Angel number six

Posted by Melissa

My childhood landscape was woods, creeks, cow pastures, cornfields and scrubby uncultivated ground, which I suppose had once been cultivated, or it would have been woods. That uncultivated ground was a treasure world of weeds, rocks, wildflowers, blackberries, poison ivy and  rare, lone wild strawberry plants with one or two tiny, soft, red, red berries. The flavor of those berries is, I truly believe, the most pleasurable flavor I have ever encountered--sweet and concentrated essence of strawberry. Surely this little angel has berries so delicious. 

The leaves in the photo are from a wild plant that I think is called false strawberry. It's a related plant, with pretty yellow blossoms and red berries that look like strawberries but are watery and surprisingly flavorless--no sweet, no sour, nothing.

One thing I love about strawberry plants is that they have on them  at the same time beautiful berries and beautiful blossoms.

Angel number five

Posted by Melissa 

The fragrance, the grace, the delicate colors of many garden flowers suggest beauty beyond this earth. Growing out of the earth, roses, lilies of the valley, peonies, sweet peas point to something beyond this earth, beyond our imagination. Geraniums don't do that. They typify wholesome, old-fashioned, completely grounded domesticity. They don't have divine fragrance, but they smell clean and fresh, like an aromatic vegetable.

This little bearer of a pink geranium is a practical, competent person. She's gifted with sunny common sense, and she is exactly the sort you want around if you're planning a garden party and you need help getting organized and cleaning up a few messes. Of course, that doesn't stop her from wearing pretty clothes. Why not? She's the kind of person who can get the job done while staying fresh, cool and clean.

Angel number four

Posted by Melissa 

She doesn't have a pouch on her dress because she forgot to change out of her choir robe into her work robe.

Poor thing had to have her wing replaced. I thought I'd have to redo her entirely, then I remembered that these are for digital reproduction and Photoshop can do many wondrous things.

 

 

Angel number three

posted by Melissa

Yes, she did pull the watering can out of her pouch. No, she did not really need it. The earth was nice and damp from melted snow and a few good rains. She just likes giving flowers a drink. When one of my children was quite small, I found her outside on a rainy day with a watering can, proudly, happily giving the flowers a drink. This little angel is cut from the same cloth. If you're wondering how she fit the can in her pouch, see yesterday's post.

I struggled a lot with this one. I took dozens of rotten pictures, pulled out my pencils and worked on her some more, took dozens more rotten pictures and finally chose the least rotten picture. I thought about featuring another angel today, but I decided instead that this would be an exercise in good enough. Recognizing and accepting the good enough is an important part of my creative learning curve. It leaves me with the energy to persevere. I believe it leads to better work overall if I don't obsess about a piece that is troubling me. And a funny thing that happens sometimes is that a piece I'm unhappy with is someone else's favorite.

 

 I do want to figure out how to take better pictures.

Angel number two

Posted by Melissa

She suggested turning off the flash, and I think she was right.   Maybe I'll take a new picture of  angel number one without a flash and add it to yesterday's post.

Her pocket is like Mary Poppins' carpet bag.  It has just about endless capacity. Right now she's carrying the clippers she used to cut the roses, a garden hose with a sprayer attached, and a small step ladder. Yes, she has wings, but when you're picking Japanese beetles off a trellised rose its just easier to stand on a ladder than to hover a foot off the ground.

An angel a day

Posted by Melissa

I've been drawing angels, lots of angels for weeks and weeks. I was working mainly on kraft paper, which is really fun to draw on with colored pencil. Light colors pop, and I love the fluffy texture and warm irregular brown. But I didn't feel at home with anything I made. The popping color was a handicap--everything I made looked cartoony to me. There's nothing wrong with cartoony, but I'm not really a cartoony kind of person, and I couldn't identify with any of my little characters. It was stressful--constantly trying to adjust and find my groove, with no success.

So I made some angels on white paper, and it felt like coming home. They have a completely different feeling than what I was doing before. I'm going to make 12 of these little gardening angels. (Forgive the pun. I didn't originate it, but I must admit it pleases me.)  I will post one a day for the next 12 days, more or less.....

 

She's a little bummed about this photo. She thinks her face has more color and detail than the camera picked up. I don't know much about taking pictures, but I think I might just need to make a bolder statement when I draw so all my hard work is reproducible.  

See you tomorrow!

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NEW PHOTO without flash, enlarged.  

Repurposed

Posted by Melissa

Back in the day, I loved to make cakes with lots of steps: sift flour three times before measuring, cream butter and sugar till light, whip egg whites to form glossy peaks, beat egg yolks with sugar till they flow in a pale yellow ribbon. No one complained about this. No one said, “What, cake again? Don’t you care that gluten gives me a stomach ache and white sugar erodes the very foundation of my health?” No, my longsuffering family ate cake and scones and flaky biscuits and homemade bread with touching tolerance.

I think somewhat complicated baking was compensation for not enough art in my life. I need to make things that aren’t too easy to accomplish, like scratch cake with a tender, delicate crumb and stretchy, long-rising homemade bread. Now, I have loads of art in my life and am fully out of denial about the ways gluten and sugar were making us sick. I wish I could say no one is complaining about food now, but tummyaches are better, and headaches and asthma and acne and aching joints. So I’m not complaining.

But what to do with my cake pedestal . . . .

I know.  Let’s use it to keep these ceramic models wet and workable overnight.

These are porcelain models for toys, as well as studies in porcelain. If they are not made into toys they will not be models, they will just be themselves—porcelain figurines of childlike angels. When they are more finished I might take pictures of them outside of their glass house.

 

Here are studies of heads and a couple of tiny angels in various clays. One I painted with acrylics. Those files in the background are for carving tiny models out of jeweler's wax. I haven't done that for a while.