Have you ever stayed indoors because it’s just too uncomfortable to go outside? Sometimes we all do that: hide from the elements — wind, rain, heat, snow, ice, sun. When I choose to stay inside and not head out into nature, I often regret it later. Yesterday was one of those days. I seriously thought about not going out in the rain, but Charlie needed his walk and I needed my nature-fix. So, I bundled up, put on a hat, grabbed the umbrella and my camera and took off with my favorite walking buddy.
Rain. Have you ever noticed when it’s raining, that in spite of overcast skies and gray air, the rain has an amazing effect on the colors all around you? I decided to turn our soggy outing into a hunt for awesome colors. This time of year in Montana, the colors of the land appear to fade but they don’t, really. Prairie grasses morph to tan, gray, brown. Wildflowers seed. Yes, aspens, larch and other trees will soon put on a color show, and the ground shrubs are still colorful, but mostly, when our eyes look out at the prairie, our brains see “gray/tan.”
But. When the rain comes, all you have to do is look a little closer and you’ll see a tapestry of brilliant colors. Here’s one, above — a community of lichens.
Click the photo to see it large — you’ll see the colors better. It’s like getting down on the ground up close to your subject. 🙂
I remember making these dolls from hollyhock blossoms in late summer. They only last for a few hours, even less if you play with them. But they’re fun to make, and really do have lots of personality. Now is hollyhock time in Montana. Do you have hollyhocks where you live? If you do, then you’re in luck. Go find a few, get out a needle and thread and go for it.
Pick some hollyhock blossoms. Remember to get different sizes of buds, and a few leaves (for hats.) Sort the buds by size, making sure you have at least 3 buds for each arm.
Keep blossoms fresh while you work, by placing them in a bowl of water. You can also mist them with water using a sprayer.
Remove the large, fuzzy stamen that sticks out of the center of each flower. Using a large needle and thread, stitch up through two or three large flowers, layering them to look like a skirt. You can make multi-color skirts with different colored flowers. Next make the head — you can use either a small blossom that hasn’t fully opened yet, or a large bud. Stitch from the bottom of the head through to the top.
You can add a leaf on top of the head for a hat.
Use 3 buds for each arm, a small, medium and large. I like to start at one hand, thread 3 buds together, then pierce the shoulder with the needle, and continue on the other side with 3 more buds for the opposite arm. (see photo 6)
Your hollyhock doll will have personality and facial expressions if you use your imagination with her.
You can add legs if you want but I kinda like them without legs. The big skirts make the dolls look like Southern Belles at a Ball, or Ballerinas Dancing Across the Stage. If you want legs, do them the same as the arms.
Another way to make hollyhock dolls is to use long, stiff pine needles, or toothpicks instead of needle and thread. Using the thread allows the arms, legs, neck and waist of the doll to move and jiggle, and if you hang her she will dance in the breeze. Using pine needles or toothpicks gives you a stiffer doll that can be played with more easily. Here is a link to making hollyhock dolls with toothpicks.
a lovely vintage textile print with hollyhocks
Miss Hickory is a children’s book that dates back to 1948. It is about a tiny doll made of apple twigs with a hickory nut head, so is a little similar to our hollyhock dolls, only longer lasting. The story follows her adventures through the four seasons. And eventually, the story ends with the little doll asleep on a branch of an apple tree and in the spring the apple tree blossoms all around her. Below are a couple of illustrations from the book and a link to a tutorial on how to make a Miss Hickory doll.
Ema, Adia and I made some really cool creatures using roots we found on the lakeshore. We picked them up because we thought each of these looked at least vaguely critter-like. Today we painted several of the roots to try to bring out the little features in the wood that looked like something or another. How do you like them now?
We have a horse, a gnome, an elephant-deer-bird, and another bird — a long-legged crane.
The following tutorial was written by Ema and Adia:
Have you ever wanted to make an imaginary creatures? Well here’s how. All you need is a few sticks and some paint. You can make whatever you can imagine when you look at the sticks.
You will need:
sticks, driftwood or roots
hot glue*
acrylic paint**
brushes
something to use for bases for the creatures that will stand up*** …. or
tiny eye hooks and some monofilament for creatures that will fly (hang)
I got a funky root and I kept turning it and turning it and looking at it from different angles and then I saw that it looked like a horse. So I painted it to look like a red roan horse, specifically my favorite horse, Rosebud, who lives at my Grandma’s house in Anaconda. I glued mine onto the base instead of drilling a hole because it stands up by itself. — Ema, age 10
Gnome by Adia, age 8
I made a gnome. A gnome is a little person with a beard. Santa Claus is a gnome. My gnome has a really tall red hat and is walking across the log that is my base. One leg is shorter than the other because he is walking. He also has a really long white beard and tall white boots. I drilled a hole in the base and glued my gnome’s longest leg into the hole. He looks like Santa. — Adia, age 8
One of my roots looked exactly like a long, curved-bill crane so I made a fantasy bird that I named, an “oo-ooga crane.” This is the sound it makes when it’s happy. It has green and blue feathers with white spots. Also some yellow and orange eyes. I glued one of the crane’s legs into a hole in the walnut base. — Maureen
My other root reminded me of an elephant with wings. It has big long trunk, two skinny wings and a tail. I added little antlers so it’s an elephant-deer-bird. I painted the antlers blue because the Huichol Blue Deer is special to me. This one hangs from the ceiling because it’s flying. I screwed in a tiny eye-hook and hung the bird by a piece of monofilament. — Maureen
NOTES FROM THE TUTORIAL AND SUPPLY LIST:
*We used a little hot glue to attach odds and ends of roots to our creatures.
**For painting the creatures, you don’t have to completely cover the surface of the wood with paint. Leaving some of the natural wood showing looks really cool.
***If you want to make bases, cut some nice wood in a square or rectangle or any shape. Sand it so it’s nice and smooth. Sand the edges to make them roundish so they aren’t sharp. Figure out if you want to drill a hole or just glue on your creature onto the base. We made our bases out of scraps of walnut wood, the trees that grow actual walnuts on them.
Below, we have a few other roots we haven’t painted yet. We are going to keep making these creatures. One of these roots is going to become a flying dragon with a tail made of smoke and fire coming out of its mouth. What do you see in these? Please let us know in the comments.
Nature is inside art as its content, not outside as its model.
–Northrop Frye
Find inspiration on your knees
Nature is the source and content of most of my artistic and creative work and it’s right outside our home. In Helena, it literally takes just a couple of minutes to get from “town” out into a more natural environment. But even right in town, all I have to do is get down on my hands and knees with my eyes, my camera, my sketchbook, my sense of wonder… to find something inspiring and worth using in my artwork. Not only am I inspired to draw/paint/photography and write when I take in Nature’s sweetness — I also know when I look closely and pay attention, that I am part of Nature. Try it! It feels so good.
I also love discovering other artists whose inspirations are obviously directly from nature. Danish ceramic artist, Lotte Glob fits that category. I came across her work during the winter of 2006 and since then she has built an incredible home and studio on her land. It’s really one of the coolest houses I’ve ever seen.
Glob has a beautiful online portfolio exhibiting her ceramic sculptures, books, fountains, tiles and bowls. These are incredibly beautiful pieces — if you are at all attracted to artwork based on natural colors, shapes and textures, check out her portfolio.
Two of Glob’s environmental installations, ceramic floating stones photographed in place. She often places her sculptures in nature to take photos of them before delivering them to the buyers.Photo from Glob’s book of inspiration reminds me of her floating stones
A set of my own photos and artwork titled, Threads of Continuity. If you see anything you would like to buy as an archival-quality print, please email me: [email protected]. I would love to have a piece of mine hanging in your home.
It has been 10 days since Ema and Adia and I spent the day together making art, playing with Charlie and doin other summer kid stuff. I actually missed them. And I think maybe they might have missed playing with me too. When I picked them up at the Exploration Works Science Museum at noon, they both gave Charlie and me big hugs and smiles.
So … we went to a fast food place for lunch (it shall remain unnamed — grin) just to do something totally unexpected and different. The girls liked it. (I remembered why I don’t eat there.)
After lunch we headed out to the lake to collect sticks for our afternoon art project. Charlie also wanted to get in the water and show us his favorite trail. We could tell there was a thunderstorm brewing over the town.Back in town, Tim let us use his shop’s drill press to make holes in our sticks.Adia stayed absorbed in this activity for a long time — she’s the one who colors outside the lines. 🙂
Thunder and a sweet summer rain kept us company while we painted our sticks. It’s my favorite kind of weather — a warm thunderstorm when you’re nice n’ dry on the porch so you can feel the hairs rising on your skin but you don’t get drenching wet. Welp, that was fun! And definitely something 8 to 10 year olds can handle.
Ema is meticulous … taking her time and considering each brush stroke. Her color choices are fun!Ema’s finished artful sticks, ready to be threaded and hung tomorrowAdia’s awesome finished sticks, ready to be threaded and hung as a sculpture tomorrow
Tomorrow it’s time to turn in our Chalk It Up Helena applications. We will have a cooking lesson (Pepperoni Pizza Puffs) and try to finish our stick projects. We’ll show you the finished results next time, okay?
