Sunday Brunch

A little to soon cotton tail.
Downy Woodpecker

Varied Thrush

Northern "Gilded" Flicker

Chestnut backed Chickadee "You lookin at me"

"I will just take a bit of brunch home with me"
I'm sorry the photos are far from good but I was sitting in the living room and saw the procession come to have a bite.

Here is the guest list,

1. Downy Woodpecker,
2. Rufous sided Towhee,
3. Oregon Junco,
4. Song Sparrow,
5. Chestnut backed Chickadee,
6. Varied Thrush,
7. American Goldfinch,
8. Black capped Chickadee,
9. Northern Gilded Flicker,
10. Pine Siskin,
11. House Finch
12. One Bunny
13. And a Chipmunk

I love being able to sit in my little world and see all this.

Illuminated Cut Paper

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~John Updike
Here it is the idea for making the paper cuts. I took old 78 records (the real heavy ones) for the plate to set the (star) book on. One record to set on top, a string of fairy lights with the cord coming out of the base part of a piano stool. I was lucky it was hollow then it all sits on an up side down metal plate from Goodwill that I drilled a 1/4" hole in to bolt the entire thing down. And on top a finial that cost the most $2.49, all the rest I had in the house. Can you figure out how the shadows are there?

The clue is with the girl bird watcher.

I have had so much fun doing this I must remember how lucky I'am to be able to. And so I think of John Updikes words again they are so true for me.

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit. ~John Updike

Scherenschnitte #3

Painting is just another way of keeping a diary. ~Pablo Picasso

I think I would like to hang out in that little cottage.

This has been addictive playing with paper. It is very relaxing to sketch out a rough design look for the possible negative space, my eye is not use to looking for it I see in shades of color.

Scherenschnitte #2

Yes I had to do a crow! But what a learning experience it was. A blog said that when you glue the black paper to the white back ground paper you use watered down white glue. You also use very thin black paper to get good detail. Yes I should of known, wet glue on thin paper just makes it curl up and then try to stick it to the white paper. Not good. I'm lucky I made a copy of it so making the next one didn't take nearly so much time.To look on the bright side I got that lesson out of the way. On to #3 I have a overall plan for these, just wait and see.

Scherenschnitte

The art of paper cutting, look at what can be done with so few tools. All you need is paper, pencil, scissors, craft knife and glue.

History
For as long as paper has been available it has been folded, cut and painted in countries as diverse as China, Mexico, N. America, Poland, Switzerland and Germany. From crisp vignettes and sacred pictures, papercuts have described the daily and seasonal activities of their makers proving the art to be one of everyday peoples.
Immigrants settling in Pennsylvania brought the tradition from Germany and Switzerland to this country. "Scherenschnitte," the German-Swiss word meaning "scissors cutting" is the most recognized word today for this fascinating art form. From the blog- Me and My Shadows by Jo Krajci

Here is my first attempt at scherenschnitte (love that word). I started with my sculpture of “Going to Town on Stilts”. With that story in my head I tried to imagine what the town was like and how her path would look. As you can see the animals of the forest are a bit curious. Now I’m wondering will she meet up with Pogo?

Spring ?

Wake up if you can take a little more frost, tomorrow is the first day of spring!
There is a glimmer of yellow and white and just a breath of blue in the garden.
The ground squishes under my feet I could not mow if I wanted, but my nose longs for cut grass.
I will build a fire tonight and look out in the morn to see if I go out or read a book that is the beauty of spring.

Blurb book

This object believe it or not is a business card holder. I set the cards next to the curlicue in a wire holder I made. But the best thing is I’m using this photo for the cover of a Blurb photo/art book I’m creating. It is incredibly easy and so far has been fun to see the possibilities. As always the text needed for most any book is a challenge for me, not to mention the spelling. Oh yes I know all about spell check but I spell so bad that little tool comes up empty and confused. I will report the progress and publish date sometime soon.

Me covering rust ???

WE are working on the kitchen and master bed room so the old bath is last on the list. The sink has a bit of rust near the drain so I fixed it up.

Calling the Crows

Here she is “Calling Crows” I love her innocent face. When I look at these people I feel compelled to dream up little stories about them. This seems to spur me on to create other characters or it throws me into a twirl of new ideas.
I went into the garage to look for a base to mount a sculpture on and saw so many ideas in boxes just waiting for me to start.

Meeting new People

I have been playing with the wire and clay people and have really enjoyed the outcome of their faces. I start out with a very loose idea like, male, older and bald. The rest to my surprise just happens (not all the time). When the face is done it’s like meeting a new person. “The Feather Inspector” has my father’s hair line. The other one “Where the Lost Balls Go” I showed to my brother and he said “hey that’s the strong man from the circus” and sure enough that was the one from the cartoons when I was a child. The one’s that I don’t know, like a girl I’m working on presently, has a crooked smile and is calling crows. Who are you? I will post a picture soon, maybe you know her.