T Stands for Breakfast and Art Supplies

In mid-September be took a ride to the cemetery to visit my parents. On the way home, we usually stop at Cracker Barrel for breakfast. I was also looking forward to poking around their gift shop for Halloween decorations.

Imagine my surprise when I saw all the Christmas things out!

The first thing I asked for was a cup of tea. They have new mugs which I didn't really like as they are quite heavy.

Silverware was packaged in a narrow paper bag.

The paper bag is the perfect size to make a Weathergram. I was tickled to think you get art supplies along with your meal.

I had scrambled eggs with bacon and Stuffed Cheesecake Pancakes with strawberries and

a side of grits.

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Clematis. I hope they survive the Winter.

Calli wants to play with her bunny friend

Mrs. K, can Calli come out to play?

Leaves starting to fall

and to turn color

Summer

flowers

still hanging

 on

Blustery winds and rain didn't take the weathergram away

Another week for this garden flag

The Watcher

Weathergram for the Autumnal Equinox

 

For the insert for the Modern Storybook Script envelope exchange, I included a weathergram. A weathergram is a small work of art done on a 10" x 2 1/2" strip of Kraft paper or paper bag. It's meant to be hung outside from a solstice to equinox or equinox to solstice.  It's meant to weather, become one with nature, and ephemeral. Weathergrams were introduced to the US by Oregon calligrapher, Lloyd Reynolds back in the late 1970's. They are based on an Oriental tradition.

"Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower" - Camus

I wish Autumn was a second Summer.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I was going to go out this morning and take a couple of pictures, but it's still too early and too wet. There have been a half dozen or so cases of EEE (Eastern Equine Encephalitis) in Massachusetts. One person has died from the disease carried by mosquitoes. There has been aerial spraying of my area during the last couple of weeks at night. A lot of towns have cancelled outdoor activities from 6 pm until 8 am.  We had some heavy downpours last night, too.

Fading hydrangea blossom

Leaves turning red on the swamp maple

A late bloomer on the squash plant

The bird feeder doing a good business. The birds were coming in like the feeder was an airport. Timex, the chipmunk showed up, too.

Two of Cinnamon's babies, Cadbury and Marzipan, came right up to the stairs outside of the sun room for a snack. One of them ran away as I slowly opened the slider and screen to take a picture. Not this little guy or gal.

How does your garden grow?

What's A Garden Kite?

I was recently asked what in the world is a garden kite? A garden kite is my take on Lloyd Reynold's Weathergrams. Traditional weathergrams have too many rules for me.

Garden kites are meant to be ephemeral and I like to hang them  outside so I can watch them flutter in my Zensical garden. The kites begin life as Kraft paper or brown paper bags. I'll sometimes ask for my groceries to be put into a brown paper bag or I save the brown paper that is sometimes used as packing material. For ephemera, I'm amazed at how long Kraft paper will weather outside.

I cut the Kraft paper to 5 .5 inches square (or 13.97 cm) I like this size, but you can choose a size that appeals to you. Holes are punched for the hang cord and a tail for the kite. I use a reinforcement for a little bit of stability.

I don't use a particular layout except that a design of some sort will go in the middle. When I make a garden kite for myself, I'm not very fussy. You can use whatever materials you like. Sometimes I write with a Sharpie pen. I don't bother to rule up lines, but just write out whatever sentiment I've chosen.

 Here I've written with a 1 mm. Pilot Parallel Pen using Moon Palace Sumi ink. The sumi ink doesn't bleed or feather on the Kraft paper and doesn't run when it gets wet.

Any writing is done first and then some sort of drawing goes in the middle. 

 Himself got a new wallet with a Celtic knot dragon embossed on it. The Young One is fond of dragons so I copied the design. I drew it on tracing paper and transferred it to the brown paper using Saral Transfer paper.. I went over the Saral lines with the Sharpie pen.

Red is her favorite color and I used colored pencils to color in the design.

I don't bother to seal the design. As I said, I'm surprised how long the kites hold up in the weather. For the kite tail I use 6 strand embroidery floss in various colors as that is what I have on hand.. You can use whatever you like to make a kite tail: yarn, ribbon, thread.

I didn't have the right shade of red embroidery floss so used some red cotton crochet thread. A piece of tie for a hang cord, and the kite is ready to be put outside.

