gARTning

My Little Plot of Heaven

After two years on the City's waiting list our name came up. A piece of the pie is now ours. The pie is a 10 x 10 plot within a community garden where the vegetables that we've planted will soon be in our salads and on our walls. 

"What? Walls did you say?" You read right. As the zucchinis, cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes, and arugula grow and ripen, I've been using them as studies for drawings and paintings. Inspired by our recent harvest and the plantings of our fellow gardeners, I've continued with my new found practice of ink on rice paper and refer to it as, gARTning.

Pinkies' Tree

Pea Leaves

Rose's Rose

Unrequited Love

Of course, the practice of writing, drawing and painting on rice paper is centuries old but for me it's only a few months and I'm finding the possibilities limitless. Once the radishes are ready to pull from the ground I'll be anxious to get them on paper too.

Rice. Not Just For Dinner Anymore.

I started playing with the application of ink and water colors on rice paper last week and it's been a lot of fun. The paper is very thin and because it absorbs so well, the water from the ink rips the paper fibers creating an additional texture. The drawings pictured here were done using a brayer for the red and with brush, pen and seagull quill and feathers for the black ink. 


I have a large blank wall to work with and am considering using the 6' long sheets of rice paper that I picked up at one of my favorite stores Pearl River Mart in NYC to ink and then put behind Plexiglas with wood moldings. Stay tuned...