Autumn Bounty, in the Studio

The weather is extraordinary...the warmest beginning of October here in a hundred years. We're in the eighties, the sky is crystal blue, the windows flung open and the sunny days harmonize with the golden leaves which flutter to the ground all around us as we stroll through the forest.

This is my favorite time of year. I glory in the generosity of nature. I can't walk fast as I must stop every few moments to gather up some forest gifts that lie about me on the pathway.

I particularly like large acorns, with their charming hats. When I poured them out on my table the other day I found two small worms, fat and white wiggling among them.

At David's house in Grand Champ, where we helped him for a morning clearing one of his overgrown fields, I gathered a basket of chestnuts for roasting and some pine cones for decorating.

He had numerous apple trees and in a matter of moments we had several large crates full.

I also found a hydrangea whose flowers had already begun to dry on the bush. I gathered them up and hung them in our furnace room, next to some lavenders that have been drying there for a month or so.

This time of year one could easily sustain one's self on David's land.

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David also gave me a large branch from his kiwi tree. I found the leaves very charming and thought they would make very nice prints. My blogging friend, Mariann Ellis is printing leaves in her studio in Spain. Her system is a bit different than mine.

I roll or paint water color on the leaves and then place them on a piece of moistened and stretch watercolor paper. I splash a little extra color around and then cover them with weights, allowing them to sit for a few hours before releasing them.

I like the way the colors reveal the structure of the veins.

They make nice cards, wall hangings, decorative paper for bookmaking or whatever. Fall always includes a little leaf printing.

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My friend Mary, who was here last month brought me a huge stack of beautiful handmade paper from another friend back home. Leroy is an art professor at San Jose State University and he has been teaching a course on paper-making for years. With the stack was a wonderful note that proclaimed: "make more art with this."

Always liking to follow directions from the people I trust and love, I began to imagine playing with some of the brighter bits. I had some little plywood squares that I painted with various colors and chose a decorative paper to mount on each one.

This seemed like a nice background from which to make some collages.

But I got sidetracked by two of the marbleized papers. I kept seeing images in them. In the orange one it was primarily little people.

For the green one it was birds, mostly ducks.

For the blue one I decided to follow the original plan, which was to cut out some leaves from air-drying clay,

paint and mount them on the board.

I haven't been able to glue anything over the pink one yet, as I like it rather a lot the way it is. I plan to glue some nice white paper on the back so that they can be used as greeting cards.

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I have had a Martha Stewart book entitled Handmade Christmas, for so long that the pages have fallen out. In it she has a project I've always thought adorable. Making a box from an acorn. Her photo of the results is on the left. Mine, after following her very brief instructions, is on the right. I was so pleased with the results, until the next day. You notice that in both the photos the hollowed out acorn is separated from its little top, where a nice bit of cork has been securely glued. Martha neglects to mention that the shell bit shrinks a lot once it is dried and the two no longer fit one another. Martha! Really.

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Another wonderful surprise and spur to action came in the form of a delivery from far off Virginia. My blogger friend Janet sent me a prize from her fabric give-away contest. She has a wonderful home decorating blog called The Empty Nest, which I've been following for several years. She's always cooking up something interesting over there and often has fabulous contests. Last winter I won a handmade scarf!

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I found a sketch book this week which had some dream imagery that I  recorded long ago. This is one that has always stayed with me. I intend to develop it into a hard ground etching. It's entitled At the Pool Between Worlds. This is my sketch.

I have developed an illustration website called mymusetta.

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Nights have also been inspirational this week. Picture us at our apartment window, wide open, with our telescope aimed up at Jupiter. The night sky is incredibly these clear days. Even though we are in a village, there is so little light pollution here that we can see the planets and constellations in all their blazing glory, something impossible at our home in California. With our relatively inexpensive telescope we can see Jupiter's stripes and watch its various moons rotate around the planet. Each evening they are in a completely different position.

The sun is low enough in the sky now too to create those moments, mostly in the morning, when the sun shines through the windows and casts a golden glow on things, picking out particular objects to illuminate. It's a visual feast; I have to keep my camera near at hand.

