Buttercup

DC195: Garden Party

Two days ago I went to a book sale held at the main branch of the Vancouver Public Library. Zillions of books. Two dollars for hard covers and one dollar for paper covers are the common pricing. I picked up a small hard cover, published in 1913 called "Wild Flower Preservation." The book has heavy cream paper and brown age spots throughout. It smells like an old book. In front a quote reads:

...We shall find that the love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been a faithful and sacred element of feeling...        -John Ruskin

I knew that the drawing challenge held the theme 'garden party' and as I do not have a garden myself, I headed to the boulevard out front and walked around looking for buttercups. It didn't take long as they are everywhere. Lesson I in the book tells how to preserve buttercups. Doing this exercise will be my contribution for a garden party of sorts. My kind anyway.

Before I begin to show what I did, I just have to read to you a bit from the foreword: "I must admit that the very word 'herbarium' sounds prosaic, and that the terms 'dried plants' and 'specimens' are absolutely devoid of poetry. That is just the pity of it all, for flowers and poetry should be inseparable. Who will give us a word instead of 'herbarium,' some word with a vision in it, a vision of all the grace and loveliness of wild-flower land?"

I want to have a cup of tea with this guy at my garden party.

Okay, so here's my page of buttercup preservation. Pretend I am 11 years old as the printing reflects it. HA! I need to practice my hand. Also, spelling. 3 mistakes that I know of, one I did not catch, and who knows how many you may spot that I missed...

I keep a penknife in my pocket at all times. Just because. It came in handy to dig a clump of buttercups.

I love my penknife. I often use it to slice sushi in half when I'm out and about.

A closer look.

The finished page (for photographic purpose.)

Spelling!

Another closer look.

So there's my page for the challenge this week. To see more players who have joined in for the fun, visit this page to meet Tammie who is hosting for us. THANK YOU TAMMIE! Thanks for dropping by and I hope to see you again soon! Hugs, Norma, x

Airmail zine

DC No. 194 Sky

I am reminded of a poem entitled "Who has seen the wind?" by Christina Rossetti:

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you. But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing through.

I think of Sky the same way I think of Wind, as both are impossible to draw, or capture visually really. I can describe sky as blue or many other colours. I could pull a coloured pencil or pigment of some sort across a ground on a canvas. I don't feel confident I'd capture 'sky.' Drawing clouds would be my best bet I think. But it's an indirect route to sky. Anyway, I decided to not actually paint or draw or capture sky at all, but my contribution to this week's drawing challenge will be to share my small thoughts about sky, and to show you an airmail zine I did a few weeks ago. The plane after all needs sky to operate so that's my IN to the topic.

I received by airmail, snail mail it's sometimes called these days, a zine done by Lucia (she sent me a photocopy of her original as I was so in love with it.) The envelope that housed her zine was laying on my worktable and I just spontaneously picked it up and started and finished a little 'one-off' zine made from the front of her envelope. I didn't stop...it made itself, really, until I finished it.  The muse speaking once again...

I've been waiting to hear when she's back from her visit to Russia, before I put it into the 'air' mail for her. I need to get this mailed to her, but before I do, I'm taking pictures in a minute, so this will be my actual contribution to the drawing challenge this week. THANK YOU ERIC FOR HOSTING! I appreciate it tons, as I was very much in the mood to play again with you folk. So here's the zine:

Lucia's zine is at the bottom. You can see that mine is about a quarter of the size of hers. The front of my zine is shown above.

Front cover.

Lucia, sorry to spoil the surprise, but I'll get this into the mails a.s.a.p.!

Have a visit to Eric to see other contributions to this drawing challenge of SKY. Thank you again, Eric!

Thanks for stopping by, I'll see you soon, I hope, N, x