Mather Creative Mindfulness: Birch Trees

 

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What could be more Fall than a walk amongst Birch Trees.

We have family living in Sturgeon Bay, Door County in Wisconsin. Behind the house is a small forest with Birch trees and lots of limestone slabs...a walk is a bit treacherous, but so gorgeous when all the trees turn golden.

The class lesson was to make birch trees by dragging a card, or cardboard, or corrugated cardboard with paint across to make the black marks of birch trees. 

I have always wanted to try this, so I notched a little piece of flexible cardboard from some packaging. After making some loose stripes in light gray/brown watercolor washes for shadow sides of trunks. I then dragged black gouache with the cardboard and it made excellent birch trees with a flick of the wrist. 

Simple tools, cardboard, a few brushes, a wool sponge, gouache and watercolors.

I'm still trying to clean this last palette. I think I will make some more collage papers tomorrow and use up everything.

Foreground of birch trees...I had lots of fun, edges also made branches, and bush stems.

Casey also read us this Robert Frost poem...\

I can remember this poem, and Mr. Frost reading this in his sing-songy New England accent on televeision live when I was a child. It has always been a favorite.

A Road Not Taken     Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Poetry Foundation

And....May all your roads taken be all the Difference. 

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 Sandi Magle

OldNewGreenRedo

Creative Mindfulness Paper Weaving

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Paper Weaving with Casey in Mather Senior Class.

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I think we have all done some paper weaving when we were kids..., Creative Mindfulness with Casey brought the project to us in conjunction with her Peruvian series. After an entire day in the garden I had exactly 7 minutes to gather materials and prep for this class, which was only going to be about 40 minutes to work.

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I grabbed a black sheet of multi-media paper which is a bit heavier than card stock. 

I folded it in half and cut some wavy and straight lines up the fold leaving a heavy outside edge.  Then I pulled out my magazine files, grabbed the 'bedroom folder' and pulled 5 random sheets and just cut strips...I really didn't choose specific pages. I had a heap of strips on my desk. so I just began selecting for colors, the warm toned strips and wove them in and out.

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I do like the irregular widths and shapes this weaving. 

SENIOR TIP: I used bamboo skewers to open a row making the thin paper easier to thread through. (My hands are not agile enough to do this type of fine motor--especially after a day of garden clipping and digging.)

Leave your first skewer in the row of paper, move out of the way and...add another one with the opposite weave. Then slip your strip through, this skewer you will have to remove each time, but the first one in the paper still can be reused. This really helped!

A skewer point is far more agile than my fumble fingers.

Anyway when I was done, I found the piece a bit boring, and a not 'focused' design. I had attempted to do blocks of color but really the black really swallowed all that.

 I decided to "enhance" some of the black areas with some metallic pens.

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I used the copper tone and the gold tone and a bit of white pen. Not in every square, but here and there echoing a color square/design nearby, or framing a square.

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The Yellow cushioon suddenly becomes a design area.

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This was fun...and quick, and something you can do with grandkids or redo.

Next time I will pick a very strong way of cutting my original rows in the back piece so there is some angular movement to make it more interesting.

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Finished Magazine Page Paper Weave with metallic pens.

What Have YOU tried Lately

   that was out of your BOX!?  

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I will try and respond to every comment and answer every question. 

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All the opinions and photographs in this blog are my own unless identified, I have not been paid or reimbursed in anyway for my opinions, posts or any products shown.  

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission.  

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Sandi