Week 15: Quinn on Vacation and Other Adventures

One thing summer does not offer, is much opportunity to visit Quinn, especially since he's been traveling around Europe with his parents over the last three weeks. We are lucky enough to get some virtual views and lots of photographs of his ongoing adventures. Phone conversations go something like this:

Quinn! How are you?

Nana? Bobo?

Yes Quinn, it's Nana and Bobo! We miss you.

Doggie!

Did you see a doggie today? What does a dog say Quinn?

Woof woof!

What does a rooster say?

Cockadoodle-do!

This same conversation can be repeated over and over and none of us ever seems to get bored. Such is the goofiness of grandparenthood. Here are a few images from Quinn's summer vacation which ends next week.

The first week of vacation was spent on a working farm in Austria which caters to children. There are lots of animals (thus the animal sounds). Quinn, who lives in Paris, hasn't met many animals before and apparently he is quite enthralled with furry and feathered creatures of every sort. He even dreams about them and repeats animal noises in his sleep.

Farmer Quinn

Mighty Quinn, the swimmer

Quinn helps plan the itinerary

The second week brought him to the beautiful city of Ljubljana (Slovenia), where the setting is urban. When Quinn got to the hotel he pointed out the window and said "Moo?" in other words, "Can we go see the cows now." There aren't too many barnyard animals in the city, so Emily and Jos took him to the zoo. His favorite creature was an owl in a big cage.

Here he's pointing and saying "gar!" which he says frequently. Quinn is 19 months and beginning to talk three languages at once. He understands what his father says to him in Flemish, he understands English which Emily speaks with him and he also can respond to French, as this is the language of his neighbors and nanny in Paris. "Gar" is one of the first things he learned to say and it is meant to be "Regard!" French for "Look!"

'Look at the owl!"

 

Peek-a-boo

Playing around

His last vacation week was spent on the Island of Cres in Croatia enjoying the sea, the sun and the wonderful sea food. There is a donkey next to their bungalow and Quinn visits him every day.

Mediterranean Idyll

Sardines. Yum!

Quinn meets Mr. Donkey

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We visited another Loire Valley garden this week. In contrast to the whimsicality of the gardens of Chaumont-sur-Loire, Villandry is formal to a fault. The gardens are historically accurate representations of royal French gardens of the Renaissance, which clearly are meant to be observed from above.  I prefer wild garden excess myself, but certainly one can appreciate the discipline required to maintain these precise gardens whose shapes and colors represent specific ideas and feelings. For instance, one garden represents different experiences of love, the four quadrants speak of tender love, passionate love, fickle love and tragic love.

Surrounding the castle and gardens of Villandry are woods with pleasant paths for strolling. The views through the trees are lovely.

My favorite garden was called the water garden. I have a recurring dream about a place like this. To me it's like looking into another world.

What a wonderful way to grow vegetables, although how could you ever pick any of the produce?

I love the purple basil. It would take quite a few people to consume this much. We did lunch at the Villandry restaurant where they specialize in salads and greens fresh from the gardens.

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September brings visits from journalists. This week we had Laura and Gilles from the Derby Telegraph in the Midlands, England. Our regional tourist office hosts British journalists quite often who write articles about our area of France, which is very convenient to England. Generally the itinerary includes a stay at Maison Conti as we are one of only two four-star establishments in the region. This is the first time, however, that a journalist has requested an etching course as well as a night's stay and dinner. They were enthusiastic students.

Laura's print. This is the symbol of Liverpool, where Laura was born

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This week the moon is waning and rising quite late at night which allows for some spectacular star gazing on crystal clear evenings. Night falls much earlier these days, and by 9:30 it's already dark. Last night Rick and I sat at the window with the telescope, looking southeast at Jupiter. We could see four of it's moons clearly lined up, one on the left three on the right of the bright planet. We could even see some of the striping as we looked with our highest magnification lens. Out the back windows the dipper blazes above the castle; there is little light pollution in Montmirail, so we can enjoy the entire canopy of the sky and bright stars on a clear night.

If you're lucky enough to live somewhere that allows you to enjoy the night sky, there are good opportunities to view Jupiter this month. It's at it's closest now. A good calendar of celestial events can be helpful in knowing where to look and what to look for.

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Late summer picnic