So hard to believe just another week until November! Less than a month until Thanksgiving and the Holiday season begins. Autumn is just not long enough. Nothing is ever long enough when you love it so. I sit through the cold winter to welcome spring and then swelter through summer until the welcome autumn chill cools it down again.
That being said, I didn’t forget Halloween. Though I don’t celebrate it anymore, those around me still do and I still have many fond memories I will share very soon.
Shed no tear! O shed no tear! The flower will bloom another year. Weep no more! O weep no more! Young buds sleep in the root's white core. John Keats
Even more temporary than the flowers that bloom are the hues of Autumn.
Enjoy this “chaotic group of autumn photos!
Changing seasons are one of the reasons I love Michigan. There is seldom a dull moment. I actually don’t have a favorite season anymore but I will say I hate oppressive heat and air conditioning which makes me stay north.
We do enjoy glorious seasons in Michigan.
I will also add that I am now in the season of what some call the “Sunset Years.” If this is true, I’m in for one looonnnggg and glorious of those too!
Peace and God bless!This has been an extraordinary Autumn for me. It’s a glorious transformation from summer to fall in the country like this. Helps me to deal with my loss and other changes I am still getting used to with something to be grateful for. God is good! Enjoy the last hurrah of fall! As my about page states, look but don’t touch.
Hidden Lake Gardens in Tipton Michigan is the happiest place I know of, no matter what the season. I have loved nature since I was a small child. Plants, animals, smells, the feeling I get just walking with the breeze on my face, everything about outdoors!
Fall is an especially beautiful time to me and I wanted to share some of this with you. Take care and God bless!
So sad to see the garden come to it’s end this year for it may be the last one I have here.
I was fooling around with a glue gun tracing the leaf transfers that I adhered on canvas with acrylic medium. Canvas painted a very dark blue with the idea to manipulate pictures of leaves I had taken and scanned in the fall.
I thought about how the blowing leaves do not float down perfectly in the sky, but swirl and twirl all over the place before they land. First using Microsoft PhotoDraw, Distort Effect Twirl and fine tuning or adjusting the setting or the amount of the twirl of the leaf I applied it to each leaf separately to create the desired effect.
I verified the size leaves needed for the canvas size of 16 x 20. Wishing to show the effect of blowing leaves, but totally experimenting because I had not done these techniques before, I printed some of the leaves on regular printer paper, some on transfer paper and some on tracing paper just to see the finished look after fusing them to the canvas. I carefully cut each leaf out and auditioned them around for a while until I was satisfied. After the Liquitex Matte Medium dried thoroughly, I painted over each of the leaves with various shades of metallic harvest colors, enhancing the original color of the actual leaves. The actual transfer paper had the most pronounced leaf veins show through the paint, followed by the ones I printed on high quality printer paper. I actually preferred the effect that the tracing paper leaves had after painted. The base is so thin that the canvas outline came through in spots giving it a more textured appearance, which I preferred.
Looked boring so I decided to jazz it up by outlining it with a glue gun, painting over the glue ridges with the same shades of metallic paint and once completely dried, used metallic rub in a lighter shade of gold over the leaves and some of the canvas leaving streaks, enhancing the idea of blowing wind.
It’s ok, still have a lot to learn, but practice makes perfect. Please see the following slide show for more details.
The next gallery shows a few shots from some other collages I’m working on including one created for Christmas to reflect all the freaking snow we keep having this year!
