joy

that's what i've been feeling lately, and lots of it... i suppose that august 23 - september 23 is a whirling, high time for all virgos - it sure is for me each year, and this year was no different. if anything the ride may have been a little higher and a little faster!

in the last week i've been to lava beds national monument and back to mt. shasta for the equinox. both places are simply beautiful. lava beds nat'l monument is where the petroglyph cliff is. since this is already a long post, i'll put a link here to last years post with photos of some the petroglyphs. i can't resist sticking in a couple of shots from this trip, though...


above the cliff many, many birds were circling...


just one of the hundreds petroglyphs...


the lava tubes/caves are about 20 miles from the petroglyph cliff... this juniper was growing at the top of a shallow cave. some go on and on, and some are shallow. what amazes me about junipers is that they can grow in places like this with virtually no soil!


these pictographs were in the cave under the juniper above,


as were these. i left these pics huge so you can click on them for further gazing...


in my walking here at home i finally saw a pack rat house when the light was right for picture taking! as you know, i'm crazy about pack rat architecture - it impresses me to no end. i also left this pic huge so you can click and see the pièce de résistance at the top. look at those sticks all neat and tidy lined up! also, the big stick that i've drawn an arrow to - was that already there and one of the reasons that he (she?) chose this particular building site (it's one of the main supports), or did she ask her friends over for a 'stick raising'?! either way it's impressive!


speaking of sticks...








and a little flag love left behind on mt. shasta. love those chenille bees...


the page at the top of this post is the last one in my third Barely There Book... i did a couple of paintings on the last pages, and a lot of experimenting with photo transfers. i think this is me pondering another transfer technique... no wait, i think it's me looking at another transfer failure!


this was the paper that was left behind from an experiment. the transfer didn't work, but the paper looked great!


a photo transfer that did work on the cover page - this was using regular paper and matte gel medium, which so far is about my favorite technique.


this is the first page i did after i finished the BTB. still muslin, but i'm leaving the pages separate. after working in a book for so long, i'm loving not working in a book. it's freeing...


the back of the page above. it seems to me that joy lives inside us like the life force lives inside a bulb. i think we all have 'joy bulbs' inside of us...


i did this transfer of a painting of frida's using TAP. i've had some good results with it and some not-so-good results, but this one i really liked. everything was already on the page before i did the transfer (the wing, the flower, etc.). i think you'd have to gel medium over the transfer before you could add to it because it has a waxy/plastic-y surface.


the back side of frida - the bottom of the page was another TAP transfer that turned to mud. for some reason the colors just didn't show up, so i gessoed over it... these pages were done on the day i went to the lava beds... frida is crying in her painting, which is what i feel about the way the native americans were treated who used to live on this land.


i got my trusty caran d'ache crayons out to paint these bulbs. mostly i dip the crayon into the water and scribble around with it until it dries out, then dip again. i used a brush here and there, but not much. i love the way the crayons look on the muslin.


another TAP transfer - the bottom was way darker than it should have been so i made it darker yet and sort of covered everything up.


the silk ribbon on the right is from vivian bonder. she sells the most exquisitely colorful silk ribbon on the planet.

the day that karin b. told me about the red book, it was all i could think about... you can read about it here.


this painting is done on a piece of raw silk - it's not a journal page, but i wanted to show it to you because painting on silk is really wonderful, and i highly recommend it. kathy gave me a lot of incredible birthday presents, and one of them was a yard of silk... (and some more st. armand paper, and paints, and, and) thank you so much, kathy!

this week's quote is courtesy of banksy...

The holy grail is to spend less time making the picture than it takes people to look at it.


have a beautiful week everyone!

XO