Friday, June 5, 2015

June's Postcard of the Month

Lupines. 

Most of the Lupines growing in my garden(s) these past 8 or 10 years 
came from seeds 
that my best friend from 7th grade - Leslie Grove*
 sent me from her Lupines, from her garden, where she now lives, in Portland, Oregon.**

This is me & Leslie @ 30 years ago, 
playing mandolins on the lawn outside of Manghi's Bread bakery in Montpelier***:

And then there is this patch of Lupines 
(that years ago were far more extensive and multi-colored)
that I get to gaze upon from my dentist's chair every June!  :)

And, finally, every June, when Mule & I used to travel to and from Bike Week in Laconia, NH, 
our rides would take us past vast stretches of lupines along the roadsides.****
Quite a thrill.

Re: Production: 

I started by slapping down a couple of quick ideas:
I got a fair sense of what I was after, so I prepped my materials and then just dove in.

However... I'm not as happy with this month's cards as I'd like to be.   

Occasionally, over these past >>FORTY-ONE!!<< months of postcard production, I have started in on the production process not being entirely enamored with what I've come up with, but, so far, I've always ended up quite happy with them by the end of production. 

This time though...  Something just doesn't jive quite the way I want it to with this batch.  
mostly like them, but there are a couple of decisions I would make differently if I were to tackle 'em again.

For instance:  
While I quickly opted to put that one pink Lupine stalk right up against the horizon
in the majority of this month's cards,
I realized - once done - that I actually preferred the subtler purple stalk in that position...
Another aspect that I wished I'd tried harder to render 
is the distinct cone/triangular shapes that Lupine stalks form.  
Some of my torn shapes could have used some refining (see pink stalk above)...

And, finally, I'm not so sure that my 'fields' were quite satisfying:
they just seemed a little bland, depthless.  
But I'd not wanted too much going on with the grasses and leaves, 
so that the Lupine stalks would be prominent, so... ??

                         (most of) The Fixins (plus some that I didn't end up using)

Steps: The Movie:

The (SIXTY-ONE!) Steps

(meaning: I touched these 21 postcards AT LEAST 1,281 times!!)

Step 1
 Step 2
 Step 3
 Step 4 - Also wasn't totally happy w/this particular light green...
 Step 5
 Step 6
 Step 7
 Step 8
 Step 9
 Step 10 - Some black 'lace' paper:
Step 11 - What would I do without this green fibrous paper?! Instant grass.  :)
 Step 12
 Step 13 - Here come the flowers!
 Step 14
 Step 15
 Step 16
 Step 17
 Step 18
 Step 19
 Step 20 - I also ended up not so enamored with this particular pink (used for at least 3 stalks)... I mitigated with cover-ups and some watercolor pencil in the final products.
 Step 21
 Step 22
Step 23
 Step 24
 Step 25
 Step 26
 Step 27
 Step 28
 Step 29
 Step 30
Step 31
 Step 32
 Step 33
 Step 34
 Step 35
 Step 36
 Step 37
 Step 38
 Step 39
 Step 40
 Step 41
 Step 42
 Step 43
 Step 44
 Step 45
 Step 46
 Step 47
 Step 48
 Step 49 
 Step 50 - Started to add in (first of 4) stalks from some of my hand-made purple paper - that I'd further washed with a metallic purple acrylic.  Got my shiny pieces in this month!
 Step 51
 Step 52
 Step 53
 Step 54
 Step 55
 Step 56
 Step 57
 Step 58
 Step 59 - Last Lupine stalk!  Were you counting??*****
 Step 60 - And then I decided I needed to include indications 
of the distinct Lupine leaves****** (and use some more shiny paper)
 Step 61

Panel of 21 of June's postcards:

Fin.

*More photos of me and Leslie over the past nearly 50 years.
This is us when we were probably in 9th grade, but in different high schools:
Maybe when we were HS seniors:

And probably 15 years ago, when Leslie was visiting from Oregon:
**I also have these unusual bi-colored dark purple - nearly black - and white Columbine 
that came from Leslie's west coast seeds.
***Where I also happened to conveniently live (upstairs) while working as the Manghi's first baker.
****These are NH Tourism pix.
*****43 stalks.  I'm pretty sure.  ;)
******I used this little paper punch and then snipped out one of the 8 spokes.