Shells

Finding Oneself


Or maybe this post should be titled giving myself permission to do what I love!  I've started digging my collections out of my office and wet studio and bringing them into my design studio, you know the place were I create!


There's this meme that has been circulating on Facebook that says, essentially, the things you spend the most time doing, that's your passion and that's where we should focus our energies.  Well my passion is nature, gardening, hiking, collecting natural items like shells, bits of bark with lichens on them, rocks, bones, flowers, seed pods, and more.


And art supplies, I love to collect and use art supplies!


And plants!  This spring I will start amassing native prairie plants that love shade and will turn my front and side yards into prairie gardens!


It's been almost three months since I planted the terrariums, and they are thriving! 

Visual Library Part 2

I will set up a still life in my studio from time to time, I spend a lot of time studying the pieces, and rearranging them. Do I draw them? No, I just enjoy them but there is a lot to be learned from them by simply having them around.

Organize your collections, I picked up inexpensive trays (2.99 each) at my Salvation Army.

I picked these up at a yard sale, they reminded me of my trip to California.

A walk in the woods and I found these lovely gandodermas!

Found along the road in California.

And then theres the collections and I don't mean wealthy millionare collections I mean crazy like a fox collections! I collect bark, pinecones, lichens, fungi, rocks, fabric bits and some vintage items, but it's always about texture and form.