Seed of Life

One of my new favorite art forms are the botanical illustrations on seed packets, especially these lovely ones from Renee's Gardens and Botanical Interests.



Before I started planting things from seed, I never thought much about the various shapes of seeds and how that is yet another way that you can see how various plants are related to each other.



These spiky guys are beet seeds but then if you look at the seeds for Swiss chard, they are the same shape so you know these two plants, which I wouldn't have thought were related, are in the same family.



My new favorite plant family is the Brassicas with these little dark round seeds. These are comprised of fast growing leafy greens like collards, kale, cabbage, broccoli raab, bok choy, etc. Not only are the seeds similar looking, the starts, when they first emerge from the soil, also begin life similarly. But what I really love about Brassicas is how easy they are to grow and how good they are to eat and good for you.

Jill of All Trades

If I had to count up all the various hobbies or skills I've tried to cultivate over the years in search of "the thing at which I'm effortlessly brillant," I'm not sure how long the list would be. Let's see. It would include ceramics, Chinese calligraphy, Chinese painting, photography, watercolors, drawing, silk screening, stamping, card making, computer graphics, knitting, crocheting, snorkeling, scuba diving, surfing, volleyball, running, kayaking, and now biking and gardening. The negative side of me would say I've got adult ADD but the positive spin would be that I have a Renaissance spirit.



The latest incarnation takes the form of collage. Collage is a pretty low key investment. All you need are some images, paper, glue, some kind of sealer, and sharp scissors and you're set. I took the class through ArtEast, an artists' cooperative in Issaquah, WA: http://arteast-education.org/MM_MixedMediaCollage.aspx I decided to do my collages in remembrance of my trip to Paris last winter, mixing up some of my mementos along with some pictures that the instructor had. At the end of the day, I'm not sure what the difference is between collage as art and scrapbooking as hobby but nevertheless, it was fun to give it a whirl.

Missed Connections

I love Sophie Blackwell's idea of using Missed Connections posts as inspiration for her whimsical watercolors. On her site, also called Missed Connections, she calls these ads the modern day equivalent of "smoke signals" or "messages in a bottle"... sad, hopeless, yet ultimately hopeful.

What really caught my eye about this particular drawing was the hat the man is wearing. About 5 years ago, I spent a month teaching English in Kyrgyzstan, and it was one of those places for which I as well as just about everyone I knew had little to no context for. In fact, I referred to being on "Planet Kyrgyzstan" and my co-worker Thom who's really a beekeeper masquerading as a singer masquerading as a ceramics instructor always referred to it as "Fill-in-the-blankistan." How fabulous that years later, there'd be a traditional Kyrgiz hat in a rendering of a Missed Connections ad!