The Friday Five Good Things

Five good things that happened this week.

1. Made waffles with almond flour and had breakfast for supper. The waffles were pretty good.

2. Finally got to use the Outback restaurant gift card. Every time we went, the restaurant had either closed the location or the wait time was over an hour.

3. We survived the heavy downpours from Tropical Storm Florence. Other areas around us weren't so lucky.

4. I decided I would participate in Inktober. I found an empty, small, Strathmore Visual Journal to use.

5. I helped a friend with a computer problem, and she called me her hero

How was your week?

Garden Kites

I wanted something else for the Zensical garden. Something fun. I thought I'd like something like a Weathergram or a Tibetan prayer flag. Something that would bring a little movement into the garden.

Weathergrams are written on a 10 inch long by 2.5 inch strip of craft paper or paper bag. Two inches at the top of the strip is folded over with a hole punched in the folded portion. A piece of twine is looped through the hole and tied to a tree or support. A short poem or quote is written on the strip. The first letter of the poem or quote is usually written with vermillion ink. The Weathergram is hung outside from a Solstice to an Equinox or vice versa. If it survives the elements, fine, and if it doesn't that's fine, too.

The Tibetan prayer flags are written on special colored papers or cloth. Blue, white, red, green, and yellow. To represent the elements. (Sky/space, Air/wind, Fire, Water, and Earth. There are also special symbols on the papers. The prayers and thoughts written will be blown by the wind to spread good will to all space.

So something fun. No rules, could be hung out in the elements for however long it lasts (hopefully longer than an hour), and would biodegrade. Well, not too many rules. (-;

I had some brown lunch bags ( Kraft paper), cheap and sturdy. I cut the top and sides off. The top of the bag had a built in fold. The bag measures 5 .25 inches across so I thought I would use a square piece. Except the square might look like laundry when it's hung outside so I decided to hang it like a diamond.

Writing was done with sumi ink which is supposed to be waterproof. Illustrations were colored in using colored pencils.

The first, was written as a thanks for The Eldest finding a good job after many months of searching. From the Irish Blessing: May your hands always have work to do.

The second was written during an art Skype date with my friend, A. When we are able, we chat over Skype and work on small art projects. I met A. 19 years ago through Masscribes, the Massachusetts and Rhode Island calligraphy guild. We became fast friends, and I'm grateful for her friendship. From the Girl Scout song: Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold.

Pleased with how they turned out, they seemed a bit bare. I have a box of embroidery floss from the days when I embroidered samples for a woman in town who had a needleshop. The embroidery floss turns the plain into a fun, kite tail.

Oh, holes for the floss and twine were reinforced with reinforcement labels for a bit of stability. If/when the paper disintigrates, the twine and the floss will be picked up by birds and critters for their nests.

Not sure what to call these things. Gardengrams? Garden Flags? Garden Wishes? Garden Kites? Anybody? Anybody? Bueller?

Weathergram

A weathergram is a small work of art done on a 10" x 2 1/2" strip of Kraft paper or paper bag. It's meant to be hung outside from a solstice to solstice or equinox to equinox. It's meant to weather, become one with nature, and ephemeral. Weathergrams were introduced to the US by Oregon calligrapher, Lloyd Reynolds back in the late 1970's. They are based on an Oriental tradition.

Traditional weathergrams have a short poem or quote written on them. The topic usually is something to do with weather or nature. The poem begins with a versal, usually in red, freely written Italic and the artist includes his/her chop.

The weathergram pictured is not traditional. (I rarely make traditional weathergrams). It was made in memory of Ann of the Tassels who passed away last month after a long battle with breast cancer. Her family has requested them and they will be displayed in the family yard. Ann would have liked that.

Like most calligraphers, I first met Ann through Cyberscribes, an online calligraphy discussion group. I had the pleasure of meeting her in person at Odyssey 2001, the international calligraphy conference in Boston, Massachusetts and again at Legacies 2005 in Dallas, Texas. The weathergram captures my first impression of Ann. She was such a free spirit. Her red hair was quite short except for a small braid at the nape of her neck. The weathergram reads "Free Spirit" done in Cardinal Red Ziller's Ink, Weaver Writing using a Nikko G nib.