Non-Dominant Flowers

 

A couple weeks ago or so I took a free online class by Laly Mille which is the first lesson of her Flower Flow course. I had already taken this class a year ago, but since it was free and I hadn't really done much "artsy" in the recent weeks, I decided to join again. I like Laly Mille's art and her very calm way of teaching lovely art classes.

We started with spreading some gesso on old book pages, music sheets - whatever we had. After it was dry the task was to draw flowers and leaves with our non-dominant hand. That would be my left hand. I had already enjoyed this a year ago, but this time I even enjoyed it more. I did a few with watercolor pencils, but "discovered" that I liked the graphite ones much better (I used the graphite aquarelle pencils by Faber Castell, a 4B and an 8B). Then the flowers and leaves are "smudged" with matte medium or regular gel (I used matte medium) and finally narrowly torn out.

Most (but not all) of the flowers in the photo above are from last year, whereas the ones in the following picture are only new ones.

I didn't make exactly bouquets, but just tried to combine some of the flowers and leaves. I decided to go with a wildflower theme and attached them to four 5x5 watercolor panels that I had prepared with some collage "fodder".

Final steps inlcuded some gauze that I watercolored as well as some parts of the plants and I also added some watercolor sprinkles. It was a lovely project that I thoroughly enjoyed (and of course it took me longer than the four or five days of the class).

Here are my four wildflower collages:

I haven't done any art since then... and I don't think I will do any in the next two weeks because Kaefer will be here!!! At the moment she is in Chicago where she meets up with a high school friend and then the two will attend the wedding of another high school friend that is taking place somewhere in Indiana. On late Sunday afternoon she'll land in Oakland. Both the Geek and I are very excited to spend some time with our favorite girl. I assume that I probably won't be in blogland during those two weeks.

I also have a face for Nicole's Friday Face Off - I got a haircut! My last haircut was five days before the lockdown in 2020 and since then I have cut my hair myself. Thankfully it was a really good haircut and since my hair is curly one couldn't notice that my cuts weren't particularly accurate. But now I felt annoyed by the length of the hair, and when I heard that my neighbor cuts hair nothing could stop me. I just had to walk down a block! She did a fantastic job and I'm so happy about my short hair.

A couple more things.

Thank you for your comments about my D-Day post. Some of you mentioned how very concerning it is where our country is going to now, and I fully agree. One noted that I see it from both perspectives, as a German and as an American, so the two opposing "parties". I want to mention here the visit of the German chancellor Friedrich Merz to the Oval Office on June 5th. He reminded the president  that the following day was June 6th, D-Day, and how important that day was. Mr. Trump's reaction was "that wasn't a very pleasant day for you" and then "that wasn't a great day". Mr. Merz was visibly taken aback and emphasized in very clear words that this was the beginning of the liberation of Europe from the Nazi regime. The chancellor of Germany had to tell this to the president of the USA who didn't seem to have a clue about June 6th. I am not particularly fond of Mr. Merz, but at this moment I was very proud of him.

And - Los Angeles. I assume you know what I am talking about. I am so appalled, I can't even find words for that. But thankfully someone else did that. I am not a big fan of the governor of California, Gavin Newsom, but when he delivered his address to Californians yesterday I felt deep respect for him. He found the right words and he certainly wasn't mincing them. Usually I stay away from declarations like "I'm so proud to be a ... (insert name of country), but today I'm saying "I'm proud to be a Californian".

We will peacefully join the protest on Saturday, and I hope many many people will do so across the country.