Maria writes:
This tangle arrived in a round-about manner as I was sitting on our (indoor) porch (that used to be an outdoor porch. . .) and admiring the simple, elegant beauty of the off-white bead board surrounding me.
Rick and I originally chose it because there was bead board in other parts of the house (built around 1875) and it was still in great shape. The light hitting the boards at different angles was inspiring. I have been wanting to do more work on black tiles, as I tend to automatically grab a square white tile by habit. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I wanted to revisit some techniques only available on the black tiles.
I began putting down the boards, it seeming to go smoother and faster than with the black micron, the filling easier, with much more drama than the black on white.
I started experimenting with how the boards were separated with one space, two spaces, three spaces, etc.
I drew a line, aura-ed it, skipped a space, then another pair of lines and repeated that sequence. Then I colored in the larger space. This gave the feel of bead boards. BUT, in the bathroom, there were two other styles of bead boards, one with three lines in between and one with four!
It does not end up like you think it will. On the 4 line image, I actually drew in some beads . . . how could I not? (A gentle nod to our dear friend Carole Ohl, CZT, who taught me some basic beading techniques).
Then I started bending the boards, creasing them to form origami-like structures. Curving and winding them around and out, mixing and matching the different styles. A nice afternoon was had by moi!
THEN, I happened to have (of course) a mail order catalog nearby (did you know they are like spiders . . . you are never more than three feet from them?) with pumpkins and such things on the covers of course. And, voila! A gourd-like image began to appear before me, like magic.
They were curling this way and that, in and out, skinny and fat . . . there was no stopping me!
I happen to like gourds (the funkier the better) much better than pumpkins, perhaps because I don't care much for the color orange, and that they get thrown into the street and roll down the hill after paying a good sum for a nice big one, but . . . I digress!
After a while, the gourds began to cluster, in a wonderful
hollibaugh dance, coming alive like in "Fantasia" where the ballerina hippos meet the dancing broomsticks . . .
Wow, it was awesome . . .
. . . all GOURDGEOUS and voluptuous.
