Thursday, May 22, 2014

Flowers in the City and Creating Things


WhenI look out of the window I see yellow taxis.


I'm in the middle of my seasonal pansy-bashing experiments when I make a lot of noise and a small amount of stationery. I learned the fundamentals of pansy hammering from the uber-creative Elizabeth Bunsen.


Anyway, three flowers from the tree pits outside. The yellow pansy, when hammered, just turned into a soggy blob.


Here are some bits and pieces from the roof.


Same thing with the trusty hammer -and a print  of a previous pansy. You must use good quality printing paper -Arches for example- so the colors get absorbed.



Larger than life sized!


Much, much larger than life sized with bits of the viola waiting to be removed.


This mess/work of art was created by hammering the flower of a beautiful iris which had fallen off the stem. I would not recommend hammering irises -much too much water and sogginess - but rather fun as a fabric design....



Making stuff runs in the family (all families, I think!) Henry is very serious about drawing and



Gretchen has become a bead maker.

Back to hammering pansies...









6 comments:

  1. Those hammered Pansies are beautiful - I remember you doing them last year but completely forgot to do it myself when I had some myself this spring.

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  2. Oh My Goodness, I love this.
    And the colors are lovely. The Iris one is very interesting.

    cheers, parsnip

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  3. I am absolutely intrigued by this Elizabeth - no water involved? I would like to try it myself.

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  4. Elizabeth, it seems a bit magical that you can actually transfer the beauty of those pansies into (not just on to) lovely and welcoming Arches watercolor paper.

    Fun to see young Henry is off to a fine start with his drawing. And little Gretchen seems to have a very good sense of style, both in her beading techniques and in her sweet costume.

    As always, your photographs are splendid!

    Hoping to see you soon. xo

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  5. Lots of creativity going on at your place. I am enjoying your photography. Those hammered pansies are intriguing, and lovely. And the children are adorable; they look like paintings, makes me think of Jessie Willcox Smith, or Mary Cassatt.

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  6. "Making stuff runs in the family (all families, I think!)"
    Your children and grandchildren are a lucky lot, growing up with makers and doers, who live and breath the arts and encourage the little ones in the pursuit of creativity. It is so heartwarming to see how these little ones are brought up, with so much love and patience and willingness to teach.

    Looking at your grandchildren reminds me of a moment when my two oldest were about toddlers, the younger one about a year and a half: I had put an easel out under an old magnolia bush and they were painting on large sheets of drawing paper. I must have been distracted for a few moments and when I checked on them again, they were painting the branches of the magnolia in magenta and blue. ;-)

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I look forward to hearing from you!