Circle Dance, rice paper in floating frame
Leaves fall, magpie stays. Rice paper in floating frame
in the creating stage “Rice Paper Polka”. This began as “fall colours” but something entirely different happened!!
more playing
Rice Paper Polka. (“Looks like nice wallpaper, mum” – the twin critics)
Rooster? Hen? with somewhere to go. Candy wrappers, cigarette foils on paper
Rice paper Trio on 8 x 8 Plexi Glass with Artscape Rice Paper providing the frosted look (and UV protection)
Rice paper pair on 8 x 8 clear plexiglass
Pink and Green Fairy Bird? (no plexiglass)
Simple things amuse simple minds.
Creating rice paper birds fills me with a quiet joy and delight. In a sense they are all the same bird, although they vary slightly in size and shape and are all the colours of the rainbow. Holding a piece of pink rice paper to the sunlight with a piece of green behind it and seeing how it looks in different lights thrills me. It is one thing to glue pieces of translucent paper together on a table; it is an entirely different thing to hold these same pieces of paper up to the window and see how they are completely transformed by light. As I create a rice paper birds, it is akin to having a conversation with light – I cut, I hold up to the light, maybe I glue, maybe I try another shade. For this reason, it takes about 45 minutes, give or take, to create a rice paper bird. I feel as though I could cut and glue and construct these little creatures for a very long time.
Larks at Christie Lake
Since I am clearly hooked on creating rice paper birds, I have to ask how to move such birds into the world? While it is true that a handful of people have one or two such birds flying in their windows, I want to create sky-fulls of them. I like putting them together on a window, a branch, a translucent screen and creating a pattern of movement. Flocks, families, communities of birds winging their way to an imagined sky. This led to “An Exultation of Larks” created last spring. I like seeing how they look in different venues, during different seasons, in the mornings or the afternoons or on the light of a sombre day.
This fall, I have purchased a quantity of plexiglass, cut in a whole variety of sizes as well as some glue that works well with plexi-glass (but has toxic vapours). Above you can see my first two experiments, done on 8 x 8 pieces of plexiglass. I will try sealing them with glue at the edges. (Up until now, I have been using screws.) I prefer to have no frame around the birds as I like the illusion that they can fly off into the sky. However, I also hope to experiment with real glass, circles, and thin copper or silver frames with help from a local stained glass artist.
I am currently working with a long rectangular piece measuring 28″ x 8″ and loving the challenge.
A little spring fairy with the winter woods behind
I just spent three nights in a small cabin in a coulee at the Qu’Appelle House of Prayer. A retreat, a time of quiet, a time to be still.
This time I brought a task or two – a writing project and some art experiments, but more often I come here just to be still, to sit and wonder, to nap. It was a rare and wonderful treat to focus on work with few distractions, and with the time and space to take in the beauty all around.
I have been revelling in the incredible light we have been enjoying this spring. It took a few days of quiet to realize that all of this white snow is contributing to the particular dazzling light that marks these last days of March.( I know there is a powerful wish to have this snow gone, and I kind of share it, but am savouring this light also.) I watched deer nestled right against the window of my cabin, eating the sunflower seeds on the snow that the chickadees, red polls, purple finches, nuthatches and woodpeckers had missed.Later on, a young deer settles down for an afternoon nap in the woods behind my cabin while bathed in the afternoon sun. Such a sight! At night, the almost full apricot moon rose over the hills in a twilight sky.
As I made a big mess with rice paper, I realized that part of the joy in creating flying birds and fairies, as I am doing these days – is that the light shines through the rice paper, illuminating the colours and the subtle textures of the paper. Soon this white snow will melt, giving moisture to the vibrant green moss tucked here and there in the paths on these hills. It was in moss like this that I first knew there were “little people” or fairies. I remember making small tables with sticks and bark, trying to write letters to the fairies with berry juice. Like me, the little spring fairies above know its winter, but the green sap of spring is running in their veins. The small deer who sleeps outside my window may be dreaming of tender buds and more plentiful food.
birds in flight, rice paper and candy wrapper foil
A riot of colour
Noon sun – birds meet their shadows
a few of my favourites
late afternoon sun shadows
A simple mobile. I like watching the birds move.
birds in blue bowl in snow
I wanted to try the birds outside, but it was pretty windy, so tried this sheltered tree
“Are they really larks, mum?” asked one of my daughters. “No, they are just birds, but I love the phrase “exultation of larks”! (I also like “a labour of moles” and “a parliament of owls”.)
Apparently, some people think the correct phrase is a “exaltation of larks”.
Although both words mean extreme joy or happiness, exAltation also means to raise up, lift or promote to a higher place or position. ORIGIN late 16th cent.: from Latin exsultare, frequentative of exsilire ‘leap up,’ from ex- ‘out, upward’ + salire ‘to leap.’
I enjoy creating these birds. I am also having great fun playing with them – how can I arrange them to give them that sense of flight, of leaping into the air, of exultation? I have posted some more photos of these little birds in the Gallery entitled “Recent Work.”
Okay, so it’s a PAPER garden!!
Close up of flowers, Missy in the background dreaming horse dreams of luscious green grass!!
a bird’s eye view of my garden in bloom!
Some birds see the flowers and fly over!
