I took some pictures of bugs and bees in amongst the sweet peas that grown with the day lilies. It was great. The wild flax has popped as has our yucca plant which is mainly yucka until the week it holds forth in showy bridal finery. It has been a clear day with mild temperatures and low humidity. We had to buy a brand new pair of scare eyes for the dock. The plastic owl has worked thus far, keeping the pooping by the seagulls to a minimum. But one of the gulls has gotten smart..so the pooping begins again. They hate, really hate the scare eyes..So we are golden. Bought five big astilbes for the Camp House as the deer hate these along with the robust patch of monarda we have going that will need to be split and moved around next year. All good.
Am mulling the children's book. I was doing a ton of research yesterday (have a grid going of the things that could be represented for each color along with quotes, proverbs etc.) and surprisingly, the more I did of the search, the more this idea needed ia twist. It also needed a name. It was hard to name it as it was so bland...It was going stale before I even started to draw. What was it? Hmmm. Then I remembered that Rossetti poem and the whole thing popped into place.I am going the merge the Christina Rosetti poem "What is Pink?" with spreads representing the color she introduces (essentially her poem references pink and is the first spread --then the next spread references a la specimen box, tons of other stuff she missed about pink). Pink, red, yellow, green, red, purple, blue. Then, I am going to render the layouts 3-4 ways--first one vector a la portfolio, second is vector reduced palette a la Chokers, third is Memento mori line/ink technique, and final is no holds barred line work..lots of detail. The layouts will change the various sizes of the designs, will push me with these techniques which I feel I need and work within a format that will be interesting to see what happens. Maybe this could be blown into the thesis. Now I am pumped as it is a tangible project that I get to push myself with technique while designing for the technique in the appropriate shape/size. I think we are to have layouts for the Lewin's to review next July, but maybe I can have one iteration by November? Its worth the shot. I think I can get some traction on this.
I discovered in my research, something that would help to gel the "Dancing Queen" Marie Antoinette picture. I remembered the painting of the young (8 yrs old or so) MA dancing stiffly with her little brother and thought that might be a nice inspiration...or a silhouette or something. So, I googled Marie Antoinette Dancing and up came something better--Dance notation on dance sets of the time. Combine that with some learning from Harry Clarke could be cool. Fun.