What’s happening

It’s Easter. I don’t celebrate this holiday in a Christian sense, but I participate in the feeling of joyful solemnity. The sun is shining! Things are growing! The lady’s mantle leaves are up – about the size of a dime. The rain over the last few days turned all the lawn grass green. I’m going to make a tofu quiche and we will have one relative over for dinner.

This painting says “Easter” to me. I finished it yesterday. I’m doing a series of watercolor triad paintings. Mixes of yellow, red, and blue of various types. It’s very absorbing. This exercise came from Tansy Hargan‘s lesson on Mindful Mixing in her class Finding Your Colour Voice. I heard about it from Liz A, thank you Liz!

I’ve made six so far. This photograph is dark and doesn’t really show off the colors. The lower left painting is on a different paper, so not sure it serves the purpose. I’m going to redo it, with one color change.

I made a small square book after a lesson from Emma Freeman. For stitching in. It has threadcrumbs patches on the front cover and some of the pages. The book is made from linen, soaked in soy milk, and dyed with backyard yarrow last fall. I might make more. I have a lot of that dyed linen and I want to use it. I don’t know if these small pages are the right thing though. It’s more spectacular as a large patch.

I’m obsessed with pussy willows. Salix Discolor. I find it interesting that I only register them as pussy willows when the catkins are out. I’m trying to note where they are along my common walking routes, so I can observe them at other times of year. This one provides a pretty backdrop for the Ferry Road sign. It should be easy to check on. Today its catkins were all sodden with rain and the fur stood up like a cat’s after a bath. It made me laugh.