Deep greens and blues are the colours I choose. (Birds love Gramma Alice’s Nova Scotia plate- me, too)
I have been having lots of fun creating my own paper garden, along with birds of all colours. Every garden needs some birds. Mostly I am using Japanese rice paper, along with some other papers. What I especially love is the way the light shines through this beautiful paper allowing us to enjoy the various textures. I love how it looks when paper is layered and one colour shines through another. Many of these birds also have candy wrapper shiny bits which the camera is not picking up. Hey, these are GLAM birds! (Plus, I think I need to clean my camera lens – see that blotch!!)
What to do with these birds and flowers? Hang them in my window? Create mobiles? Put them on lampshades? I am not sure. For the moment, I feel utterly happy playing with all this colour and fashioning flowers and birds. Spring is beginning to bloom in my heart, even as I enjoy some fantastic cross country skis.
Water Snake #3 and #4 were done while I was at Christie Lake in Ontario this past fall. The first picture gives you a little context, the view from the cabin each day. I occasionally worked out doors, but mostly worked at the table (second to last photo) in a small cabin with beautiful light, and no heat!!! It was a great adventure. (Although I did swim, it was freezing and I did not swim every day. I enjoyed the company of the loons.)
Through the screen door. Photo by Ellen Bradley
I have been dreaming about water snakes for quite some time. Drawing them, trying to urge them to life with watercolours and collage, imagining them. When I began, little did I know that 2013 would be Year of the Water Snake! What a happy coincidence!
I am working on a series entitled “Creatures I Swim With” – which depicts some of the creatures I share the waters with at Christie Lake near Perth, Ontario. This is the lake of my childhood, the lake I have returned to from Saskatchewan with our family every second summer, the lake that calls me still. “Creatures I Swim With” has a cast of two so far: Loon (Deep Diver) and Northern Map Turtle. Water Snake is the third creature.
Deep Diver and Northern Map Turtle involved some preparation and a few preliminary sketches, but I very quickly got to the final products – both are a mix of watercolour and paper collage.
Water Snake has been a different matter. I have worked on 5 versions, trying to get it right, feeling my way as I go. From a recent journal: “I am loving the struggle. I am learning what the struggle is about by playing with each of these versions. Loon is identifiable as a Common Loon, turtle is Northern Map Turtle, but this snake – although definitely a snake does not look like a Northern Water Snake. It is the feeling of Water Snake that I want. I seldom see Water Snake. Mostly, I imagine I see Water Snake. I saw one once, swimming across the water and I could not believe my eyes. I was terrified. After that, it seemed, every dark stick lying on the sand and lent motion by the water above it was a snake lying deep in the water. Or every dark ripple on the surface of the water was a snake. Every brush of seaweed along my thigh felt like a water snake. They are seldom seen. Often imagined. Not dangerous. But, I think they are!”
My heart always skips a beat when I see this tiny snake!
One day, early in my relationship with Water Snake, my friend Dolores found a little Smooth Green Snake. Something had very recently killed it. Other than a small wound part way down its body, this little snake was perfect… a most beautiful vivid lime green, with tiny scales, an irridescent gleam… something I could study for hours. You can see it in the photo above (top right) with a watercolour sketch beside its now wizened body.
The day before starting to paint Water Snake #1, I found a perfect (garter) snake skin on a coulee hill…laying there like a gift. A gift indeed.
What is the feeling of Water Snake that I hoped to capture? Here are some of the words I wrote down:
coiled power mystery sheen depths glitter sparkle surprise danger beauty fierce fear terror ominous flexibility agility shifting elegance power hidden dark revealed
Over a period of months, I worked on four versions of Water Snake.
Then, other projects took precedence. I knew that Water Snake was not done with me, but there was something holding me back from continuing to explore.
My friend Mary called. You should check out The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, she said. So I looked up Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s book, and just as Mary said, the water snakes play a pivotal role. In this ballad, the ancient mariner undertakes a sea journey and mistakenly kills an albatross, usually a symbol of good luck for sailors. He hangs the corpse of the albatross around his neck. Things go from bad to worse, from worse to desperate – even his crew dies, and rather than rotting, they stare reproachfully at him. He is so distraught that he cannot even pray. And then,
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green and velvet black,
They coiled and swarm; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
The sight of the beautiful water snakes lifted his heart so much (“Oh happy living things, no tongue their beauty might declare”), that he blessed them and was able to pray. At that moment, the albatross falls from his neck to the sea.
Of course, we know that snakes are an ancient (and current) symbol of healing. Asclepius was the god of healing and medicine and could restore the dead to life. The two snakes intertwined on a rod are carried by Hermes, who was not a healer but who was a messenger of the gods with a strong connection to the underworld. This symbol is associated with both pharmacy and alchemy. But this reminder of snakes as beautiful, as agents of healing, transformation and rebirth was what I needed to get me started on the fifth version of Water Snake. Joy, play, movement were added to my list of words.
I was further encouraged when I learned that 2013 was the Year of the Snake. Something loosened in me and out came the scissors, glue, papers, paintbrushes, yogurt container of water (!)and tubes of colour. Water Snake #5 is a little bigger than the others.
Because Water Snake #5 is so precise, I felt a great wiggle and desire to move inside, so began a more fluid watercolour piece which I called Water Snake Wiggler. Some images of the process of creating these two pieces can be found in the gallery entitled “A Close Look at Water Snake #5”
