Prompt Stomp: Lights

Tags

Boston, Cee's Photo Challenge, Christmas lights, dahlia, Delight, gratitude, Hawaii, Light, photography, photos, Sunset

“I want to see 3-5 photos, showing us what lights up your life.” This is the challenge from The Hood: MLJ Photos. Cee was participating and inspired me to join this challenge.

I struggle with depression and the darkness of December in Wisconsin can be a challenge of a different kind. Last winter I stumbled across the idea of looking for delight in the light to be found in this darkness. Of course the light of my life is captured in this fun holiday light extravaganza and is the perfect place to start this journey.

We are not big on decorating our house with a lot of Christmas lights, but for the past few years we have gone to these outdoor lights festivals as part of our holiday celebrating. I have enjoyed playing around with trying to capture the lights and with getting interesting effects with photography of lights while on a horse-drawn carriage ride.

If you have been following my blog for any length of time you know that I love flowers. I paint them, doodle them and photograph them. I am learning that natural lighting can be such an asset and can be the upside of insomnia. Now when I can’t sleep on a weekend morning I wake up my husband and we jump in the car to get some early morning photos of beautiful place. I love the earth sculpture labyrinth that was home to this dewy blossom.

My younger son is going to college in Boston. The first time we went there with him I fell in love with a lot of the architecture. The library had such fabulous ironwork and I particularly loved these light fixtures.

On that same trip I took a self-portrait that I was quite happy with and it involved the light fixture in the beautiful old hotel we were staying in.

Last winter I was so very fortunate to go to Hawaii to see one of my good friends get married. The light in Hawaii was so lovely. I could post 20 photos of it to demonstrate it, however given the limits of this challenge I will only post this one. We were watching for the green flash as the sun went down. I didn’t see it, but certainly enjoyed the time to focus on the sunset. That was one of the things that I really loved. Every night crowds of people stop to watch the sun set. That doesn’t happen in small town Wisconsin. Aloha.

What brings you delight? I hope you have a beautiful day.

Cards and Cats

Tags

100 Mandalas, art journal, cats, Darkness, flowers, Francis Bacon, get well cards, gratitude, gratitude journal, Light, stencils

This page layout has been a while in the making, mainly because I haven’t been up to doing a whole lot of art lately. This is a collage of my sketches for my last mandala and the cards that friends have sent since I have not been feeling well. I loved the happy flowers from one of the cards and continued a flower motif and because it is my gratitude journal I used the cat stencil I made to put cats all over.

It has a quote by Francis Bacon that isn’t super legible in the photo but it says:

In order for the light to shine so brightly, the darkness must be present.

Seemed fitting for this time of year and what has been going on. I wish you peace and beauty.

Windows and Light

Tags

100 Mandalas, Altered book, art journal, Carl von Marr, collage, gratitude, Light, Museum of Wisconsin Art

I have fallen behind in my Journal 52 posts what with life and travels and all. The funny thing was that for the week 6 challenge: Windows, I had a couple of things in the works that really synchronized well with this concept. I found this stained glass tutorial a while ago and had some photos of the stained glass windows from the Gleensheen Mansion in Duluth from our trip there at Christmas, but that took a back seat to what unfolded in the course of that week for me.

I have become friends with the new Executive Director for our local Arts Center. She and I had planned to go to the Museum of Wisconsin Art in West Bend after picking out some art to upcycle for a contest we are planning to enter. Another artist who is new to the area joined us for the day and we had so much fun! I discovered the art of Carl von Marr in the collection. This dude understood light! His paintings are like a mashup of Rembrandt and Monet. I bought postcards of 2 of his paintings, The Flagellants (1889) and another one that I can’t find the name to and you can see what I did to the post card so I can’t read what it was called. The windows on the museum are really lovely and I also purchased a post card of the building.

and then… I used my die cut machine to cut the post cards into shapes for a Light Mandala and a Window page. The window page ended up a little bit busy, but I like the textures of the original photo too much to cover all the way up. I really enjoy constructing mandalas out of layers of meaning and materials.

The little mandala in the upper left corner is made using layers of organza ribbon and cloth machine-sewed into a more substantial fabric and then cut into a mandala and hand sewn to the page. I have been playing around with organza and its not quite where I envision it yet, but I wanted to document the progress. I hope you enjoy this bit of butterflies and cats flitting about in the sunshine and sitting in a window.

Here is a closeup of the mandalas

The deep dark winter days can help me appreciate the warmth that is only hinted at by our boreal sun. It holds the promise of butterflies and transformation. In the meantime, I’ll curl up with a good book and a cat or two or go see some fabulous art with new friends. What has the light illuminated for you this week?