Transitions - Jennifer's Entries

Ready?...Brace yourselves...

Basking in the Fenland sun...

Wonderful!

CLICK IMAGES TO ENLARGE

Multitude is in Maine

Nina's Maruman just arrived at my home in Maine. Of course, her work is even more beautiful in real life and I now have the dubious task of adding to it...

Soon, I will have to figure out a plan for my ten pages in Multitude before I send it on to Anita, but for just a moment I am going to enjoy it's beauty.

Transitions Has Arrived

Wooohoo, Jennifer's book arrived this morning and brought the sunshine with it, giving me the chance to photograph outside in the garden.
Lots more pics for you to see, including the amazing contents...Will upload once I've finished scanning.
(These folding sketchbooks are NOT easy to scan!) LOL!

You can relax now Jennifer, 'Transitions' is a little bent and dented from her journey but other than that she seems to have survived the ordeal and is glowing.

A Taste Of Home - My Entries

Thank you Margaret, so pleased it arrive safely.

You can see more pictures of my entries on my Flickr account HERE.

A Picture...

... is Worth A Thousand Words."

How True! :)

I can't wait to get started in this beautiful book of Anita's

which arrived here in desert of Arizona this very morning

after only 6 days travel from the Fens in England.

So,

sit back, get a "cuppa", and just enjoy!

"She's..."

GONE!

"Gone like a freight-train, gone like yesterday,

Gone like a soldier in the civil war, bang bang!

Gone like a '59 Cadillac...

Like all the good things

that ain't never coming back,

She's gone...! "

But...unlike the song... my "Journey" will eventually return home.

Nina now anxiously awaits her in Sweden,

and I sit here in the desert night

just reflecting and thinking

about how wonderful this all is!

Ah-h-h-h.

My artspace sits calmly now, awaiting the possibilities of a new day

and the arrival of a very special package from England.

"Gone" by Montgomery Gentry from the You Do Your Thing Album

And off it went!

This yellow mailbox swallowed my Maruman yesterday, it´s on it´s way to Jennifer in USA!

Ready to send to Anita

One more peek before I send.

I couldn't send it without some sort of cover. So this AM, in between family activities, I managed to throw something together. It is being packaged and shipped today.

It's gone!

'A Taste of Home' has left The Fens and started it's long journey to Arizona to stay with Margaret for a while.

Fingers crossed!

"A Few Little Peeks Before Packing..."

...up my little Maruman friend

"Journey."

This week she begins her international travel adventures...

Flying

5,427 miles from her home in Arizona

and crossing the deep blue seas of the North Atlantic.

First stamp in her passport....Nina in Sweden.

Ahhh...

What joy and excitement "Journey" must feel!
Wish I could go with her! :)

A Taste Of Home Is Ready To Fly

Spent some time finishing my 10 pages in my Maruman today and now it's all ready to fly over and get a 'taste' of Margaret's home between it's pages.



This is going to be nerve wracking waiting for them to arrive at their destinations!

Multitude is ready to travel

Another sneak peek from my own pages in my book. I´m ready to send this baby off to Jennifer now. I can feel it is anxious to get going. :)

A little Bit More

A peek into my second spread in the little folding Maruman entitled 'A Taste of Home'.
Just one more spread to do now. Been in Coltishall this week but hope to find some time this weekend if I can decide what to paint!

Maruman X "Transitions" peek

Here is a peek at two of the ten pages in my Maruman called "Transitions". I have finished all ten pages and I am ready to pack it up and send it to Anita.

Sneak peek in Multitude

These are two of my first four and a half pages in my Maruman called Multitude. I go around with a "multitude-lens" before my eyes and draw what I think fits the theme, and something completely different from this has caught my eye today so the rest of my ten pages will be something utterly non-botanical... ;)

I have re-opened my box of Kremer pigment watercolours recently, and I used them for these particular pages. These colours are very unlike any other watercolours I have tried, with a lot of funny behaviours that you can´t really predict... If you are curious about them, I´ve written a bit more about them on my own blog.

"And So I begin..."

It has been said:

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

Lao-tzu 604 BC-531 BC

So in that light, my first step is

to introduce you to JOURNEY my little Maruman friend,

born from and centered around the quote:

"I go to Nature to be soothed

and have my senses put in tune once again."

-John Burroughs

Journey's theme or central focus will be zen-botanical...

keeping her open to historical, realistic or

imaginary floral/botanical journeys of the artistic spirit.

I hope you will each enjoy this new adventure of ours

and have your spirits renewed

as we journey together 17,566 miles across the seas

and

into our imaginations.

Relaxed Beginnings

A little teaser of my first spread in my Maruman entitled 'A Taste Of Home'.

So pleased to have started, once I did the subject choices were almost instinctive in this first batch and I felt quite relaxed as I sketched my way through four and a half pages.

Here's hoping the other six and a half go as smoothly.

I'm off and running...

This is a peek at my Maruman X project titled "Transitions". I have not done a cover and may not get to that before I have to ship. We'll see...

Summer is a very busy time here in Maine. After our long, cold, dark winters, summers always seem to be one big celebration. Next Wednesday my family arrives from California. A good old fashion family reunion. Let's hope it doesn't rain. There will be little time for this project so I am on it, now!

Multitude front cover

So, here it is. I decided to follow Anita´s example and just dive into this project head first and start posting here at the same time. My Maruman is still empty, but I named it, and the title is for all participants to interpret exactly as they wish. I will not give any directions or wishes for this book, I just want it to have a life of it´s own, and let all participating artists fill it with the thoughts and subjects they have in mind. The only theme is the word "multitude".

Now I need to get started filling my own first pages in it. Ooh, this is going to be so exciting - I can´t wait until I get my hands on the other Marumans in this exchange... :)

A Theme

Woohoo, we're off!

Now I finally have my Maruman I've been staring at it with a blank expression wondering what to put in it...That's been harder than I thought it would be.
Today I set myself the task of making a start and put my theme down in print!

With each Maruman travelling so many miles I thought it would be nice to see a little of the destinations planned for it. My theme; 'A Taste of Home' will hopefully provide me with a flavour of each stop it makes before it returns to me here in England.

I was lucky in the respect that the Maruman cover is duck egg blue, a colour that trickles through my home with it's chalky delicacy, so I decided to use up some of the fabric samples and beads from soft furnishings that help to make my home the soft, tranquil place I love for my cover treatment.

Now, cover all sorted, theme officially decided, I'd better make a start on some artwork to fill it with.