b mused

July's Postcard of the Month

Green intoxication.

Most late summer afternoons, this is what my gaze rests on*:

That emerald portal, through the black trees

pulls my eyes and holds them there, until the stripey dappling shadows

of the big trees off to the left catch me.

And then there's these:

chartreuse sun circles next to tomato orbs in their hoopy cages and round pots**.

Dots and circles and loops, oh my.

This same, emerald portal vista was my muse for September, 2012's PoMs:

So, I had not originally planned to go quite that same route again.

I had instead been thinking about doing a version of this scene*** of summer orbs

So I found some drawings of hands**** that I liked:

Then traced and flipped, re-sized and tweaked one of these hands, and threw this together:

Which didn't do much for me as it was, but I still wanted to let loose with orbs and circles:

And I also really wanted to figure out a way to use my nifty little tire swing rubber stamp:

And incorporate some of the cool embossing effects*****

So that became these 3 prototypes, in order from r. to l:

Decisions, decisions. Loved that punched out green piece

but just had to let it go...

Just as I was about to prep all the production materials

this little care package of candy wrapper foils - from my dear old pal, Andrea - came in the mail!

The green foil was immediately recruited for punch duty > dots appear in Step 28.

The Fixin's

The (38) Steps

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

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Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

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Step 11

Step 12

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Step 15

Step 16

Step 17

Step 18

Step 19 - Implication of pool/water

Step 20

Step 21

Step 22

Step 23 - Watermelon paper!!

Step 24

Step 25 - First applied 'dot' - can you see it?!

Step 26 - Here come the rest of the dots:

Step 27

Step 28 - Here it is! The green foil dot. Thank you, Andy. :)

Step 29

Step 30

Step 31 - I ended up feeling like the addition of this piece was not such a great idea...

Step 32

Step 33

Step 34

Step 35

Step 36

Step 37 - I muted the hwite 'lace' but giving it some green 'wash'

Step 38 - Ta DA!! The Tire Swing!!

Panel of 21 - BEFORE they were finished!

I never ended up taking a photo of all of them when they were done! :/

Fin.

*photo thanks to Peter Wolf (Wolf MultiMedia Studio - http://wolf1.com/); neighbor & great bud.
**photo from last year - squash patch is now where those tomatoes were; and those beautiful red orbs were wiped out by 'Late Blight' (again) - probably the day after the photo was taken - before anything could be harvested.
***Two summers ago - neighbor Peter's hand, holding his 1st watermelon of the season. Pool time barter!
****Disney animator Milt Kahl's drawings of hands.
*****My fun pal (neighbor, AND Town Clerk!), Jessica, came up to my studio with many of her stamping and embossing supplies last month, and gave me a Stamping & Embossing INTENSIVE!! So much I NEVER knew about stamping! SO much fun!!

Stamped/embossed fern is a detail of one of the two, largish Poppy collages I did right after I finished June's PoMs.

This one - @ 12" x 18" - was done for my sister-in-law, who turned 80 at the end of June:

This one - @ 9" x 12" - of which I never managed to get a photo or scan that was true to color, was done for Martha - the wonderful Nurse Manager where my mother lives -

who retired at the end of June: