Layers of Details

Dear Liza,

I showed you some of the acrylic cards I made with Ruthie Inman last week. After an hour and a half of gleefully painting, I had seven different card fronts in blues and greens, and no idea what to do with them.

I wanted to do something, though, and I decided to start with this one.

Looking for ideas, I hunted through my box of old projects, and found a leaf we did several autumns ago.

So I drew the leaf and put in the divisions. and then thickened the lines and rounded the corners with a micron 08 pen. I liked it, but I could tell it wasn’t done yet.

With the dark background, it needed something more in the leaf to make it stand out. I added a few dots, liked the look, and just kept adding. It was better. But not done yet.

Auntie Bridgett suggested that I make the outside a bit lighter. I used yellow and white acrylics, thinned with some medium, to lay down a few thin layers.

It still wasn’t right, but I was afraid to do anything to it for fear of making it WORSE. Bridgett to the rescue! “We can take a picture of it, put it in my computer with Procreate, and see which looks best.” This was a new idea for me, but I’m always willing to learn.

How about these dots on the outside? Nope.

Maybe outline the sections? Yellow? Or white?

That was it! Yellow, please. So I picked up a yellow Posca marker and made it right.

And boom, done, it’s on its way to you!

Love,

Grandma Judy

Burgers at Sunset

Dear Liza,

Thursday was a slow day for me. I didn’t have much energy and felt a little sad most of the day.

I had my art class with Ruth Inman, and we worked on our concertina books.
We laid down some more black and white collage, and then added a tree, dabbing on color for the fall leaves.

I am not very happy with my tree at the moment. It looks clunky and wrong, but Auntie Bridgett says I should let it sit for a few days. Sometimes a piece that turns out differently than you expected looks ‘bad’ because it doesn’t match what was in your mind. So I will let it be and figure it out later.

I did language practice in the afternoon and then Bridgett suggested that we all go for a walk to Monster Smash, our favorite burger place. It was just about 5:00 and warm (and dry) for January, so we headed off. The sky was so pretty and the neighborhood so pleasant, it made me forget about not liking the tree for a while.

Maybe I’ll have another look at it tomorrow.

Love,

Grandma Judy