As with any project I am working on over a period of time, I start dreaming about what the end result might be. Sometimes I dream many different concepts, and other times I get stuck on just one. This project has been no different. Over the past month the tree has evolved as many times in my dreams as it has in reality. And, so often I believe that even when I’m not actually focused on a problem, project, idea or etc, my brain somewhere is still working on it. I’m sure a lot of artists could relate, and perhaps you can too, even if you don’t think of yourself as an artist.
“At the birth of the word “art,” it was a verb that meant “to put things together.” It was not a product but a process(3) that Eric Booth writes about in his book, The Everyday Work of Art: How Artistic Experience Can Transform Your Life.
It is interesting how we change word meanings for a length of time. I firmly believe anyone can work through the art process to create something wonderful. I taught an art class this past fall. My 25 students ran in age from three-6 year old girls, to teens, and adults: male and female, moms and dads, grandparents. Some thought of themselves as artists, some worked in the arts field, while others swore they couldn’t do art for anything. With just a few basic instructions, showing the process, they were able to learn how to create in the simplest of ways. By the end of the session, each and every person had created a piece of work all their own.
This tree has been begging for something. What that something was, I just did not know. Until one night- it was one of those nights where the insomnia was so bad, I thought I’d see the sun rise. At the point of lingering between sleep and not, flowers came to the forefront of my mind with this tree. It needed flowers! The flowers would show the blooming of all the art mediums that this genetic family of mine played in.
After the initial idea, I jumped into pinterest to see what types of paper flowers I could come up with. As I was looking through, I wasn’t thrilled with what I was finding. I didn’t want them to have a “scrapbook” appearance. In fact, I am not much of a scrapbooker anyway. My other thought was that those flowers could become very heavy, very fast. And, my tree’s branches of reeds might not sustain them. That’s when I came across these beautiful tissue paper flowers! I recall making them as a kid in Sunday school class, and in regular school as well. I finally found a few bloggers who had touched on the subject. I found one in particular that I decided to use. Michelle Dupuis the creator of Rust & Sunshine ( http://rustsunshine.blogspot.com ) posted a tutorial on making five real to life paper tissue flowers. Her directions were superb, and very easy to follow. I choose to follow the instructions for Dahlias. I chose them for two reasons, the first is that Gerberas and Dahlias are the two brightest flowers I can think of… next being Glads! And secondly I could make them two tone bursts of vibrant color.
Mindfully Artistic 