The Bundles Unwrapped

 But first -- this is the second post I've started that way.  Why?  Well the images of papers that have been out in the elements all winter isn't nearly as nice to look at as this so first --

This painting reminds me of my favorite season.  I don't do watercolors like this anymore but that's a topic for another post.  For now, the bundles.

Last fall I wrapped some papers around two 8x8" and one 4x4"canvas panels, partially covered them with beeswax paper that I have for who knows what reason and set them out by my birdfeeder. I promptly forgot about them.  

In January I was filling my feeder. We had a thaw and the bundles were visible so I brought them in and unwrapped them.  This is what I found.

Wonderful collage fodder! That inspired me to wrap up more papers, we were still going to have more winter.  This time I put a note in my April calendar.  "Bring in the bundles that you put behind the garage, east side."  So when we got back from our trip south I brought them in. This time the paper was wrapped around 6x6" pieces, one a cradled gesso board and one canvas.  More wonderful collage fodder and two substrates already started.

The wood panel and papers

The canvas panel and papers

I've made a note on my September calendar -- "Do bundles and put them behind the garage."  This is as much fun as echo dying which is a summer project for getting interesting papers.  

And summer is coming -- eventually.

Back To The Challenge But First

 My new travel journal.

We headed south for a short break from the cold and I took along a small concertina sketchbook.  Normally I do postcards and/or take lots of photos with the intention of putting them in separate travel journal once home.  The last part rarely happens.  

This year I had intended to do some collage with ephemera collected along the way.  That didn't happen.  Instead I ended up doing what I normally do on postcards but the sketches are already in the sketchbook. I believe this will be my new form of travel sketchbook.  I can make it with a page a day for however many days we will be away.  Perfect. Here are a few more pages. Some still need color but I've made color notes or taken photos so that can be added.

I've already added the color to the fish that were everywhere at the Thirsty Turtle, an excellent place for seafood in Port St. Lucie, FL

And now, back home and back to the #100daychallenge -- this is a new old piece that got put away because I had no clue what to do with it.  It now has three new layers.  The last one being some collage, papers that I unwrapped yesterday.  More on that after the challenge piece.

The black scribble was the first new layer followed by the graphite scribbles.  The graphite scribbles were done with my new carpenter's mechanical pencil.  Love it, the pencil that is.  And today I added collage in the lower right corner.  That's some of the paper I unwrapped yesterday from the bundles I had put out behind our garage last December.  Here are the bundles unwrapped...

And now I think I'm caught up and hopefully will get back on track.  I've been trying to post every week but traveling got in the way.