Fall is my favorite season in Los Angeles, watching the birds change color and fall from the trees.
David Letterman (1947–)
I know…it’s way past fall. But I love this Letterman quote, and with the fall leaves on the artwork I thought I could get away with it. It’s even funnier to me after living out there for a while!
This is my first real foray into using beeswax. I really loved it!
The surface is a standard background I use a lot; foamcore covered with brown kraft paper (kind of papier maché style). It creates a great texture and color to start with. A few layers of paint and ink were added. Then came the beeswax—to attach the leaves, feathers, and tissue.
The center leaf is one of the big cottonwood leaves I picked up last fall (and blogged about in Nature and the Creative Impulse). The piece is about ten inches square, so the leaf is about the size of my hand…probably not all that big for easterners, but for Colorado trees, it’s pretty big.
Feathers are one of my favorite things, and these two are a couple of cool finds. The text on the piece is all foreign, and is off a dress pattern. I loved the way the beeswax made the tissue paper disappear, so all you really see are the words.
So…why “Run Over by a Truck”? Because the smaller cottonwood leaf in the center was laying in the street for quite some time before I picked it up. It literally had been “run over by a truck” (and many cars, no doubt). I loved it’s frail beauty. It is so fragile that I thought completely covering it with beeswax was the best way I knew to protect it.
Sometimes I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck…I hope I come out as beautiful in the end as the leaf.
Filed under: Art, Christianity, Nature, religion | Tags: Art, Christianity, Nature, religion
Change
Turbulence is life force. It is opportunity. Let’s love turbulence and use it for change.
Ramsay Clark
Turbulence…that is a good word for the feeling.
The artwork above is something I did about three years ago, at a time when change seemed to be at a frenzied pace. That really hasn’t stopped.
I think the thing that stresses us about a lot of the change in our lives is that it is not the change we think we need. The change we want seems to move at a snails pace, if at all. Meanwhile, the changes we don’t want keep us reeling.
The leaf on this piece of art is an actual leaf. I was picking up my husband at work and noticed a bush that looked like it was made of lace. It was really beautiful. But I could tell something wasn’t quite right, so I got out of the car to get a closer look. Every leaf on the bush was eaten by insects. Of course, normally you would see that and think, “Oh, no…someone should get rid of these bugs.” But even something like these insects—these unwanted guests—had created something of beauty.
This leaf is to remind me that the even the changes that I don’t want can work together to create something beautiful. And, to remind me that the creator of it all doesn’t change, and he is still in charge.
There should be a consistency that runs through us all. For Jesus doesn’t change—yesterday, today, tomorrow, he’s always totally himself. Don’t be lured away from him by the latest speculations about him. The grace of Christ is the only good ground for life. Products named after Christ don’t seem to do much for those who buy them.
Hebrews 13:8–9; The Message; Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
Filed under: Art, Nature | Tags: Art, creativity, fall, Nature, Vincent Van Gogh
He that sincerely loves nature, finds pleasure everywhere.
Vincent Van Gogh
It is beginning to feel like fall is coming to a close here in Colorado. It’s been violently windy the last couple of days and most of the leaves have blown off the trees.
Fall is my favorite season. If I had to live with one season all the time, I would choose fall. This year has been especially beautiful.
One of my favorite things is shuffling through leaves. If there is a big pile of leaves in the gutter I have to go shuffle in them—it doesn’t matter where I am or even what I am wearing. I love the sound and the feel of it. Last week there were these incredible piles of huge cottonwood leaves a few miles away. Jim even stopped the car and let me shuffle in them, it was great! I picked up several of the leaves to use in my artwork; they are larger than my outstretched hand.
Nature is one of the things I find most inspiring for my creativity. I love to use natural materials in my art. The mixed-media piece at the top includes two of the maple seeds that are all over. I have a couple of box-fulls of sticks and rocks and leaves and seed pods and bones (yes…bones) and feathers and… One of the greatest gifts others give me is there natural “finds” (an entire catfish skeleton, wasp nest and birch bark curls). And, nothing puts me in a creative mood more than taking a walk.
Have you ever realized; nature is different every day. The aspen tree in the front will never be exactly like it is today. Most of the time we are too busy to notice it, much less appreciate how beautiful and amazing it is.
Today, stop…and look…shuffle in the leaves if you get a chance! Then go and create something beautiful.
