March's Postcard of the Month

March's Postcard of the Month

Old snow; new snow; mud season; old crop stubble poking through; pink nascent plant tips; wind - that's March to me.   

This photo was taken one morning on the short drive across town to take old Lucy dog to the vet (she's getting a series of glucosamine shots in her hips).  I thought the ribs of road ruts looked a lot like the lower part of this month's collage.

I kept being drawn to the same elements and colors of last years' March card.   Wind in tall pines; field stubble...  Kind of quiet, a bit bleak.

But March, to me, has also been (though not for several years now) Daytona Bike Week, with it's own subset: wheels and gears; pink beach; bloody (Mary) sunrises.  

(Long ago) Sunrise from the Penthouse!   

And so, I also contemplated doing a 'fantasy' scene for this month's card - I have this little rubber stamp of gulls circling that I've been dying to use (didn't), so I thought, maybe: sunrise beach scene.

And, oddly, even though I ended up composing it as a very Vermont March vignette, this month's card actually could almost be a beach scene.  Yes?  No?   Beach grass blowing in the dunes??

This month's cards are 'rare' ones!  Materials (quantity thereof) dictated that I only made 14 postcards (plus the prototype) this month.  My subscribers will be pleased, I'd think!

In deciding to use this specifically patterned fabric 

(left over from making my shower curtain) 

I was limited by there only being 14 repetitions of this particular design in the remaining fabric!  This fabric is an optical illusion - if you look at it one way, it's just vari-colored lace flower shapes; another way and each of the different colored panels has another design either under- or overlaid.  Believe me, I have spent countless hours on my strategically located 'seat', absorbed in these eye tricks.  (more bathroom pix at the end of these notes)

I discarded my first attempt - attached to that blue 'lace', but the sky is WAY too blue! I'd also put in some crocus-colored 'sprinkles', and some additional pale-colored field 'stubble', but these didn't appeal in the final version.

Fixins 

   Winter stubble

22 steps this time 

Step 1

 Step 2 - I used 3 layers of different whites - tissue & rice papers - to mute the grey-blue of the sky.

  Step 3 - yes, something actually was added!  It doesn't show up, but there's a small patch of very pale blue that I put near the center of the sky here.

Step 4 - and this has an added horizontal strip of white along the horizon

 Step 5 - I just couldn't resist sticking in a tiny bit of the blue 'lace' paper 
that I'd used for the whole sky in the 1st. prototype

 Step 6

 Step 7

 Step 8

 Step 9 - And then I wanted to further mute the pinks and oranges with some white 'lace'.

Step 10 - added a strip of some of my own handmade white (ish) paper.

 Step 11

 Step 12

 Step 13 - The black stalks were left-overs from the paper-punches of November's PoM*.

 Step 14

 Step 15

 Step 16

 Step 17

 Step 18

Step 19 - I'm just not happy unless I print/stamp something on most collages...  

So here come the circle shapes!  (my nod to Bike Week - wheels and gears)

 Step 20

 Step 21

 Step 22

It's been difficult to get a photo that is close to true for colors with this card - this one is a bit washed out.  The photo at the top is a bit bluer than it is in reality.

The Bathroom!

The bathroom was a winter project, 11 or 12 years ago.   It was all based on a beautiful bowl that my sister had given me, that I had drilled out to use as a sink:

 My beloved lighting fixture, with the hubcap over the fan.

Ears for my earrings, papier-machėd from the bathroom wallpaper 

that I'd torn off the walls before painting them orange.

Klimt-inspired bathroom door 

*Step 17 of November's Postcard.  

Hmmm.... Just noticed that there are quite a few of the same materials in this months card!  Well, I'm almost out of the wonderful black thready stuff, so it won't show up many more times!

I