tiny lovely

I was going to wait to post about this but i just can't wait. Finally caught some good daylight yesterday and got to take the pictures.

Look what i received in the mail last Monday!


...arrived just like that, so raw and delicate...love the little clasp on the box...

It is from *Erin*, whom i have yet to meet in person but whose presence has already touched me ever so deeply. Thank you, Erin, for this, and for magically appearing into my life. :).



[click for a closer peek]



I think of the hands that went into tearing these pieces and pieces of paper that look like fine leather and feathers...



and then underneath all that softness...



...a dragonfly i've been looking for, and a tiny tiny lovely blooming:



I saw it and it speaks to me ever so softly, echoing my thoughts.



and the dragonfly...like the one my dad had caught for me to fly with when i was little, because where i was born, there were no toy stores around at the time.


the dragonfly in silent prayers...

more dried things

Except for the dried orange peel and the papier mache bowls, these have all been collected this past spring and summer. Ironic, isn't it? since these dried fallen things are probably more often associated with autumn and winter. But there are things falling and dying all the time.

While waiting for the clayballs to dry last month, i had been shaving some tree branches picked up at the parks nearby. I am saving the wood shavings for making more papier mache things.

After the branches were shaved, they were cut into these little wooden pieces:



Look how they relate to my orange nipples painting [still work in progress]:



It was actually from the painting that i thought to cut them up so you could see the perfect dotted center.



I like salvaging these things that would have been just left to fade away. like the fact that even though they are essentially dead, they still exist and you can still see how beautiful they are.

bugs on my wind panel

these dried-up things

things i've been collecting...

polka dots and nipples

pencil and oil on wood panel, detail of the panel for June letters [work in progress]

Okay, i have to put off writing about those 3-d sketches i had been posting up lately. It is just looking too bland here when in real life my head is just spinning with colors.

Above is the new panel i painted for the June letters which i think is going to be repainted again because i'm just not too crazy about how it will go with them newly painted blue-grey letters here...


It's a vicious cycle with this painting and repainting when i don't have the letters together on the panel to compare and contrast. Got to just hammer down the letters onto the board once everything is dry and get going.

And at the exact moment while i was thinking about this today, look what caught my attention:


I saw it on the ground out of nowhere on my way home. Is it a sign or what? same color as the painting that i was just thinking to repaint!

It happened to be dead, which saved me from agonizing over whether to take it home with me or not just so i can take a picture of it. (I am also starting a bug collection, by the way.) It is now sitting on top of one of my gessoed papier mache bowls.