Wednesday, March 30, 2016

It's a Spring Thing

We know it's springtime in Arizona when the winds pick up. The desert palo verde tree blooms are sent every which way and the fine citizens of Phoenix are sent rushing for antihistamines.
Just about everything native to around here blooms bright yellow--the palo verdes, brittlebush, creosote--with an occasional pink thrown in for contrast.
The last thing to bloom will be the ancient ironwood trees with the palest of lavender flowers come May. They are my favorite as they signal the beginning of summer. And they're NOT yellow!
Our grapefruits are yellow with a pink blush as they are, in fact, PINK grapefruit. And our oranges are, well, ORANGE!

A Small Portion of Last Year's Crop
[Warning: this is blatant self-promotion!]
Which brings me to...the theme for this week's Two by Two challenge is: "ORANGE!"
I'm not going to cheese out and re-use an image, so this is just a tease! Please consider playing along!

Last week's IAST had an egg-shaped string in honor of Easter, but as I wrote to Adele Bruno, all I was seeing was LEMONS!

I drew [the] egg string diagonally and it turned out looking like a lemon. I put the Warped Egg in as I did and it all looked like an Angry Bird and I really had "lemon" on my mind. I still have several yet on my tree and it recently bloomed. So Mel Mel turned into a giant lemon blossom. When I started adding color pencil to it, the middle turned into a suggestion of a butterfly. I kept to a pastel palette as a nod to the Easter theme and added the yellow as I was really stuck on having a "lemon!"


IAST 137
Adele also came out with a new tangle she calls, "Citrus." Lemons, oranges and grapefruits...oh, MY! It continues the fruity theme which I used for the Diva Challenge this week. The objective from guest blogger Jane Reiter is to stack a bunch of borders around a central piece. I started with a Citrus zinchie and a whole bunch of art stuff. I was most pleased with the Sakura Glaze pen in clear drawn on black paper (the outermost border); it has great dimension but doesn't show up very well.

Citrus

Can you see the Border?
It was quite a project; the list of art stuff is long and varied and it took the better part of two days to complete. It was worth the effort and I'd do it again. The process kind of elevates the drawings to "real" artwork since it creates its own frame.

SOME of the Materials
Used in the Making of
Citrus
I took Adele's IAST for this week to good use for the twinchie challenge (and because I had a lot of my art stuff out. Still have to do the actual String Thing challenge!).

Orange you Glad?
While I was waiting for the paint to dry, I put this together for the Inchie Challenge. The EIM word of the week is "Peanuts."


That would be Charlie Brown's sweater, Lucy Van Pelt's sign, some dry roasted peanuts and Mr. Peanut going ice skating from a label for trail mix (caramels, raisins, peanuts, oh, my!).

Thanks for stopping by. I'm thrilled that you do and I'm honored for your time spent with me. I'm glad that my tutorial on composition was so well received last week--promises to become the most often read post I've written thus far! (My writing teachers would be so proud and I'm sure quite amazed).

And if you come to visit, you will most certainly leave with some citrus. It's a bumper crop of pinkies this year and plenty of oranges, too, still. Dew drop in!




24 comments:

  1. I am green with envy, I just love pink grapefruit, and have just eaten one for dessert. If I didn't live in the UK, I would be popping in to help you eat them. Love all the work this week, great inchies and tangles.

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    1. Glad you like the work I put in this week, Wendy! I wish you were here to help out with the fruit and that you were hungry! Nothing like fresh-picked citrus! c

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  2. You made me miss my mom's orange tree. They were the best ever. Wonderful tangly pieces. I love the layers where you split the tangle between two tiers. Super nice!

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    1. Come 'n get some oranges! They taste like candy this year, awesome! Glad you liked how I did that--took some effort, but it worked out nicely, didn't it?

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  3. So envious as we may have spring but we have some cold cold temperatures in our near future (there is this thing called a polar vortex) your crops look lovely and I don't have allergies so maybe I should move south. Four great inchies - I really like the charlie brown stripe and lucy's doctors box.

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    1. Dear Kia, come on down! I know what you mean about that polar vortex thing--it blew in when I was visiting my mom last. 29 below, freezing ocean water. Quite something, probably the most compelling reason for me to no longer reside in New England. Glad you liked my choices! c

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    1. Danke, Annemarie! Glad you had the time to stop by. c

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  5. LOve all the works. I really love the details in your citrus and all of the inchies!

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    1. Thank you very much, Free! I worked very diligently on that project. Gotta relax so I can heal, so it does truly serve a purpose. c

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  6. Lots n lots...love pink grapefruit & blood oranges but way too cold here to grow them! I did wonder about the yellow & black square on the EIM site but it all became obvious later when I came here - a clever selection!

    Sally

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    1. Glad I could keep you guessing, Sally. You never know where I might take these ideas...I was thinking about a jazz song, "Salt Peanuts," but didn't know how to go about that one! Sorry I can't ship ya some Arizona sunshine, oranges or otherwise! c

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  7. I like your first tile - it's so shiny and gives me a feeling of spring :-)
    Your stacked tiles for the diva challenge are also great. I love Tipple and your citrus in the center is sweet.

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    1. Thanks so much, Sandra, glad you liked what I did this week! c

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  8. Your stacked "Ode to Citrus" is great, lovely work.

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    1. Thank you very much, Daniele. The process does need to be revisited, I think there could be cousins of Citrus popping up somewhere! c

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  9. Beautiful work! I love the colors!!!

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    1. Much appreciated, Anja, thanks for stopping by! c

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  10. Beautiful Diva piece-love the colors!

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    1. Thanks so much, Michele! I was trying to channel the citrus I grow, which have such pretty colors! c

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  11. The amount of effort and the amount of supplies you needed to complete the guest Diva's stacked tile challenge explains why I "cheated" and did faux stacked tiles. However, I think your final product justifies the time you spent. It is quite lovely.

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    1. You are too kind, Suzanne! You know? The thought of faking it never even crossed my mind. I was going to do it and do it the "right" way, although I started with an inchie, so the whole thing is much smaller than the challenge posed. Next time, I might have to approach the idea from out-of-the-box! c

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