass was taller than me... we stumbled across two lovers kissing, so wrapped up in their love...and then my mother hurried us away...

Why do we remember certian things when we do... is there a secret we want to discover... a mystery to solve?

I had three days off this weekend.  Time to wander around the garden.  Collecting things. Moist yellow leaves and dried flowers going to seed.  Gifts for another year...

 

 

 

time to paint...my brush swirling in a bowl of water and spriraling across the page of rough watercolor paper.

 

 

 

a page in my watercolor sketchbook...  

 

and I work on a collage, (maybe even finish it)... I call it "Lost Nights." I began it this summer at my workshop with Nick Bantock.  It is not joyous... and the colors aren't the vibrant autumn hues that I see outside of my window...   

the October winds are here... take time to remember... time to hold an autumn leaf in your hand and let it imprint itself into your mind...

take time

My newest collage..."breathe."  It started flat.  I liked the design but it needed more... so I made a grid and threaded some twine and began to weave...

Here it is before the weaving.

 

and a close up before the weaving...

 

and a small assemblage...

and another collage... still stiching and weaving... the leaves are watercolored and the background is made with oil sticks.  As usual you can click on each photo to see more texture... I don't know what to call this one...

 

This morning I slept late and made promises to myself...

 

On this day I will see the light...

 

Here is a watercolor page I did last weekend when I had a re-lapse of my cold.  I find painting watercolors of the natural world comforting... and easier in many ways than making collages.

These are creatures that are here... except the ram which used to live on the cliffs to the south-east ... and my interpretation of ancient Pueblo rock painting.

 

On this day I will take time to see the light. 

I will hold up my hair and feel the blue shower water drum on my back.

I will let my hair dry in the sun and let it curl the way it wants to.

I will be free in my art...

 

I will love my home and my family

and appreciate all that is good on this earth.

 

On this day I hope you feel the light.