My creative space and 100 posts!

This is a painting I did a few days ago and I've been waiting for it to dry so I could put the hanging wire on the back.  I love oil paint but I hate waiting for things, so it's a challenge for me to be patient and not mess it up by touching it when it's wet.  This one is 9x12" and I wanted to try drawing with a graphite pencil in the wet paint, so those little lines you see are graphite that's sort of inscribed into the paint.  It's a pretty rough line because of the texture of the canvas but I think I like the effect.

I'm trying some different things with my photos of these panel paintings, so the third photo is on top of my wooden flat file with a paper parasol that sits there and makes me happy.  My scanner is still the best way to get a really accurate image but I'm having fun playing around with the camera and trying to convey the size and feel of the paintings.

And as you see from the title, this is my 100th post on this blog!

More creative spaces at kootoyoo.

My antler

This is an elk antler that I found walking in the woods near my parents' house a few years ago.  It's about four feet long and is kind of heavy.  I'm trying to find out where to put it in the new house (it was living on the porch before) and I'm kind of stumped.  It's just too big for most spots and it's a little pointy and huge to just put on the floor.  The cats seem like they want to destroy it whenever it's in the house and I'm moving it around to look at it.  So I should probably hang it on a wall...?  Maybe make a loop of twine to hang it?  I don't know, but I really really love it and it needs to be displayed in all its glory.

Webs

Labor Day weekend was pretty wet around here.  We didn't have any special plans, so it wasn't a problem but I'm glad I wasn't camping or anything like that.  

I've been watching the spiders building and rebuilding their webs every time it rains.  There are so many huge web-building spiders here.  I'm used to seeing maybe one big spider that builds a proper web a year around the house (back in eastern Washington) but here there's a big fat one living between every pair of shrubs.

Last one...for now.

This is the last of the group I was working on.  Today's diagram:  another cyme.  The paper texture is the same as before, just a different area of the sheet.  The original piece was only 6x8" or so but I scanned it kind of huge.

Panicle

Today's flower diagram is a panicle.  Panicle, panicle.  I think panicle is a great word and I like how it sounds.  

Digital collaging

Here's the next one.  The paper texture is from an old piece of paper that was in one of my grandmother's sketchbooks.  The flower head structure today is:  a cyme.  There will be a quiz.

Sudden whims

I had a random craving to play around in Photoshop today and I came up with a couple of little collages that I was happy with.  The diagrams are from an old gardening book and show a compound umbel and corymb (which I had never heard of before).  The background textures are a piece of wood and an old piece of fabric.  I did the repeats with a custom brush - my favorite thing to do.