journaling with pressed flowers

My daughter got me a book called "Artful Blogging" put out by Sumerset Studios. It speaks of blogging as a form of journaling, keeping in touch with self as well as others. When I'm taking walks at the cabin, I collect plant material to keep track of what is blooming on any given weekend. So, looking back thru my hard copy journal I took pictures of the pressed plant material. You can't read the journal writings when they are turned into a mandala, but they create interesting background. Above is the flowering body for horsetail, and a stem of the green horsetail. The moist area where the horsetail grows was near the grouse nest, I found a grouse feather and added to the journal page dated 6-4-07.

color in the garden

I was bemoaning the lack of color in the garden now that spring is past and heat is taking it's toll on the flower gardens. But when I looked around this morning I found this late opening stargazer lily with so many colors and it's wonderful fragrance that I should stop compalaining! The flower is basically pink and white, the throat is a wonderful lime green and the pollen is orange. The pollen had dusted the petal that is around the edge of the mandala.

Mule-eared Daisies, grass and sage

The heat has affected the flowers in the high country as well as those down in Denver. The field of mule eared daisies near us has dried up over the last couple of weeks. Fortunately north west Colorado gets rain showers occasionally - but signs have still gone up banning all outdoor fires.

monk's hood flower

I hadn't seen a monk's hood flower for several years, found it at Sheriff's Reservoir in the Flat Tops Wilderness this past weekend. It was nice to get away to somewhere cooler than the 100 degree temperatures in Denver.

marmont on the rocks

Another creature you see in the mountains is a marmont. If you have never seen one they look big and furry, about 3 times the size of a squirrel. They like to sit on top of rocks and sun themselves. I lightened him up a bit since he was almost a silhouette. The rock patterns are fun.

close up of Pink Elephants flower

So when you tell someone that you've seen Pink Elephants - in this case you are not seeing things!

Pink Elephants

Another find at the Flat Tops was a boggy area by the road above the first reservior. Standing in water were a patch of Pink Elephants, so named because the flower looks like an elephant head with a trunk. (I'll show a close up picture tomorrow) This mandala shows the flowers growing in the moss near a rock (the beige triangle on the edge).

ripples

I was at the FLat Tops Wilderness Area This past weekend. At this small pond fed by snow melt you could see clear th the botom. Ripples in the pond make interesting patterns and colors since the colors are a reflection of the sky and surrounding plants

morning glory

It intregues me when you have to look hard to tell negative space from positive space, as with the picture above. The shape that stands out is the shadow. The purple morning glory is on the edges of the circle. I did another like this with a picture of a blue morning glory, it was juried into a show last year. They are beautiful flowers, but only open in the morning, thus the name, morning glory.

anotherversion of red white and blue

This has a feel of celebration pom poms waving in the air. The red and white flower is from an ivy geranium and the blue berries are from an oragon grape bush. I am thankful for a much cooler day today, maybe somewhere it will help with the forest fires, too. The sunset was very red last night.

artemisia

For these 11 plus days of 90 degrees or more of heat, I give you a heat tolerant plant artemisia - any of a genus (Artemisia) of aromatic composite herbs and shrubs (as sagebrush) ((courtesy of Miriam Webster)). Most of the plants with silvery or gray leaves are heat tollerant. We humans just survive the heat!

Columbine, Colorado's State Flower

Most of the time you are presented with the front side of the flower with its blue and white petals with gold stamen. However the lines created by the spurs behind made an interesting mandala.

red, almost white and blue

There are white centers in the red flowers! Have a Happy 4th of July

wod heart

Walking by a dry creek, I came across this fallen tree with an ineteresting bend at the bottom. I have seen aspen with this bend at the bottom but not many pines. It is caused by the heavy snow shifting down a slope when a tree is in the way, especially younger trees they get bent by not being able to withstand the pressure of the snow. They are stiill reaching for the light, trying to stay straight, but end up looking like the letter "J". In this case the bottom of the "J" had been stripped of bark allowing the grain to show making a heart shape in the mandala.