Live Simply

I was reminded by a couple of Facebook posts that Autumn is on the horizon. I do love the fall season; here in the low country it starts when the kids go back to school and most of the tourists go home. That is when we get our beaches and roads back. Although the weather still says "summer" it is the beginning of autumn.

My younger sister lives in Florida, for her autumn never really comes. It is hot and hot and flat and boring. Adding insult to injury when the official summer season ends in Florida all the millions of snowbirds come back and crowd her beaches and roads. It is a lose-lose situation for full time Floridians. My older sister lives in Iowa. She has no tourists, except the ones who get lost on their way to the middle of nowhere. The summers can be unbearably hot there too without any sea breezes, that and a constant threat of tornadoes, no thanks. When autumn comes, so does winter; and winters are BAD. They are both happy with their choice of homes and that is all that matters. Me? I gladly tolerate my few months of hot and humid in order to enjoy the wonderful autumn, winter and spring in Pawleys Island.

In honor of the upcoming season I took out my box of Halloween and Thanksgiving goodies. I was thinking pumpkins. I might be having my first art exhibition the end of October. Actually, it is a craft fair, but still the first time I put my work out in public, therefore it is an exhibit. Because it will be the end of October, I know people will be in the mood for the Holidays, so I created a small canvas (5x7) with pumpkins as the focal point. I paid a pretty penny to get a booth at this craft fair, so I need to make sure I sell something to fund my coming-out party.

I stamped this Penny Black cling on watercolor paper with Ranger Archival, heat set with clear embossing powder and colored it with copic markers. I don't own a lot of copic markers, because they are very expensive, but I had the right colors to make the pumpkins. Then I fussy cut them.

For my background I adhered some colorful, autumnesque patterned papers to my canvas with matte medium. The canvas was very pretty with all the paper, but as one of my instructors says "you must be willing to let go of your background", I knew it would be short-lived.

I proceeded to cover it with brown and cream acrylic paint diluted with a gloss medium, I painted a tree trunk, branches, fence and filled in the background with trees, leaves, sky and grass. Then I adhered the pumpkins and worked them in with more paint; lastly I added a piece of dress pattern that had been stamped with a hymn music. A little shading here and there, a word sticker, some white pen highlights and it was done.

I like it. Thanks for stopping by. If you liked this write-up follow me by email, so you don't miss an episode of this life in the Back 30.